Slashdot Mirror
15-Year-Old Invents Algae-Powered Energy System
Mike writes "Signaling a bright future for sustainable energy, 15-year-old Javier Fernandez-Han has created a remarkable algae-powered energy system that is capable of producing food and fuel, treating waste, containing greenhouse gases, and releasing oxygen. Dubbed the VERSATILE system, the project recently netted him a $20,000 scholarship for winning this year's Invent Your World Challenge."
Making the rest of us look bad and all.
Pure science informs experimental science informs design engineers informs process engineers informs manufacture.
It's a long chain to go from an abstract idea to a machine that whirrs. Yet it requires the competence, indeed, excellence of many people in many different professions.
This is the first step. We have to be patient.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
FTA: "The algae-powered system hasnâ(TM)t yet been built, however, and skeptics will remain until it is. Even if FernÃndez-Hanâ(TM)s design doesnâ(TM)t pan out as planned, weâ(TM)re thoroughly impressed by his innovative spirit."
A pump powered by children playing? I did a double take when I saw that. Then there was a link to it. I tip my hat to the person who thought of that. Bloody ingenious.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Isn't that basically what Cowboy Neal is?
Farming is a noble occupation, but if you have to spend time tending a biological system when a chemical system will work flawlessly without any monitoring, well, that's why we make chemical systems instead of just using biological ones.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This kid is obviously the love child of Jon Katz and Natalie Portman.
Seastead this.
"The algae-powered system hasnâ(TM)t yet been built..."
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
One small caveat:
"The algae-powered system hasn't yet been built, however..."
Another minor little detail:
"and the PlayPump, which uses energy derived from children playing to power the system."
I assume the children will volunteer to "play" at this "play pump" which I bet will be much more fascinating than say, Nintendo or beating up on little Timmy, or whatever their regular activities are.
Or is this a device in fact powered by child labor? Perhaps it will go over big in China and Malaysia.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
This isnt even close to a first step. I mean seriously he's 15.
All that he has done here is take a bunch of stuff that is known to work, but not economically, and tied it all together with a pretty diagram. Nothing new has happened here, a nerdy kid who almost certainly has parents who work in the field have produced something of no value.
Pure science informs experimental science informs design engineers informs process engineers informs manufactures informs patent lawyers informs researchers with C&D forms
Fixed that for you.
But... the future refused to change.
There are 5 replies above my threshold. All of them are ripping this apart as fancy. He's a 15-year old kid who took a lot of interesting technologies and thought of a way to chain them together to achieve a net benefit. What did you guys do? You're assholes.
put the what in the where?
Since his system uses algae, I bet my fish tank could feed and power a small country.
All that he has done here is take a bunch of stuff that is known to work, but not economically, and tied it all together with a pretty diagram.
I do that too, just not with diagrams. I'm a programmer.
posting about their kids on /. ....
All that he has done here is take a bunch of stuff that is known to work, but not economically, and tied it all together with a pretty diagram. Nothing new has happened here
I think you are being needlessly harsh here.
His key contribution was to think: "How many things can I chain together so that the waste from one thing feeds something else?" Thus, methane from the digester powers cooking stoves; carbon dioxide from the burned methane feeds algae. I've heard of methane digesters, I've heard of cooking stoves, and I've heard of algae; I haven't heard of an integrated system like this.
If you RTFA, he relates a story about how the gift of a fresh water system to a poor village had an unfortunate side effect: the extra water the village used caused their sewage system to be overloaded. Their "system" was to put their sewage in buckets and dump out the buckets; they ended up with raw sewage running in their streets. He consciously tried to design a system that has no negative effects. (And that's probably an inspiration for including the flush latrines in his design, latrines that feed the digester and/or the algae.)
Even if his design turns out to be flawed, the flaws might be fixable or at least the idea might inspire an experienced engineer to design something even better.
I didn't invent anything this clever when I was 15. How about you?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Eventually, this kid will become a patent attorney like the rest of them.
Isn't this what patent trolls do? Design a system but never build it... (ducks)
Seriously, he obviously put a lot of thought into this, but I don't see it as a great achievement.
