Research begins to generate electricity from snow in Japan

Good luck with the research.

Ok I’m going to generate water from snow!

Snow for summer ac is kept in a tank below a building.

Arthur C Clarke proposed this type of themocouple heat transfer for power generation man moons ago.

His idea was to use solar heated salt pans on the coast of Trincomallee in Sri Lanka.

Pump it down the sub oceanic trough just off the coast and use the temperature difference to generate electricity.

Good to see some one folowing through, although I imagine there has been a lot of research between the publication of Profiles of the Future and now.

In his scenario the system was sustainable all year round.

I wonder what happens when they run out of snow in Aomori in summer?

I wonder what happens when they run out of snow in Aomori in summer?

Definitely a "seasonal" option. Solar energy has been "officially" declared as an unstable source of energy by the local utility because of fluctuations due to weather and inability to produce a stable source of electricity during those days and nighttime.

So, subsidizes and "buy-back" per kilowatt hour have gone down, and with the cost of installing solar panels being as expensive as it is, it's hard to make the choice to install them or use alternative electrical sources.

Good to see it being researched, need to determine if it is practical and economic, though there is the offset of 5.9 billion yen for disposal otherwise incurred by the taxpayer.

Every alternative needs to be looked in to, Japans political policy decisions though are not very supportive. Yes solar and wind are periodic but that is why you need a mix of options an as distributed a network of local generation as possible.

No snow, they said. Al Gore is a fraud

Much better for high capacity batteries to be developed for households with solar panels and implementation to start large scale but that would begin to obviate the need for large power companies to have control…

Millions of batteries are not exactly environmentally friendly. Probably fuel cells would be better. Not enough lithium.

Hokkaido building using snow for summer ac.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/snow-cooling-experiment-in-japan-melts-away-hvac-costs/

Much better for high capacity batteries to be developed for households with solar panels and implementation to start large scale but that would begin to obviate the need for large power companies to have control…

I installed 10KW 蓄電器(chikuden-ki) a capacitor/battery, connected to my solar panels. Only problem is cost really, it ran us close to 2 Million yen to have it installed.

My house runs on what we produce daily, by solar, with all power running through the battery, prior to powering our house, the benefits are at night, when the battery is used first, before using/purchasing power from the local utility.

The cost for all was not cheap though, over 5 million yen for solar and the battery.

Arthur C Clarke proposed this type of 0 heat transfer for power generation man moons ago.

His idea was to use solar heated salt pans on the coast of Trincomallee in Sri Lanka.

I recall reading something similar to this not sure it was with Arthur C Clarke though ... I think the cost of pumping worked out to be more expensive than the electricity generated.

At least with snow and heat from hot springs it may prove to be more viable but i wouldn't hold my breath storage of the snow etc may prove to be costly.

The cost for all was not cheap though, over 5 million yen for solar and the battery.

Impressive but my electric bill is less than ¥10,000/month. 500 months of bills. 42 years. Solar panels last 25 years.

"Arthur C Clarke" and "Ben Bova" were true Scientists, who wrote idea's into Science Fiction Novels to both Entertain and Educate. I am sure that there are many more Authors out there of similar accolade, though these two stand out in my mind as being focused upon actual possibilities within the Known/Theoretical Science boundaries.

Science Fiction, shouldn't be dismissed - it's encompasses everything from Historical Fact through to Romance, Fantasy and Horror. In my view- it is a Genre worthy to have within anyone's book collection.

Amongst my own personal favorite authors:

Ben Bova, Robert A. Heinlein, E.E. "Doc" Smith and... E.C. Tubb

Does this mean that my New England and the Eastern Canadian Provinces referred to as TundaVille by those Californians' can now establish their own moral equivalent of OPEC. Leave it to the Japanese to find a possible sustainable solution. Cut off the energy black mail not only from the sources bit those who immortally take high distribution profits at the expense of hard-working populations worldwide. "GO JAPAN YOU CAN DO IT !"

I haven’t seen the details yet, but surely have doubts. The vaporization process needs or costs quite a part of the energy, doesn’t it? If it’s all that easy, why don’t they just use the heat energy from the hot spring directly? Anyway, first let’s see with which super new Perpetuum mobile those mini-Einsteins come out with.