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Breakthrough in Electricity-Producing Microbe
University of Massachusetts researchers have made a breakthrough with "Geobacter," a microbe that produces electric current from mud and wastewater. A conservative estimate puts the energy output increase at eight times that of the original organism, potentially allowing applications far beyond that of extracting electricity from mud. "Now, planning can move forward to design microbial fuel cells that convert waste water and renewable biomass to electricity, treat a single home's waste while producing localized power (especially attractive in developing countries), power mobile electronics, vehicles and implanted medical devices, and drive bioremediation of contaminated environments."
...welcome our new shit-eating overlords?
mr. fusion?
- This story stinks!
- The OP is full of shit!
- I get shitty service on my phone now!
I'll show myself out.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
a microbe that produces electric current from mud? This will increase the long dormant demand for mud pies! Need to re-charge your ipod? Mudpie! Scared that taser is going to kill the suspect? Throw a mud-pie! Now with electro-conductive pie places!
I must tour a rural village powered by electric mud. I'll just hop in my flying car and be right over.
Do I even need to go into What Could Possibly Go Wrong mode when discussing the prospects of using electricity-generating bacteria to power medical devices implanted in your body?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Hurricane Katrina
When I'm done with you, you're gonna' eat thunder and crap lightning!
Obama calls for "regime change" in the Republic of Elbonia.
And in East Elbonia, they are planning on dominating the world's energy market in 20 years....
www.eFax.com are spammers
. . . um, . . . renewable energy resource all these years . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Maybe it's time to evaluate 2 girls 1 cup for educational reasons...
Then again maybe not
Boston you're my home.
Will this technology cause the merger of Pepto and APC?
How should we name the unit to represent Joules Per Flush? I vote for the Crapper.
This is wonderful news. Ideas like these are the kind of things that turn energy into a free for all. Remember the water cycle? Any American was taught this process by at least middle school. IMHO creating an "Energy Cycle" is our ultimate goal here. Who knew a septic tank would end up back in style? Hook up a few power cables and whammo! Instant power station. Yes, I'm full of shit. I have the power.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
We don't have enough shit over here? we don't need electricity over here?
Why can't we use that technology to make the water treatment plants produce electricity while they also treat our wastes?Â
> while producing localized power (especially attractive in developing countries)
Why is that?
All those people putting PV panels on their roof in developed countries must have it wrong then.
Then again, (as an ex-Californian) California is doing a good job of turning itself into a third world country.
I'm curious if they might be able to combine this with another microbe or filtering system that would enable it to purify the water too. If they could, you could get an almost closed water system thus solving a lot of the water issues across the US. Or if it could desalinate water while producing power :)
...when do we finally get a working weather service??
This isn't a new bacteria! This creature was invented by God and was on the Ark with Noah six thousand years ago!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
soon we'll be purchasing dirt and instead of oil, declaring war against third world countries to steal their wastes, and those environmentalists are gonna whine about the smell.
Do you D?
Sorry guys, dream on. As soon as Big Oil cs gets its sticky little hands on it, it'll be over for as long as there is still one cent of profit to get out of oil. Free energy will stay a dream as long as there is are powerful firms who can force you to buy it from them and who can buy everything that threatens their profits (including politicians).
This is not meant as flamebait or trolling, I'm just afraid this is the sad truth.
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
So brown is the new green?
Except machines will be using humans for ... well... you know which way to make electricity.
In-pod plumbing... it's gonna be big!
Hyperom.com
The Geobacter biofilm's "fortuitous" electron-transferring skill, the product of natural selection, suggested a pathway to Lovley - a way he might use selective pressure to increase its capacity to produce power. He and colleagues grew Geobacter as usual on a graphite electrode, providing acetate as food and allowing a colony to form the biologically active slime, or biofilm where electron transfer takes place across the nanowires. But for this new experiment they added a tiny, 400-millivolt "pushback" current in the electrode that forced Geobacter to press harder to get rid of its electrons.
The result of providing a more challenging environment, within five short months, Lovley notes, was evolution of a beefed-up microorganism that can press at least eight times more electric current across the electrode than the original strain. âoeI'm really happy with this outcome," the microbiologist notes. "It's exceptionally fast feedback to us and a very satisfying result." He adds, "I'm still a little amazed that they make electricity, but I'm happy to be exploring how to harness that ability. I'm sure there'll be applications developed in the future that we canâ(TM)t even envision right now."
That's halfway down in the article.