I thought up things like this when I was a kid, in fact, I was heavily into VR at one point, and thought that it would be great to have SIMs for training in highly dangerous jobs. But when I was a kid there were no $20,000 prizes and there was no Slashdot. In fact, the Internet didn't exist... But I was one of the top 5 CS students in my Freshmen year, if that counts for anything... ;-P
David
Yea actually I did think of stuff this clever when I was 15, not to mention that I read something similar to this kid's proposal in Popular Science when I was around 14. But instead of gloating about it I went outside and had fun. Whoop-dee-doo.
I think God Neptune already holds a patent on that one.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
âoeDiscovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thoughtâ. --Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
You don't use UML diagrams?
Swing and Seesaw.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Yay ... now all I need is a farting cow, a playground for the kids and a swamp in my backyard and I'll have enough juice to run my linux desktop. Seriously this kids going to turn into one of those bosses with all the fancy ideas of how things should work, then try and convince other people to do the work for him, and no skills to make anything.
"This is the first step. We have to be patient."
In light of so many discussions on ./ I feel it necessary to fix your statement.
"This is the first step. We have to get patent."
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
u mad?
1. Remove merry-go-round
2. Install a HAWT, or VAWT such as the dirt-cheap Savonius turbine
3. Child labor issues go bye-bye
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Um... Other than the part about it being powered by kids playing (which has already been created on its own) this has been done and done and done again. Every science fair has one of these (small-scale, of course, we're not all rich).
It's just embarrassing to me that there are so many people on this site that love to hammer individuals, instead of praising them for doing or theorizing something that might actually benefit someone. And what if this idea doesn't pan out? Who cares! He actually took the time to put something together. And he's 15. I know I didn't theorize anything at 15 except maybe some new ice cream flavor. And before you open your mouth, I know about 99.995% of the people posting here didn't either (so don't bring up any lame "when he invents Linux, then he can talk" BS). It's as bad here as it was when that kid networked his school computer systems in the absence of funding or actual professional network engineers. How about saying something nice instead of shooting everyone down.
Steve? Shouldn't you be in the hospital?
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
You don't use UML diagrams?
You do?!
I'm impressed! You deserve a pat on the head. ;)
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I didn't invent anything this clever when I was 15. How about you?
By 15, I was already able to launch squirrels more than 200 metres!
I think in a lot of ways it's brilliant. In others, it's way short, but then again, he's 15. He's more creative than half the $150/hr consultants we hire, that's for sure.
Seriously, though, we (the sewage district I work for) are looking at micro-treatment - treatment at the point of source for sewage. Lots of reasons but google for PECs (Pollutants of Emerging Concern) if you really want to know why. Eventually we see large scale municipal plants going away and micro-plants with instant recycling being the norm.
This kid is just about 20 years ahead of his time. I want stock in his company.
Well, I came up with some pretty cool designs for perpetual motion...
What's the problem here? Slashdot: News for aAngry Nerds.
I use conventional flowcharts.
It's really a valuable aid.
Then you turn that into blocks of comments and add the assembly language statements around the comments.
When I was 15, I invented a sports car that could go MACH TWO.
Purity
Slashdot. Unreadable news to annoy nerds. - wonkey_monkey
More likely the oil companies will bury everything he invented and give him enough money to disappear. Just like those darn pesky inventions that were claimed to give your car 100mpg back in the 80s and 90s. IF they were ever real.... And let us not forget the 100mpg diesel motorcyle that is currently only sold to the US Military. When will those ever be allowed to be sold to the public? The one made by Hayes Diversified Tech. Everything good is always suppressed (meaning delayed, bought out, or just plain disappears). Good luck with this one!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your politician, and hitting them?"
And I thought of hybrid vehicles when I was eight and wanted to power my gocart with 3/4 hp electric saw motor, powered by a lawnmower engine running as a generator. But the point is that while you and I were out playing, other people were doing something with their ideas.
Ideas are cheap. It's taking them to the next logical step (even if that's just a well-thought-out formal design) that differentiates the people who win $20,000 scholarships from those who go outside to play.
So you don't produce anything of value? I wouldn't be bragging about that.
