Tomas Martin @ 06-08-2008
Whilst some of first generation biofuels like corn and soy based ethanol are proving to be more trouble than their worth, scientists are working hard on second and third generation alternatives that should add to our energy mix without damaging our food supply. One new development is microbial fuel cells (MFCs) - bacteria that breaks down garbage and conducts electricity. Scientists think by digesting our waste these cells could replace up to 25% of the fuels we currently use.
In a microbial fuel cell, the bacteria acts on the anode of the circuit, breaking down waste with oxidation. As a byproduct they produce electrons. Normally a bacteria would transfer these electrons to a nearby oxygen molecule but if the fuel cell has no oxygen in it, the microbe must move these electrons elsewhere and an MFC uses this to drive an electrical current.
Researchers are beginning to make headway in creating self-contained microbial fuel cells. Biofilms are bacteria that create matrices of material to attach themselves to the anode. This mix of sugars, proteins and cells is thought to contain tiny conducting nanowires that help move the electrons into the electrical circuit, making the whole clump of bacteria act like a big living anode. If this works, people aren’t going to be leaving their litter on the streets any longer. It’ll be too valuable!
[via Daily Galaxy, picture by Alan Stanton]
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Tomas Martin @ 24-03-2008
As well as a popular indie band, British Sea Power is rapidly becoming more accepted as a valid alternative to nuclear and fossil fuel energy. Whereas the nuclear proponents in the UK civil service have previously neglected the sector (as London Mayor Ken Livingstone explains to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke in this week’s Observer Magazine), a number of companies in the UK have made great advances in harnessing the power of the oceans despite the lack of enthusiasm at government level.
The water around the British Isles makes it a key resource and as the Independent explains, could account for huge percentages of the electricity demand of the country. With a feasibility study into the Severn Barrage underway and products like SeaGen and Pelamis coming into use, it seems like the tide might be turning in more ways than one. Nuclear energy will undoubtedly be a factor in the UK’s future energy use but with such a huge resource sloshing around our coastlines it would to take advantage of this clean and renewable power source.
[picture by SeaGen]
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Tomas Martin @ 04-03-2008
The ever compelling Alex Steffen over at WorldChanging is talking about Infrastructure a lot lately. A lot of the US and much of the world is built on an infrastructure of highways, electric grids and waterways, which are struggling to keep up with population growth and increased costs, especially of fuels. Whilst new technologies like superfast trains and solar panels are good, they need investment in the infrastructure for it to work - as seen by Britain having to spend millions to replace track for the Eurostar because Margaret Thatcher chose the cheaper infrastructure in the eigthies, whilst the rest of Europe put in place track suitable for what became the TGV.
There’s a lot of interesting ideas out there, from Alexander Trevi’s use of carbon-harvesting nanocrystals and radiation reprocessing to produce a green ‘New Chernobyl’, to architects IwamotoScott’s ‘Network Hydrology’ reimagining of a water and hydrogen-producing algae based 2100 San Francisco. There’s plans to artificially create a new river delta to protect the Louisiana coastline and Amsterdam might drain its canals to create a new underground subcity. Or what about BLDGBLOG’s idea to create housing projects in the same way people make zoos? By combining good design in new infrastructure with the inventions already out there we can start looking at a future way of living rather than just trying to extend the one we have beyond its lifetime. And is it coincidence that most of best ideas also look ridiculously cool?
[picture by IwamotoScott]
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Paul Raven @ 27-02-2008
It’s easy to forget how reliant we are on our technologies … until we are unexpectedly deprived of the means to use them, that is.
Deprived by … oooh, let’s say, an electricity grid fault that leads to an automatic shutdown at a nuclear power station and leaves a big chunk of Florida completely blacked out for an evening? [image by dogfrog]
[As a side note, I never knew that nuclear reactors could just be switched off. Disconnected from the grid, sure, but switched off?]
And that’s just one little hardware failure, hence quickly fixed. But imagine for a moment another highly electricity-dependent country, like the UK for example, being hit by some sort of environmental disaster to which it isn’t accustomed, which causes a large number of grid hardware problems which are hard to trace and fix in the absence of the electricity they provide …
… I think we have a potential cookie-cutter techno-thriller movie plot, folks! Now, who shall we cast as the plucky Prime Minister?
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Tomas Martin @ 13-02-2008
Tomas Martin @ 20-12-2007
Lithium-ion batteries, such as those used in your laptop, mobile phone or hybrid car, are extremely important in today’s world but are limited by the amount of lithium ions that the typically carbon anode can hold. Stanford announced this week they’ve developed a new method that can increase the amount of charge held by as much as 10 times.
