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Potato-Powered Batteries Debut

MojoKid writes "Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has just introduced what it's calling 'solid organic electric battery based upon treated potatoes.' In short, it's a potato-powered battery, and it's as real as you're hoping it is. The simple, sustainable, robust device can potentially provide an immediate inexpensive solution to electricity needs in parts of the world lacking electrical infrastructure. Researchers at the Hebrew University discovered that the enhanced salt bridge capability of treated potato tubers can generate electricity through means readily available in developing nations."

13 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Re:food by DWMorse · · Score: 3, Funny

    Or they could just eat them...

    With NEW Shockingly Great Taste!

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    There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
  2. Chips? by shikaisi · · Score: 4, Funny

    So does this mean we will be able to have our chips powered by chips?

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    No left turn unstoned.
  3. What's that you say, Senator Stevens? by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's not an electrical grid, it's just a series of tubers.

  4. Re:Puff piece by Cryacin · · Score: 4, Funny

    But it contains electrolytes!

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    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
  5. Re:Puff piece by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, if we're going to have stories about potato batteries, this is one is sweet. The guy took 500 potatoes, stuck them in the back of a u-haul, and used it to power a small sound system.

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    Qxe4
  6. Re:food by cosm · · Score: 4, Funny

    Or they could just eat them...

    +1 Insightful. If I am a 3rd world citizen, lacking food or means to purchase it, and I have some potatoes, and I am hungry and I have a flashlight or radio or whatever that needs juice, well, they are going to remain without power as I gobble down. Now if it was something like a person with an iPad, even if they are starving and impoverished, I think they would choose differently due to reality distortion fields. How they got the iPad I don't know, that is an exercise for the reader, and that reality distortion field is strong enough these days that there should be some sort of energy harvester for it in the works anyways.

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    'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
  7. Re:Puff piece by biryokumaru · · Score: 4, Funny

    It has what plants crave?

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    When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
  8. Re:food by Cylix · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm currently seeking a grant to build a reactor based around Steve Jobs.

    Harvesting the power of the distortion field is paramount to ending the world's oil addiction. Unfortunately, as he grows old we will find a new source to power the reactor. The boys in the lab have cooked up a cocktail of pheromones, viagra, ginseng and amphetamines to ensure we have a healthy stock of potential reactor rods.

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    "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
  9. Re:Puff piece by value_added · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yep... 1.6 billion people are going to boil potatoes and place them between sheets of copper and zinc in order to light an LED

    No, but I'd suggest that a few routinely go to similar lengths to do something better.

    Cheers. ;-)

  10. Re:Israel and batteries by bennomatic · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think that might be a Godwinberg. Or Goldwin. Or?

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    The CB App. What's your 20?
  11. Technology dependence by sonofepson · · Score: 2, Funny

    Great, now the potato famine can cause blackouts too.

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    If Godzilla did not exist, man would have had to create him.
  12. Re:Puff piece by afidel · · Score: 3, Funny

    We've been mining copper and zinc for millennia, I don't think we are going to run out tomorrow.

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    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  13. Re:food by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    They could use chicken treadmills. Do chickens eat mango? If so, two problems solved.