He's also won $20,000 in scholarship money. Even if his scientific career never gets off the ground he's going to be a shrewd bureaucrat. It's much more useful to get paid for pipe dreams than end up like Billy Mayes selling oxyclean to pay for your crack addiction.
So you don't produce anything of value? I wouldn't be bragging about that.
I do, I just don't write a new operating system for every new project.
You use comments and assembly language? Real Programmers use a hex editor and write the machine code directly!
...
...
...
You use a hex editor? Real Programmers....
Obligatory xkcd comic about releasing a butterfly
emacs.
Whirrs? I want a machine that goes ping. ;-)
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I saw Jenny Carter's boobies!
http://algaewheel.com/algaewheel-technology.cfm
Isn't that forbidden by internatinal treaties?
I am not sure wheter I mean this as a joke.
You don't use UML diagrams?
I'm a programmer.
I want stock in his company.And that will probably be the reason why it will fail if there is a company that does that. The idea was about doing something without waste. The comapny will be there to make money.
Give the idea to the world and let EVERYBODY play with it. Universities in Africa, Asia and the rest can then work out a working model. Please let not one company take away this idea and then patent it into oblivion.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I didn't invent anything this clever when I was 15. How about you?
steveha
Uhh... At 15 I had built my own taser, a rail gun, an air cannon that shot projectiles over 200 yards, and a trebuchet that threw golf balls the same distance. All this from seeing the things work and going out to figure out how to build them.
Not exactly something amazing for a 15 y/o to do. Anyone can string together ideas and concepts, yes, even kids younger than him.
Im not really all that impressed by it, but I am impressed every time I see a kid help someone for no reason other than to help, every time I see kids out volunteering because they want to, and every time I see a kid that stands up for another kid. Those are things that not all kids can do. Lets give those kids some support before we go off praising a kid for doing something every human can do.
Karl Marx (1845)
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
Uhh... At 15 I had built my own taser, a rail gun, an air cannon that shot projectiles over 200 yards, and a trebuchet that threw golf balls the same distance. All this from seeing the things work and going out to figure out how to build them.
None of these meet my standard for "genius" but I think maybe you did make it to "clever". But you have to admit, figuring out how to build cool stuff you have seen work is one thing; coming up with something really new is another. (And yes, a new way to chain together existing things does qualify as "really new".)
Not exactly something amazing for a 15 y/o to do. Anyone can string together ideas and concepts, yes, even kids younger than him.
There is a $20,000 scholarship that says some other people disagree with you.
Im not really all that impressed by it, but I am impressed every time I see a kid help someone for no reason other than to help, every time I see kids out volunteering because they want to, and every time I see a kid that stands up for another kid. Those are things that not all kids can do. Lets give those kids some support before we go off praising a kid for doing something every human can do.
Here, this kid came up with a clever way to help the truly poor, and you are chiding him for not doing enough. "Lets give those kids some support"? This kid's design may get enough support to actually be deployed in Africa... would that be enough to impress you, or would you need more? "something every human can do"?!? Lots of humans are dumber than a bag of bricks. Many humans are not all that dumb, but don't bother to invent anything new. This kid set out to invent something cool, and in my book he succeeded.
Were are my algae-powered overlords! I want my overlords! Now, you insensitive clods! *cries*
And ...
1. a beowulf-cluster of
2. soviet-russian transparent pink
3. unicorn pony sharks, that must be new here, run Linux, have frickin' laser-beams on their horns
4.
5. and give me PROFIT,
while you're at it?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I think in a lot of ways it's brilliant. In others, it's way short, but then again, he's 15. He's more creative than half the $150/hr consultants we hire, that's for sure.
...send him to college. that's where he will learn how not to be creative.
I remember reading about that sort of thing in National Geographic in the 80s (micro-plants etc). Deserves the prize? Maybe. 20 years ahead. No.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
There was a company in South Africa that did a project to make Biodiesel from Algae called De Beers Fuel (which has no connection with diamond company De Beers). The idea was to franchise the biodiesel manufacturing plants said to produce tens of thousands of litres of fuel per day. After being interviewed by the investigative programme Carte Blanche it became clear that there was no real plants built and no biodiesel being produced. http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/print-version/lsquodeadrsquo-biofuelfromalgae-initiative-leaves-a-stink-2007-06-15
What has he invented?
