Re:Application to notebooks
by
danamania
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
My immediate thoughts when it came to notebooks, was cooling. Liquid cooling is fine for a big box when it needs half-inch-thick hoses and massive blocks. If small channels around a cpu/heatsink... or even further such as the chassis of the notebook were available to pump fluids, even in small amounts if it were pushed fast enough, a decent cooling effect could occur
Obviously there's some level of heat generated by these turbines, but they may not have to be located anywhere near existing heat sources
One of the most enthusiastic supporters of microengines is the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Washington, DC.
I would think the short question to ask would be - "What doesn't DARPA fund?" They really should be FARPA - Fund Any Research Project Agency.
I'm not complaining - just observing
-- It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
It ain't going to happen soon.
by
enkidu
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I usually expect better reporting from the Economist. This is the kind of breathless "This is great! Here's what all the believers have to say!", I expect from "People" or "Popular Mechanics". Here are some of the problems I see with this wonder battery/generator.
Operating life. Now, I'm no scientist, but I do know that silicon and high temperatures don't get along too well. But, you could side step that by using similar manufacturing technologies with other materials. Not that I can think of any candidates...
A turbine does not a generator make. Show me the electricity! Silicon ain't magnetic people. OK, magnetless generators exist, how about "coils" then? Show me the coils! Until I see a working, efficient, microsized generator, I don't see any of this happening.
Call me a crotchety old man, but I just don't buy the efficiency numbers I'm seeing. As things get smaller and smaller, your perceived viscosity goes up and up. Same design + smaller size = less fluidic efficiency. Same goes for the friction + mass problem. Combustion efficiency will probably go up since it's easier to model with the small size.
This leads me to my problems with the nano-technologists we have nowadays. Where's the power? Anybody have a 1 cubic milimeter battery that'll last 1 hour yet? Show me a self powered nanobot. Hell, show me a nano-power source that works! Remember, volume decreases by the cube as you scale down. Sure a quintillion nano-bots could make me breakfast out of yesterday's trash, but what's going to power them? You can't get out more than you put in, you know. Reminds me of the great Larry Niven's quote: "Another beautiful theory, murdered by a gang of ugly facts."
I don't see this stuff (nano-technology, micro-turbines) panning out any time soon (Now, bio+nano or plain bio, I can see scaling down. Also, mini-turbines (1-10 cubic centimeters) I can see happening also.
EnkiduEOT
--
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Re:It ain't going to happen soon.
by
MarkusQ
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I'm no scientist, but I do know that silicon and high temperatures don't get along too well.
The problem is with mostly doped silicon; at high temperatures the dopants tend to migrate, which is bad for very small, very fast electronics. It isn't a mechanical problem.
This leads me to my problems with the nano-technologists we have nowadays. Where's the power? Anybody have a 1 cubic milimeter battery that'll last 1 hour yet? Show me a self powered nanobot. Hell, show me a nano-power source that works!
Sure, if you show me a car that drills its own oil and refines its own fuel from it. Where'd you get the "self powered" requirement? All they need to do for most applications is receive power (e.g. from high frequency sound waves) and convert it to mechanical energy. For the sound waves--which look like pressure waves at that scale--all you need is a piston.
Remember, volume decreases by the cube as you scale down.
False logic. The power requierments also scale down, sometimes by as much as the fifth power IIRC.
Sure a quintillion nano-bots could make me breakfast out of yesterday's trash, but what's going to power them?
How about yesterday's trash? 1) it's there, and 2) there's plenty of it, so 3) you aren't going to use all of it, and 4) part of what you don't use would burn, so 5) controlled, small scale oxydation (e.g., what microbes, fungi, etc. would do if they were converting the trash) should give you all the energy you need.
Heck, if you're building a diamondoid structure of some sort instead of just cooking breakfast for a skeptic, you'e have way more reduced hydrogen than you need, so just use that and dump the resulting water.
-- MarkusQ
Batteries stink
by
olman
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
What strikes me as funny about all this is that it would be more efficient to run a tiny engine instead of using a battery. Engines have to deal with friction, which leads to waste heat. Batteries do generate a little heat, but that's it. In other words, it's not that the micro-engines are so great, it's that the batteries are so bad. Lithium-ion batteries are more user-friendly and a little bit more efficient than nickel-cadmium-batteries, but not by that much. Zinc-oxygen batteries are a real innovation, if only due to the fact that air's free. I'm not complaining, my hearing aid runs more than twice as long as with conventional batteries, but the Zinc-air battery prices are highway robbery.
Until we learn to store electricity in a reasonable manner, wacky ideas like microengines will probably stay around. I didn't see much mention in the article about how to deal with the heat and friction of higher-rpm-than-conventional-gas-turbine, so we can safely assume this stuff is not going to appear next year in circuit city.
Slashdot Mirror
My immediate thoughts when it came to notebooks, was cooling. Liquid cooling is fine for a big box when it needs half-inch-thick hoses and massive blocks. If small channels around a cpu/heatsink... or even further such as the chassis of the notebook were available to pump fluids, even in small amounts if it were pushed fast enough, a decent cooling effect could occur
Obviously there's some level of heat generated by these turbines, but they may not have to be located anywhere near existing heat sources
a grrl & her server
I would think the short question to ask would be - "What doesn't DARPA fund?" They really should be FARPA - Fund Any Research Project Agency.
I'm not complaining - just observing
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
- Operating life. Now, I'm no scientist, but I do know that silicon and high temperatures don't get along too well. But, you could side step that by using similar manufacturing technologies with other materials. Not that I can think of any candidates...
- A turbine does not a generator make. Show me the electricity! Silicon ain't magnetic people. OK, magnetless generators exist, how about "coils" then? Show me the coils! Until I see a working, efficient, microsized generator, I don't see any of this happening.
- Call me a crotchety old man, but I just don't buy the efficiency numbers I'm seeing. As things get smaller and smaller, your perceived viscosity goes up and up. Same design + smaller size = less fluidic efficiency. Same goes for the friction + mass problem. Combustion efficiency will probably go up since it's easier to model with the small size.
This leads me to my problems with the nano-technologists we have nowadays. Where's the power? Anybody have a 1 cubic milimeter battery that'll last 1 hour yet? Show me a self powered nanobot. Hell, show me a nano-power source that works! Remember, volume decreases by the cube as you scale down. Sure a quintillion nano-bots could make me breakfast out of yesterday's trash, but what's going to power them? You can't get out more than you put in, you know. Reminds me of the great Larry Niven's quote: "Another beautiful theory, murdered by a gang of ugly facts."I don't see this stuff (nano-technology, micro-turbines) panning out any time soon (Now, bio+nano or plain bio, I can see scaling down. Also, mini-turbines (1-10 cubic centimeters) I can see happening also.
EnkiduEOT
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
What strikes me as funny about all this is that it would be more efficient to run a tiny engine instead of using a battery. Engines have to deal with friction, which leads to waste heat. Batteries do generate a little heat, but that's it. In other words, it's not that the micro-engines are so great, it's that the batteries are so bad. Lithium-ion batteries are more user-friendly and a little bit more efficient than nickel-cadmium-batteries, but not by that much. Zinc-oxygen batteries are a real innovation, if only due to the fact that air's free. I'm not complaining, my hearing aid runs more than twice as long as with conventional batteries, but the Zinc-air battery prices are highway robbery.
Until we learn to store electricity in a reasonable manner, wacky ideas like microengines will probably stay around. I didn't see much mention in the article about how to deal with the heat and friction of higher-rpm-than-conventional-gas-turbine, so we can safely assume this stuff is not going to appear next year in circuit city.