[canvia]

I had an idea the other day of using electrolysis at the bottom of an extremely deep water filled shaft to generate gas bubbles that could be harnessed to turn turbines as they rose to the surface.

Whether that could ever be more efficient than other power generation methods I have no idea. I guess the initial construction and ongoing maintenance requirements might make it not cost efficient. It was a fun idea to think about though!

[tinco]

It's an interesting idea. It seems a little crazy to go through the extremely energy intensive process of electrolysis just to create a gas, but you could recapture the gas and use it for something.

There's got to be a catch though. I think it's going to be that gas is too light to effectively move a turbine so the amount generated will be really small (i.e. smaller than the electrolysis costs)

[stephengillie]

Yeah, we've got to expect the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics to come in and ruin the party.

You could power the electrolysis from solar, but then you've got transmission loss on the wires. You're right the gases are too lightweight to push more than the lightest fan turbine.

Even having the gases get separated, turn a turbine while floating up, get recombined into water, then be pulled down past another turbine by gravity, we might not get the full 1.5v back.