Rivers flowing into the sea

Rivers flowing into the sea offer vast potential as electricity source. A new genre of electric power-generating stations could supply electricity for more than a half billion people by tapping just one-tenth of the global potential of a little-known energy source that exists where rivers flow into the ocean, a new analysis has concluded. A report on the process — which requires no fuel, is sustainable and releases no carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) — appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.