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As the world races to move away from fossil fuels, new research has uncovered an extraordinary and nearly untapped energy source hiding in plain sight— ocean currents. According to a landmark study by researchers at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), ocean currents can generate 2.5 times more power than wind farms. Even more stunning is their near-constant energy flow, making them one of the most reliable clean energy sources on Earth.

This isn’t a distant dream or a futuristic concept—it’s science-backed, data-verified, and happening now.

Ocean currents are massive, steady flows of water driven by a mix of wind, the Earth’s rotation, temperature gradients, and salinity differences. Unlike wind or solar energy, which vary with weather and daylight, ocean currents flow predictably and consistently year-round.

India’s space program is gaining momentum with astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla’s upcoming trip to the ISS as part of the Axiom-4 mission, marking the second Indian in space. Following this, the joint Indo-US NISAR satellite, a significant Earth observation project, is scheduled for launch in June. These missions highlight India’s growing capabilities and international collaborations in space exploration.

“In solid matter, heat is transferred both by mobile charge carriers and by vibrations of the atoms in the crystal lattice,” Garmroudi says, emphasizing that researchers have devised advanced techniques to engineer thermoelectric materials with exceptionally low thermal conductivity over the past few decades.

“In thermoelectric materials, we mainly try to suppress heat transport through the lattice vibrations, as they do not contribute to energy conversion,” he adds.

Garmroudi recalls developing the novel hybrid materials during his research stay in Tsukuba, Japan, supported by the Lions Award and carried out at the National Institute for Materials Science as part of his work at TU Wien (Vienna University of Technology).

After confirming the potential historic observation, the results were evaluated for several possible errors. The work was also analyzed independently. Each time, the team came back to the conclusion that they may have found the first potential signs of life outside our solar system.

“It was an incredible realisation seeing the results emerge and remain consistent throughout the extensive independent analyses and robustness tests,” said co-author Måns Holmberg, a researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

Notably, the concentrations of either DMS or DMDS spotted by JWST were thousands of times higher than concentrations found on Earth. According to the Cambridge astronomers, detecting high levels of either of these chemicals on Hycean (ocean) worlds due to large amounts of biological activity was previously predicted.