{"id":19196,"date":"2026-03-19T15:50:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T19:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/?p=19196"},"modified":"2026-03-19T15:50:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T19:50:39","slug":"the-ocean-may-meet-our-energy-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/the-ocean-may-meet-our-energy-needs\/19196\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists long suspected the ocean hides a giant natural battery \u2014 Now a floating cylinder harvests energy from wave and temperature differences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The ocean may hold the answer to our energy needs.<\/p>\n<p>For generations, we have viewed our oceans with a sense of mystery. What exactly is down there, and how could we <strong>use the <em>motion in the ocean<\/em> to power<\/strong> our lives?<\/p>\n<p>A new proposed method to harness the energy in our seas has come to light, and it might be the answer to the global energy issues we now face.<\/p>\n<h2>How the ocean is revealing its longest-kept secrets to society<\/h2>\n<p>We have explored more of space than our oceans.<\/p>\n<p>Roughly <strong>74% of the seabed remains unmapped<\/strong>, but through our accelerated technological revolution, we are developing a much clearer picture of our oceans. We have better maps of Mars than we do of our own oceans.<\/p>\n<p>The global high-resolution has made mapping the ocean floor a far simpler endeavor.<\/p>\n<p>Through our technological progression, roughly 83,000 previously unknown coral species have been detected off the East Coast of the nation. Through seismic imaging, researchers have discovered an ancient <strong>seafloor that sank deep into the Earth&#8217;s mantle<\/strong> around 250 million years ago.<\/p>\n<h2>A global energy crisis may be on the cards due to Operation Epic Fury<\/h2>\n<p>The war in Iran has devastated the global oil sector.<\/p>\n<p>In some states, a 20% increase at the pumps has been a regular occurrence. First, we had the Ukraine war that led most of the world to impose new sanctions on Russian oil. Despite that,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/clandestine-oil-highway-discovered\/18351\/\"> a clandestine &#8220;oil highway&#8221; was detected<\/a> that was selling <strong>sanctioned oil in a shady and dark market.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The reality is that while oil still dominates the global energy market, a slow but notable shift towards renewable energy generation has emerged.<\/p>\n<p>For the vast majority of the world, Operation Epic Fury has raised alarm bells as <strong>nations scramble to secure a sufficient oil supply<\/strong>. Some countries, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/oil-shortage-not-a-problem-in-japan\/19009\/\">Japan, have already deployed their strategic oil reserves<\/a> to fill the gap left by the war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>While all these geopolitical issues are ironed out, a recent study has proposed an innovative solution to the energy crisis.<\/p>\n<p>The study, &#8220;Thermomagnetic generators for ultra-low-grade marine thermal energy harvesting,&#8221; published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s44172-025-00542-y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Nature<\/em><\/a>, has <strong>proposed a new method to harness the energy<\/strong> stored away and generated in our oceans.<\/p>\n<h2>A floating cylinder to power our progression as a society has been proposed<\/h2>\n<p>A new floating boat-like device has been proposed that will act like a thermomagnetic generator.<\/p>\n<p>The system uses the <strong>fluctuation and differences in water temperature<\/strong> to harness energy from the ocean. It does this through partially immersing the bottom half of the &#8220;floating cylinder&#8221; in warm ocean water, while the top half sits above it in cooler temperatures.<\/p>\n<p>Through the magnetic differences in the water temperature, the rotor spins to power an axial flux generator.<\/p>\n<p>This component converts mechanical motion into energy. The permanent magnets attract cooler water <strong>that forces the rotor to spin<\/strong> as it contends with the temperature differences, pulling it in either direction.<\/p>\n<p>New <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/885-foot-giant-wind-turbine-developed\/18779\/\">energy-generating innovations that emerge from the sea<\/a> have become the latest must-have for anyone environmentally minded.<\/p>\n<h3>Key features of this proposed new energy production system<\/h3>\n<p>The system makes use of the significantly <strong>strong winds that blow through our oceans<\/strong> to increase the speed and thereby increase the performance of the rotors.<\/p>\n<p>The prototype also uses &#8220;floating noodles&#8221; and a foam structure to remain stable in the worst conditions out in the sea. Through our scientific research, we now know that our oceans and even some<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/rare-plant-species-to-power-the-world\/18946\/\"> plant species may hold the answers to our energy needs.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>While the innovation is <strong>still only a proposed energy production method<\/strong>, we would expect it to move past the initial design phase into a real-world energy solution in the not-too-distant future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ocean may hold the answer to our energy needs. For generations, we have viewed our oceans with a sense of mystery. What exactly is down there, and how could we use the motion in the ocean to power our lives? A new proposed method to harness the energy in our seas has come to &#8230; <a title=\"Scientists long suspected the ocean hides a giant natural battery \u2014 Now a floating cylinder harvests energy from wave and temperature differences\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/the-ocean-may-meet-our-energy-needs\/19196\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Scientists long suspected the ocean hides a giant natural battery \u2014 Now a floating cylinder harvests energy from wave and temperature differences\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":19197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"ocean,energy,floating cylinder","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"A proposed \"floating cylinder\" may harness the power of our oceans to generate huge amounts of natural energy to power the world over the coming years.","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}