 The new battery uses what is perhaps the technology of the next ten years - nanowires. At large scale, the swelling of the lithium ions when they absorb positive charge breaks the structure of the silicon holding them. The researches instead used a mesh of microscopic silicon nanowires that bend and swell under the pressure but do not break. The researcher, Yi Cui, said:
Manufacturing the nanowire batteries would require “one or two different steps, but the process can certainly be scaled up,” he added. “It’s a well understood process.”
 I’ll look forward to my laptop with 25 hour battery life in a few years, then.
[via Daily Kos, image from the Stanford article, apologies for my absence this week - I've been wrestling with my wireless connection on Ubuntu Gutsy]
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Tomas Martin @ 06-12-2007
The quote physicists often say when asked about nuclear fusion is that ‘commercial fusion is 40 years away, but we’ve been saying that for 40 years’. Two main types of fusion are in development - ‘tokamaks’ like JET and ITER that use magnets to fuse hydrogen in a torus of plasma and those that shoot high powered lasers at pellets of hydrogen a few times a second, making bursts of energy.
Neither process is currently producing more energy than is put in to start the reaction but there have been some developments in laser technology that may help the latter approach. The EU has recently decided to fund a new high energy laser research project to build a working reactor. Laser fusion may ‘ignite’ and provide energy before the magnetic fusion research reaches the same point but the pulses of laser energy need to come much faster and more efficiently for this to be economically viable. Without considerable funding, the technological challenges of getting hydrogen to fuse will be insurmountable. However, fusion offers a real hope in the long term (30 years+) of providing clean energy.
[via the guardian, image of UCLA tokamak by r_neches]
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Tomas Martin @ 03-12-2007
Now this is very positive. Last week there was talk of a giant ’supergrid’ connecting much of Europe to wind turbines across the continent, to take advantage of whenever the wind was blowing.
Now the Guardian reports on Desertec, the plans to put hundreds of solar concentrating plants on the North African coasts and in the Middle East. Two thirds of the estimated 100 Billion Watts would stay in the countries producing the energy, with another 30 Billion Watts (around of all of Europe’s use) being pumped via underwater cables to the EU, which would provide a chunk of the funding for the project. With the Bali talks now underway to find a new version of the Kyoto treaty, projects like this could be a major facet of reducing carbon emissions. German energy expert Gregor Czeich reckons with new higher efficiency power lines a 100% renewable powered Europe could be possible in the near future without costing much more than the current fossil fuel system.
[via the guardian, picture by TREC]
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Tomas Martin @ 23-11-2007
Microgeneration is the often mentioned as a great way to reduce energy use and dependence on fossil fuels. But looking at the prices of enough solar panels to provide 2-3kW of power is a little bit scary. A loan is possible - but the amount you’d pay back in interest would be frontloaded, whereas the savings in electricity would be paid back in a longer period, say 15-20 years. Wouldn’t it be good if you could offset the cost of the PV panels against future savings on your electricity?
The community of Berkeley is already beginning to offer such a scheme. They offer loans for Solar Electricity with repayments guaranteed to be less than the cost of electricity saved by the panels. Not only does this scheme make Berkeley more attractive to live in, it also encourages manufacturers, installers and testers of the technology to setup in the area. Hopefully this trend will continue in more governments and with more types of microgeneration.
[via Daily Kos, image by roddh]
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Paul Raven @ 08-08-2007
If you have a friend or co-worker with a paranoid streak (or who simply consumes too much tabloid media), they may have informed you that electrical fields can cause cancers to form in your brain. Well, now you can tell them that the opposite is the case - an Israeli company has developed a device for killing brain tumors using weak electrical fields. Of course, your friend will just tell you how that’s what the Illuminati want you to think, but that’s half the fun. [BeyondTheBeyond]
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Jeremy Lyon @ 10-07-2007
Ford Motor Company and the power company Southern California Edison are teaming up to develop plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. What’s the big deal about plug-in hybrids? It turns out that demand for power drops at night, when plug-in vehicles are most likely to be charging. Most electric grids already have enough excess capacity at night to handle a fleet of plug-ins, which means that shifting to plug-in hybrids can cause an immediate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, especially as utility companies shift to renewable energy sources. This is one of Lester Brown’s favorite ways of saving the world, as described in Plan B 2.0. (One of the most optimistic assessments of humanity’s potential I’ve read.) [engadget]
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