He has proposed a closed loop system, that basically prevents CO2 and other green house associated gases from entering the general environment.. Is that original? no..
The concept of the algae being used to feed on waste and thrive in CO2 rich environments have been in use for years, and here I cite Commercial piggery's in Europe, Australia and else where.
The people who thought this to be new and original are probably the same that think That CO2 is the white haze exiting the exhaust stacks on industrial complexes.. or (thanks to an Australian TV Commercial) Black balloons.
Which is exactly the way progress happens.
Enterprising kids build things. Mediocre kids create marketing materials. Below-average adults give scholarships to mediocre kids. I don't think we're pooh-poohing the kid; I'd be surprised if a few hundred Slashdotters didn't design something similar at the same ages, but didn't think we should be rewarded for it because we didn't solve the massive engineering problems in building such a system (and neither did this kid). We're decrying the kind of society that rewards this more than building things that actually work.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You joke, but that's what we actually did in the late 70's / early 80s.
Put identity in the browser.
"I didn't invent anything this clever when I was 15. How about you?"
I could tell you what all the complainers were doing when they were 15, but I'm sure you know already...
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
True to form to our educational system, he got the same blue ribbon for "participation", along with all the other hundreds of "winners".
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
>> Pure science informs experimental science informs design engineers informs process engineers informs manufacture.
Long chains work a lot better with commas. I'm just saying...
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
And since you're posting to Slashdot, I'll assume you're also 15 years old.
Oh wait!
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
>> I didn't invent anything this clever when I was 15. How about you?
At 15, I designed an Analog-To-Digital converter, a signal sampler, and an analog harmonizer (I was a DJ, and dabbled in sound design and basic electronics). All in theory, of course, but completely isolated from any real world implementations, to which I was never exposed by that time.
I would never had been able to build any of those systems, nor trully understand or appreciate the intricacies and complexities of the engineering challenges they involved. But my insight into their basic theoretical workings turned out to be correct, and in a way, obvious.
This is what 15 year old kids do. I still don't think I was any more special for this.
However, when I hear of a 15 year kid who designs and builds his own computer or something like that--you know, someone who solved the engineering problems and actually understood the real world application of his theory and all its dependencies and challenges--that I think is very impressive.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Welcome to innovation, we take stuff that works and tie it together in novel and interesting ways.
Yeah, but are any of those things useful? A lot of patents are for products that have no consumer demand.
Pure science informs experimental science informs design engineers informs process engineers informs manufacture.
And along the way marketing gets involved and turns a beautiful idea into a pile of underperforming, overpriced crap with go-faster stripes painted on the side to make it look cool. And NASA gets involved and makes you change your sensible metric measurements into furlongs and hogsheads.
I piss off bigots.
Z80 - a Z-80 based computer. He built it when he was 15 :-)
Y'mean, s/ informs /, informs /g?
Oh wait - I forgot, it's just un-applied sociology.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Sure there is alge in there somewhere but what about the Playdump part that runs off of the energy released from childen playing, sound like some grimm's fairy tale stuff to me. The alge probably draws power from the childrens souls... but of course that's on the back of the diagram
It's turned out to be incredibly hard to commercialise fuel cells. Algal conversion is much closer to commercialisation, but it's going to take a long time to scale.
So yes it's good that kids are interested, but no, getting from picture to income is hard. I would be more impressed if he had actually been able to build an algal digester in the lab using Quickfit glassware, because then he would have some notion of the difference between idea and reality.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
There are, essentially, two kinds of progress: that of taking something that came before and making it better, and that of taking two things that came before and making them work together.
Plus, your argument "he's 15, therefore this doesn't work", well, doesn't work. Provide substantial criticisms or take your angst elsewhere, thank you.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Lots of reasons but google for PECs (Pollutants of Emerging Concern) if you really want to know why.
From a quick Google, I assume you mean "Emerging Pollutants of Concern", or "EPOCs".
