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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."
Yes, what a great idea, let's INCREASE our dependency on fossil fuels for powering our portable electronics.
And the hot exhaust from the turbine would feel absolutely lovely against one's leg while being carried in a pocket.
Somehow I don't see this miniature jet engine concept really "taking off" (hur hur).
Welcome to the age of steam powered laptops!
The Cache of the magazine
The cache of the gatech site
Nothing to see here
Surely, if it's a generator running off a turbine running off another fuel, surely it's just a whole big waste of energy in a small space? My science skills are not what they used to be but I don't see why this is great?
Enlighten me please!
You know, the one where the guy is chasing his MP3 player down the street. I didn't realize that they were turbine Energizer batteries. Duh!
EricSee your HTTP headers here
I can see MP3 players of the future becoming like cars in the movies. Drop it, and watch the spectacular explosion as all the fuel goes up.
The next thing will be a private nuclear reactor.
....and is a "quarter" of the problem. Hahahaha. That's some funny shit.
A while back, there was an article about how implants could be powered using body heat by using the thermoelectric effect (heat causes electrons to move, which creates current). Wouldn't it be possible to do the same thing with the heat coming off a computer system, especially the CPU and GPU?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
A turbine is still being developed to turn the generator and that will require fuel and storage of some kind.
Think outside the box. You've got a 10mm generator, but no way to turn it...
Hamsters! They're cheap and portable. They're a renewable resource. They generate very little excess heat. Their fuel source is available almost anywhere, is non-toxic, and doesn't explode.
Just picture it, the whole world over, millions of laptops, and on top of each screen a hamster in a cage. This is the face of technological improvement.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Didn't we just see an article about exploding phone batteries? Is this competing to make smaller things explode in an even more impressive way?
Sample this!
Jet Engine on a Chip
Given the nasty realities of thermal efficiencies, I doubt this thing can be more that 33% efficient. That means that the device will run 3 times warmer than current battery-operated versions. Given the behavior of most modern-day laptops, that will be far too hot.
Of course, the invention will work very well with better designed hardware and software. Anyone who thinks they need more than 500 MHz processor for most applications (and more than 50 MHz for basic office applications) is either playing games or using bloatware.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Fuel cells, increasingly efficient solar, modular, small scale (pebble bed) nuclear reactors - I'm seeing the beginning of the end of the conventional power grid.
One of the advantages of decentralization is you no longer have big juicy targets for terrorists - who'd attack a neighborhood-size solar station or fuel cell stack? And if they did, the damage would be limited in scope.
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
Shows how much you know about modern power. Almost all of our electrical power sans wind generated, dammed or solar, are "steam" powered as you say.
A nuclear plant is nothing but a fancy way of boiling water to turn, you guessed it, steam turbines to generate electricity. Same with gas and oil-fired power plants.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Here are links to more articles:
Space Daily
GaTech
A Student's description
Consumers, industry, and the military are all demanding smaller power supplies for smaller and more pervasive electronic devices. Researchers at the National University of Singapore and California State Polytechnic University (Pomona) recently developed a microgenerator to meet these needs. As long as hydrogen and air are fed into it, the 1-cm3 device generates 4.5 W.
Previous proposals for microgenerators attempted to scale down existing generator designs, but their moving parts made them difficult to manufacture. The team's proposal dispenses with moving parts entirely. The new design radiates heat obtained from hydrogen combustion. A selective emitter focuses the radiation into a small range of wavelengths, and a photovoltaic converter subsequently turns the radiation into electricity.
Just imagine:
There you are, staring at me again.
While genetically engineered microscopic hamsters may be some years away, research into tiny internal combustion engines that could drive such a generator is definitely being done. The work of the Berkeley Combustion Processes Lab was in the news a couple of years ago when they showed some prototypes. The stuff can be seen in some detail at http://www.me.berkeley.edu/mrcl/
"Detailed calculations indicate that the actual scaling is not quite that dramatic, but a millimeter-size engine would have a thrust-to-weight ratio of about 100:1, compared with 10:1 for the best modern aircraft engines."
:)
This gives me visions of a jumbojet with the whole wingspan covered in thousands of really small jet engines.
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.
--
make install -not war
Funny, we hear all this new technology like hydrogen fuel cells using sodium borohydrate, microgenerators. We also hear a lot about "alternative energy". Alternative = anything but oil. Yet we never hear about the consequences of these alternative energy sources. Occasionally, on page 16 of the local newspaper, you'll see a story that talks about the hazardous waste problem in China, Malaysia, or Korea due to the manufacturing of these "alternative energy" products.
And we tell ourselves that we're better off.
It reminds me of the solar panel people. "Look, we can save all this energy! Never mind that we just created a bazillion tons of hazardous waste making the solar panels."
- The power output goes down by a factor of 1,000. (power out is proportional to L x W x H )
- The friction in the bearings goes down by a factor of 100 (proportional to surface area of bearings)
- The windage losses due to air friction between the generator rotor and stator stay about the same.
- The air friction losses in the turbine may go waay up (as the ratio of turbulent flow to mainline flow goes way up).
- The thermal input from the burning gases goes down by a factor of 1,000.
- The thermal losses only drop by a factor of 100. Eventually the losses become greater than the thermal input, making it impossible to sustain burning.
So every time you shrink these things, the power out goes way down, the efficiency goes waaay down.Do this a few times and you'll have a turbine that can't even overcome its internal friction and a generator that, even if you could turn it, would be way down on the efficiency scale. Shrinking these things is a very very very *losing* thing to do.
To power the new Radeon Mobility X800 graphics card, your laptop will enable the afterburner. This will inject kerosene into the exhaust jet to provide additional power to the generator. Please keep the laptop away from combustible materials for your own safety. During operation, you should wear noise protection earmuffs and keep a fire extinguisher handy. Turbine blades must be inspected by your closest General Electric Turbines facility each 10,000 hours of operation. Only use unleaded JET A1 fuel. DANGER: Avoid jet blast! Do not obstruct the air intake or data loss may occur.
--- Eat my sig.
I can generate well over 300 watts on a bicycle. You can generate 100 watts essentially indefinitely without breaking a sweat.
You want to listen to your iPod? Hook it up to your bike!
I wear my iPod when I'm on my bike. Imagine how much cooler it would be if it didn't neeed a battery...
Shouldn't these engineers be concentrating on building a miniature Stirling engine instead? The processor itself could provide most of the heat for the engine. Also, this would make the whole system a lot more efficient. Instead of generating more wasted energy in the form of heat, the heat from the processor would be recovered and turned into more electricity.
A metremeter is device for measuring things that are 1 metre long. It has only two numbers 0 and 10 marked at opposite ends.
A metermetre is a metre within the precision (and accuracy) of the meter that was used to measure the metre.
A metermeter is a device used to measure meters in units unknown.
A metremetre is a square with area of 1 metre in length on each side. A metremetremetre would be used for cubes.
Thank you.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
You take a crystal radio, tune it to a strong AM station, run the output not to a loudspeaker but to a rectifier, then use that to power a transistor radio which you can tune to any station.
Viola! Free energy!
Tell me again, who knew Mary was a virgin, and how did they know?