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The 660 Gallon Brewery Fuel Cell
An anonymous reader writes "Australia's University of Queensland has secured a $115,000 grant for a 660-gallon fuel cell that should produce 2 kilowatts of power. A prototype has been operating at the university laboratory for three months. This fuel cell type is essentially a battery in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol, plus in this instance produces clean water."
Alcohol isn't brewing "waste" -- it's the entire point!
before we see a press release claiming a breakthrough in power generation: "By placing horses in a giant wheel that is connected to a turbine and then racing them, scientists have found a way to generate all the power we need on a steady supply of oats and barley. Also generates lots of gambling revenue for the state."
660 gallons is about fifteen barrels. 2 kW isn't that much so maybe for my house I need 6 kW. That's approx. forty five barrels. That's a lot of barrels in the back yard.
Its funny how these days, any "alternative" form of energy is automatically considered by many to be "clean", "green" or "environmentally friendly".
Just for the record: Biofuels are definitely NOT environmentally friendly and Hydro-electric plants are amongst the construction projects most often protested AGAINST on environmental grounds.
Just thought that need to be said.
I'm curious how (sustainable) biofuel isn't environmentally friendly? It's carbon neutral, leverages our existing overproduction of food crops, seems all good all round. The only thing I can think of is that it's smelly and bad for your valve seats... obviously logging old growth forest for biomass doesn't count here, just things like maize and grain crops.
Hydro plants are protested against because they flood large areas of wildlife habitats and peoples' homes. That's an 'environmental' issue but not an emissions one.
I agree, though, that jumping on the 'alternative' bandwagon is far too fashionable and often counterconstructive - take, for example, the fact that the Prius uses more fuel than the Golf TDi[1]. Like any other engineering issue (and conservation is one at heart) you have to look at the data and not just follow the emotive hype. For instance, modern nuclear reactor designs are far safer than the old, cold-war era designs, and potentially very fuel efficient. If it weren't for the "nuclear is bad" mindset of the general public, they would be the perfect mid- to long-term energy solution.
[1] Of course, that's not a fair comparison because the TDi runs diesel fuel which has a higher energy density, but I'm pretty sure the total energy cost of a Prius over its lifetime is higher than that of a TDi.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
For those of you who are from Australia; Vegemite is a watered down, sweetened copy of the British product Marmite (there's an Australian 'Marmite' too, but it's even worse than Vegemite). Do yourselves a favour and try some Marmite.
Worst BBC News Stories
"Producing alcohol produces *VAST* amounts of CO2."
Which comes from sugar, the carbon dioxide from which is sucked out of the atmosphere. It's essentially carbon neutral (like any other biofuel or crop). If the waste plant material is not burnt, it might even act as a net sink.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
I'm curious how (sustainable) biofuel isn't environmentally friendly? It's carbon neutral, leverages our existing overproduction of food crops, seems all good all round.
That "overproduction" of food crops is made possible by very resource intensive farming practices which are heavily dependent on the chemical industry (fertilizers & pesticides) which use use petroleum as feedstocks. Without it, yields would drop dramatically as the soil is depleted. Alot has been made of the brazilian biofuel efforts - I suspect this will actually have a devastating effect on the already besieged rainforest. They practice slash & burn agriculture for everything else - why would bio-fuel crops be any different?
I'm not sure about the "carbon neutral" either - at least with respect to the atmosphere, which is the primary point. Much of these agricultural products used to produce these biofuels would eventually end up effectively "sequestered" back in the ground via plowing under agricultural waste, disposal of sewage, etc. Instead you are now fermenting & burning it - releasing all of that carbon into the atmosphere.
Hydro plants are not carbon neutral either because the normally free-flowing river now silts up and those materials decay at the bottom of the lake producing more CO2
"As a method for producing electricity in general, it is not a clean method"
No, it's not. But if you were producing alcohol anyways as part of a brewery, it would be a great way to run your operation more efficiently. Given the amount of waste needed, I doubt this system would ever be useful outside a brewery. The cost to transport that much waste water probably outweighs any off-site use of these fuel cells.
Uh, your report talks about installing skylights, not lightbulbs that produce the full spectrum. I'd be willing to wager that people perform better with a skylight for psychological reasons. Using it as a reason to scoff CFLs seems like a huge stretch to me. I will buy the argument that you need an incandescent (even full spectrum) bulb if you're doing something that requires you to match colors or design something for outdoor viewing (like a billboard), but 99% of the time people don't care about their color purity that much. The eye is very forgiving for color imbalance so as a tradeoff for using CFLs I don't think it has much pull.
I read the internet for the articles.