Apologies for the pedantry, I just didn't want everyone else to be googling PECs and coming up dry like me!
Excellent post. I don't understand where all the negative comments are coming from. Oh wait, this is /.
This is all part of the technocratic push to further bring useful technology into decrepitude by falsely crediting the (re)inventors, and I see the kid has also re-invented common sense:
"An invention that is narrowly
focused on solving a single
problem often inadvertently
creates more problems because
nature complex and interconnected"
Javier Fernandez-Han
Duh, that's exactly the same as common sense! (killing two birds with the one stone)
For example, modern aircrafts have to expel super hot ais from the engines during flight. The cabin uses this hot air to keep the passengers warm. He is young and impetuous but will eventually find his place. That's NOT narrow-minded thinking. The impetuous child is in facto narrow-minded which is normal for that age.
Writing in assembly language was one of my favorite things to do back in college. That was around '02!
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
TFA is now Slashdotted, so:
Does he cover the sterility issue with algae? Based on the literature I've read so far, one of the primary challenges with algae-based biofuels is that the algae species that are good for biofuel production are at a competitive disadvantage to other algae species that basically suck for the purposes of biofuel production.
Thus it's really easy for a bioreactor to get contaminated and stop producing anything useful.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Finally alternative sources and original to boot!
You're absolutely right... In the industry, we call them PECs. In the regulatory world, they call them EPOCs. Go figure.
Sounds like this stuff would be perfect for long duration space missions if it can work in Zero-G.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
At 97, you may qualify for a prize for oldest Slashdotter!
"And NASA gets involved and makes you change your sensible metric measurements into furlongs and hogsheads."
That's because real men are concerned with how many stones we can move one furlong on a hogshead of fuel, only whiners and frogs want metric. Oh, and anyone who isn't a raving psychopath or ultra-nationalist whack job. They don't count though, because this is America, land of the raving and home of the Whopper.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
...or at least its modern equivalent.
He didn't invent anything. Using algae as a power source is not a new concept. Or invention. He got a scholarship for using someone elses discovery.
Your math sucks, 97 would be 1912, not '02. He also says that in '02 he was in college, so his birthday is well before that.
Only back then; it consisted of a paper mache cylinder; red food coloring; baking soda and vinegar.
You'd be surprised...
Well, when the oil runs out there won't be any power to run the courts, so no more lawsuits! :)
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Seriously, though, we (the sewage district I work for) are looking at micro-treatment - treatment at the point of source for sewage. Lots of reasons but google for PECs (Pollutants of Emerging Concern) if you really want to know why.
Do PECs lead to ROUS?
Maybe this could be helpful to you.
www.joshferguson.org
Writing in assembly language was one of my favorite things to do back in college. That was around '06!
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
The point is, no one invented anything this clever at 15, including the boy in the story. It's not an invention. It's a hodgepodge of vague, immaterial ideas that, minus the $20k award, would read like a typical 15-year-old's science fair project that was scraped together from a weekend at the library.
When I was 15, my cleverness was in finding ways to avoid having to participate in these farces rather than wasting my time and somebody else's $20k. If we could all be clever enough not to waste that kind of time and money, *maybe we wouldn't need systems like the one this boy proposed*. But what is society going to put on a pedestal? An independent, resourceful thinker with a knack for personal and social responsibility, or a fast-talker who makes promises of making an easier life for all when in reality he has taken much and given nothing of value in return?
Flamebait? really? It was a joke!
Woooooosh!
Carol vs. Ghost
This kid is history .. remember the water carburetor, the automotive steam engine, the 100 mpg fuel injector modifications. All the now secret patents - erased from our consciousness too. I'll bet the Food Giants, the Energy Giants and the Haliburton-Cheney Giants are all arguing right now -- meeting in their svelte secure conference rooms bought and paid for by the Bilderbergs, and other International Jewry ... oh yes .. the Kid Is Toast. The operatives of the Giant Agribusiness Combine are already planning to grab this guy and implant him. Next stop kiddo? Migrant Worker Farm Numero Cinco in the Cochella Valley.
nar