You should try reading things before you try to debunk them. The environment will be created to get the most electricity out of the little microbes, and probably sealed off and not thrown in the dirt. I imagine there may even be filters in place where the waste comes into make sure that any natural predators are weakened or killed to continue allowing the organisms to thrive.
And they have been studying this organism since 1987, and examining it for electrical production since 2002. I'm glad you're skeptical, but not glad that you're commenting on something you didn't even bother to read.
I think mud is a euphemism for many of us. The riverbed, in this case, might be the bottom of sewage treatment plants. As for other bacteria, we could heat the "mud" up for a while to largely sterilize it to reduce that competition.
But it seems like this would (if it could operate in munch dryer situations) be an ideal additive to compost heaps to get a little more out of them...
First, a citation to the published paper: Hana Yi, et al., Selection of a variant of Geobacter sulfurreducens with enhanced capacity for current production in microbial fuel cells, Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Volume 24, Issue 12, 15 August 2009, Pages 3498-3503.
The extrapolated current density was 7.4 ± 0.1 A/m2. The individual fuel cells produced 14mA, which was sustained for 24 months.
So now we can starting using the human body to produce electricity?
1. you get a tingly feeling every time you sit on the toilet, and its not from your feet falling asleep
2. if your septic tank overflows you're in danger of electrocuting the family dog
3. you also have to be careful where you piss, or you'll know what its like to urinate on the third rail of light rail system
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
MR FUSION!! http://bttf.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion
the bacteria evolve back to the state where they did not produce as much electricity, and uses the extra energy to reproduce?
Every now and then we read about some new energy producing mean, it just makes me wonder... Can anyone even begin to imagine what would a society based on these technologies look like? They are very diverse and seem to cover ever encreasing aspects of our lives. Each one could take care of a bit of our smaller needs and nuclear energy could be the only massive one, providing for larger needs in a world with ever more energy-efficient technologies. What if through technology we can reach a society with no more big energy concerns, just by sort of cutting the sharp edges of our wastes? Anyone knows some hard science fiction dealing with this kind of society?
..."Dennis! There's some Lovely Filth down here!"...
-=JML=-
"A planet where apes evolved from men?? Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty microbe!"
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
... what's to stop the microbes from evolving/adapting BACK to the lower output when they're placed in a rich environment (fuel cell, whatever) again? Stupid researchers... they forget that mutation doesn't only occur when they want it to occur and not only in the fashion they desire.
Especially since I have none. Alas, good job!
If this microbe escaped from the lab, we'd all be in trouble. Can you imagine the headlines we'd start to see all over the world?
- Man electrocuted on toilet
- Tip for rainy weather: wear well-insulated boots when walking in mud
- Tomato fields plagued by ball lightning after manure fertilization
- In the 3rd world, muddy unpaved roads power electric scooters
The idea of dipping my iPhone into the nearest bucket of shit sickens me, and yet this may become the favored means of charging one's phone in a hurry.
I suppose a welcome next step will be a second microbe that neutralizes the stench.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Maybe before an athlete goes out to compete, his supporters can say "Eat Shit!" (meaning: have a lot of energy!)
For once, the supporter and detractors can say the same thing!
We get at least one of these stories a week on /. A story about some wonderful new potential source of "Free" Green Energy. Of course none are anywhere near production and nobody sane even talks about them producing energy at costs per KWK anywhere near current technology. But as long as new miracle tech can be waved in front of folks the need to face up to our current reality can be postponed by wishful thinking.
Reality:
1. No "Alternate" Energy source is believed to be capable of producing a sizable fraction of our current energy needs at competitive rates in the next twenty years. Wind and solar are only popular in areas with massive government subsidy because they aren't cost effective on their own. And any attempt to scale either to carry large percentages of the grid will only make those issues clear and reveal more problems. Hydrogen is itself 'clean' but none of the sources are easy to tap in a clean way with one politically unacceptable (Nuke power) exception. Biofuels create egoboo for greens in small quantities but lead to famine when scaled up.
2. To obtain oil we are sending a large share of our wealth to people who are using it to destroy our civilization. This is a very bad idea.
3. The greens might have a point with the whole AGW thing. And even if their math and models are all wet it is likely we are having SOME effect somewhere with all this drilling, extracting and burning of fossil fuels.
4. Fusion has been thirty years off for the last forty years.
We really need to have a hard look at those realities, stop dreaming of a painless solution and start looking at options that might actually be able to help in the next twenty years.
