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Microbes Pass Valuable Gas
inimicus writes "Wired reports: 'With a reliable source of hydrogen, fuel cells can produce energy with water as the only byproduct.' The good news is that there's a functional prototype (measuring 0.7 square centimeters and less than 1 millimeter thick) that produces 1 microwatt of power -- approximately enough to power a digital wristwatch. Personally, I'm intrigued by the concept of powering my laptop with sugar-water..."
Obviously this is still a long way from running my laptop. But, does anyone who might be involved in this stuff know what the projections are for how long a typical "charge" will last before you have to "recharge." The metaphor being how long you can go before you must resupply nutrients and/or enzymes and/or biologicals.
This is a boring sig
There are simply too many possible jokes to be made for this, but it would be nice to pour sugar into your gas tank and drive till the next utility store.
Couple this with cold fusion and you have germs passing gas and powering entire cities.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Of course, when the battery dies, it really dies.
Why not -- I'm sure that when in coding-mode, most of us are already powered by sugar-water (insert favorite carbonated high-fructose corn syrup based beverage).
-Turkey
So that's the advanced technology that the Bugs had in MeninBlack! (Remember: "Give me sugar. In water.")
So if you wanted to overclock could you just dump in one of those giant Pixie Stix?
No, it wasn't me! It was the microbes!
<waves hands behind fanny>
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
"a 53-cubic-foot reaction chamber would provide enough hydrogen to run a 200-kilowatt fuel cell and supply energy for about 20 houses"
1. I do not believe that they can produce that much hydrogen from this much volume - maybe she is talking about the peak output her 15 liter tank, multiplied by the factor to get to 200kW "to power 20 houses".
2. 10kW per house is actualy very little - this is another example of "data massage". Average hair dryer takes about 2kW, so does ironing your shirt or vacuum your room. I am not talkig about things like electric laundry dryer or A/C. I *lived* in place which had 20Amp circuit brakers (which gives 20kW at 120V), and the circuit brakers were out all the time. We had an electric heater, but neither A/C nor laundry in the apartment.
3.Running fermentor is not the easiest thing to do - you have to keep the microbes happy - the output can vary, there can be problems with contamination (some mold gets in which wipes out the bacterias over time) etc. And they smell bad.
4. Using a fermentation tank to power laptop is pure unmitigated balooney - here the power source can be more expensive than with household source. With laptop, the premium is on weight+size. Much more compact and fairly affordable source of hydrogen for laptops can be sodium borohydride: this is a common industrial chemical, water-stable and 40g of the stuff + 40g of water produces 8g of hydrogen, which is one of the best weight ratios with nonelectrolytic sources of H2.
5. Enviro-technologies development: most of the time it's a confederacy of shabby science, political pressure and populism. The surest way to protect enviroment is to find a different job for pop-science enviromentalist - preferably in gender studies or postmodernist deconstruction university departments.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
There was a piece done one MSNBC just last week about Ford (or maybe Chrystler) developing a hydrogen fuel cell car. And they already have a working prototype.
:)
They have a new car making scheme with it. The fuel cell is very small and is located in the bottom chassis of the car. You can have one or two types of 'bottoms' of fuel cell and just put a different 'top' chassis on them.
With two fuel cell designs you can make SUVs, compacts, etc. just by changing chassis.
Production expected in 5-8 years I believe.
"Engineers do the work of man, Physicists do the work of God"
I often hear people touting hydrogen because the only by-product is water, which sounds wonderful... However, I suspect that's only because we can drink the stuff.
But isn't water vapour the most potent greenhouse agent in our atmosphere?
Not sure, just asking.
One must also ask how much water vapour is currently in the atmosphere, and how much would be added by large numbers of hydrogen-driven power plants. Again, I don't know. Anyone know of any research on this question?
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
No way, man. Let those fuel cells run on vodka . But keep yer mits off my Jolt! I do not want to have to choose between feeding my laptop and feeding my aqueous caffeinated sucrouse habit. It won't be pretty! So just back away from the Jolt, ok?
i think the key is to redesign the microbes so that they use as little energy for their own functions as possible.. craig venter is trying to do something like this, by sequencing a ton of micro-organisms from seawater, and then building one with desired capabilities from the ground up
So we will be running the place on microbe farts. If only they could put some of these in our guts and we could power our own cars.
I guess it really would be the gas pedal.
But seriously this is great research. I dream of a day when this technology is viable. Especially if it powers my '64 Impala with the same power.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George