Microgenerators Coming Soon to Electronics Near You

fygment writes "A new microgenerator developed at Georgia Tech can now produce enough power to run a small electronic device, like a cell phone, and may soon be able to power a laptop. The microgenerator is about 10 millimeters wide, or about the size of a dime. When coupled with a similarly sized gas-fueled microturbine (or jet) engine, the system, called a microengine, has the potential to deliver more energy and last 10 times longer than a conventional battery. This is still just a quarter of the problem. A turbine is still being developed to turn the generator and that will require fuel and storage of some kind."

Comments

Re:No thanks.

[dnnrly]

More than likely these microgenerators will be powered by methanol. It's easy to produce, well understood, and easy to handle. All this makes it CHEAP! Since methanol will come from specially grown crops, so in some respects it can be regarded as CARBON NEUTRAL. In other words, it won't contribute any more CO2 to the atmosphere than was taken out to produce it.

Factoring in the other energy used to produce the crop (such as powering tractors, transporting it etc) can be quite complicated and will no doubt slightly offset the advantages but overall I seem to recall that it isn't a bad trade off.

self-winding?

[Doc Ruby]

Since these generators are so much more efficient than batteries, and so small, why not hook them to an electrolyzer, storing the energy as hydrogen, in pancake-sized cells with gyros to spin them? Human motion can be captured for all our devices. Not only will we power devices without foreign oil, but Americans will have a reason to get off our asses and exercise - desperately needed by the most battery-hungry demographics.