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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."
Making the rest of us look bad and all.
Wake me up when this reachers production stages. Oh wait, it never will. I wish I had more faith in these /. articles proclaiming a brilliant new way to do x...
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.
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.
posting about their kids on /. ....
Eventually, this kid will become a patent attorney like the rest of them.
I think God Neptune already holds a patent on that one.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Al Gore reports he just discovered that the VERSATILE system contributes to global warming. He reported this from the front of his 800,000 square foot Tennessee mansion flooded in 10,000 watt spotlights.
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.
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.
What's the problem here? Slashdot: News for aAngry Nerds.
Bright kid. Too bad the kid is Mexican and he will probably be deported before he gets a chance to get the project going. He should think about immigrating to some other country where his talent will be valued.
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?"
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.
http://algaewheel.com/algaewheel-technology.cfm
Isn't that forbidden by internatinal treaties?
I am not sure wheter I mean this as a joke.
Karl Marx (1845)
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
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.
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.
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
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
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."
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.
Finally alternative sources and original to boot!
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...
...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.
Only back then; it consisted of a paper mache cylinder; red food coloring; baking soda and vinegar.
You are a computer science person.
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