Tag Archives: energy

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Thermoelectrics – conduct electricity well but heat badly

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Today thermoelectrics let you keep your car seat at the right temperature. In the future they might make everything more efficient.Usually, heat and electric conductivity go hand in hand. Now, thanks to the emerging nanostructure technology movement, scientists think they can separate these two.

“Thermoelectric devices are based on the fact that when certain materials are heated, they generate a significant electrical voltage. Conversely, when a voltage is applied to them, they become hotter on one side, and colder on the other. The process works with a variety of materials, and especially well with semiconductors — the materials from which computer chips are made.”

Previously thermoelectric devices were far too inefficient to be of use. But by adding nanoscale structures a few billionths of a metre across, the heat conductivity of a material can be disrupted whilst the electricity passes through fine, ramping the efficiency up massively. Imagine a computer chip that doesn’t get heated as it works, or a solar cell that uses heat as well as light to generate electricity. Thermo electrics are already starting to get efficient enough to cool your car seat – how soon before they start to be used in the growing low energy pc market?

[via ScienceDaily, image from Amazon.com ]

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Green data centre uses 93% less energy than a normal collection of servers

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Compellent combines efficiency with low energy use

Wow. Colour me impressed. Compellent Technologies produce network servers and data storage hubs. With the rise of the internet, the amount of power generated by servers and data has grown exponentially, with most internet servers needing vast quantities of power and cooling of the heat produced. Compellent have made a product that only uses power when the data is being accessed, using a load of technologies like Automated Tiered Storage, Thin Provisioning and Advanced Virtualization. This can cut the power usage of the company buying the data centres by up to a massive 93%. If every server used technology like this, a large chunk of every developed country’s electricity usage would disappear.

[via Treehugger, image via Compellent’s website]

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Efficient hydrogen producing – new method found

Bacteria and added electricity produce large amounts of hydrogenResearchers at Penn State University have produced hydrogen gas at efficiencies not found before. Tweaking an existing method that previously produced poor rates and yields, the scientists found they could produce nearly 300% the energy used to kickstart the reaction.

Electron-generating microbes produce an electric current that is run through a fuel cell containing biological matter. By adding an additional jolt of electricity at the cathode, the bacteria breaks down the organic matter into hydrogen, without releasing much in the way of greenhouse gases. Whilst this is an early result needing mass study and production, it’s a very promising discovery towards clean fuel.

[via Daily Kos, picture via Wired]

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Growing clean energy down at the Crowd Farm

Subway stairwellHere’s a different sort of crowdsourcing. The “Crowd Farm” is the brainchild of two MIT architecture students, and it’s a system designed to harness the physical movements of large masses of people and turn it into usable electricity – imagine contributing to the metro station’s lighting by climbing the stairs, for example. It’s a great idea – and like a lot of great ideas, a couple of people have thought of it already. Let’s hope any arguments over patents don’t get in the way of something that can reduce our collective carbon footprints, eh? [Image by yeuxrouge]