Democrat delenda est
I'm wondering what would happen to compost heaps after some time with this bacteria. Will they be still useful for growing plants with them, or will they become "de-energized"?
Your entire post is based on one very stupid assumption: That their plan is to just dump the bacteria in local mud and have it generate electricity. Of course, that's absurd. What they'll do is place the bacteria in a controlled environment, aka a fuel cell, and then pass the mud/waste water/etc through the fuel cell to produce electricity.
But, hey, don't let common sense stop you from coming to silly conclusions.
"No blood for poop!"
This joke is 100% recycled via humor-digesting bacteria.
The enemies of Democracy are
The result of providing a more challenging environment, within five short months, Lovley notes, was evolution of a beefed-up microorganism
Evolution..., well, in this case, we could be a partly right if we speak of intelligent design.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
We'll be reduced to batteries for our robot overlords.
Ooooh. Interesting question! It binds iron and other metals, so that might make them more digestible, or less. Truely unclear.
(...) That their plan is to just dump the bacteria in local mud and have it generate electricity.
What I tried to point out is that further consideration is needed on whether the environment needs to prepared/sterilized, i.e. made noncompetitive in ecological sense for the bacteria to do their job. It's not naive, it's biotechnology 101.
(...) pass the mud/waste water/etc through the fuel cell to produce electricity.
As it comes to wastewater, it may be good idea, technology for doing that already exists. Mud is dense so mass transport would be extremely energy consuming.
now i just need a Delorean and a flux capacitor.
...this is freedom fat hard at work!
Damn, Jim. My communicator's out of power? Where's the bucket of muck?
There's just one parameter of interest-- how much power?
One suspects it's not a lot.
I can see biologists getting excited about picoamps and millivolts per square centimeter.
But as a practical source of electricity, that would be much less practical and economical than the lemon, penny, and nickel battery.
Even if they evolved to producing 1,000 times as much electricity, we could still be talking about nanoamps, millivolts, and picowatts.
Some technical info and photos: http://www.geobacter.org/publications/19487117/
I think mud is a euphemism for many of us.
It's either all or none, unless you believe in the alien invaders, which I do. Oh, yes, I do. But it is important to remember that before the mud were the stars, so don't think of yourself as mud, my love, for you are made of stardust.
What I tried to point out is that further consideration is needed on whether the environment needs to prepared/sterilized, i.e. made noncompetitive in ecological sense for the bacteria to do their job. It's not naive, it's biotechnology 101.
The bacteria are never put in the "environment" at large. They're stored and cultured in their own little specialized environment designed specifically for them. As I already mentioned it's called a "fuel cell".
Honestly, your complaint is akin to someone claiming that bacteria can't possibly be used to produce insulin because the insulin would get all diluted in the ocean when they're released. ie, it's a gross misunderstanding of how the technology is meant to be used.
As it comes to wastewater, it may be good idea, technology for doing that already exists. Mud is dense so mass transport would be extremely energy consuming.
Transport? What? You use the mud that's nearby, in a local river or streambed. Remember, the idea is to use this in places like the third world. They aren't going to be piping mud around like crude oil.
Congratulation, you got a nice paper right there. Bullshit some ambiguous data
Look up where the original researcher usually publish and submit there. If you are accepted you are now a peer reviewed expert in this field
Ok, this isn't really directly on topic but don't you think the researcher (Hana Yi) is hot? She makes my sparks fly! (Why is she wearing makeup in the lab?). Who says science can't be sexy?
Really a educative and informative post, the post is good in all regards,I am glad to read this post Resveratrol ultra
Interesting this article might be, I am not sure if I am really comfortable putting batteries stuffed to the gills with shit in my notebook.
Perhaps they'd refine the stuff a little bit first?
without the sun, the moon crashes into the earth
I mean, the level of bacteria traditionally present in every student dorm - logical conclusion, no? No more power problems! :-)
Insert
They would be de-energized. But the nutrients would remain. Nutrients are the building blocks needed by photosynthetic organisms to build carbohydrates (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, etc). So de-energized compost piles would still be good places for plants to grow.
Devon
People just started dying after mass infection with a new Electricity-Producing microbe!
Specialists says the microbes are reproducing like crazy in the intestines of people of all ages as a result of the latest experiments with alternative energy sources.
At least in cartoon form..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachi_%26_Ssipak
Fantastic. Now our mud pies will come out hot! Yum, yum.
This is how the Cylons started out!
Actually, many nutrients are only absorbed if they have a particular charge. Much of "chemistry" is electrical under the hood...