AN ENTIRELY new way to generate electricity has been discovered. It’s simple: squeeze water through fine pipelines and a current flows. If the electricity output can be increased, says Larry Kostiuk of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, high-pressure water could eventually be used to power small devices such as mobile phones and calculators.
Physicists already knew about an electrical effect that makes it hard to force water through tiny channels. Depending on what the channel walls are made of, their surface is thought to become charged when the negative ions in the water stick to them. This slows down…
