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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."
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.
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?
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
When it stops being an activity which can create mischief --
If we jump hard enough in unison can we create a big enough spark to ignite the methane?!
to a chore --
You kids won't get your allowance if you don't generate at least 5KW of power this week!
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
Seems to me they could put a donkey on a tether. The pumping capacity would probably be more reliable. Kids are kids, after all. For a week, maybe even a month, that merry go round will be busy during all daylight hours. After that, it'll be hit or miss, now and then. I mean, really. If I actually WANT a kid to eat ice cream, he isn't going to want any. If I WANT him to eat candy, he's going to be suspicious. Ask any parent.
"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
That's amazing that even where water must be pumped by children on a merry-go-round, there is a big billboard with an advertisement. Sickening.
Also, it has not been built yet, so "created" is too strong a word. He more like "imagined" or "designed" it. Not to say it's not impressive for a 15 year old, but it's not the salvation of the world.
Currently hooked on AMP
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.
I do, I just don't write a new operating system for every new project.
Its worse than that, he just copied some Phds work off youtube:
From reading TFA, I'd say the kid did a little more than copy someone's work. A lot of work has been done with algae, so neither one should claim to have invented the idea of extracting fuel from it. What I see is that they invented scalable systems for doing it cheaply.
Of the two, the kid's is theoretically "better" IMO. His vision of intended use in the 3rd world is reason enough. Even if the real cost is more like $2000 instead of $200, it's good. Just get Sally Struthers to cry on TV to raise the money.
Of course, until he or someone actually builds a working model, it's just a neat idea. Certainly not the 2nd coming of Da Vinci or Einstein.
I am my own gestalt.
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.
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.
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.
Exactly. I did some designs for algae-powered energy generation when I was about that age. It's not impressive, because the concept is obvious. Algae reproduce very quickly given the right environment and is a cheap way of generating solar power. Algae blooms are caused by sewage getting in to the water supply, so feeding it with animal (including human) waste is obvious.
Algae power is not a scientific problem, it is an engineering one. The test of any solution to an engineering problem is much simpler than for a scientific problem: Can you build it? If you can't, then it's some nice science fiction, but ultimately worthless. Going from concept to working model (energy positive over its total lifespan and low cost) is the hard part here, and when that's done the person or people responsible deserve a lot of credit.
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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.
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