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Microbes Produce Power As They Clean Nuclear Waste
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) have isolated and explained the phenomenon that causes microbes to generate electricity while cleaning up nuclear waste. The team is hoping to use their findings to create a microbial fuel cell that is capable of generating renewable energy while it cleans up environments exposed to nuclear waste. The bacteria the team studied is a kind of geobacter that is covered in a coat of tiny, natural nanowires that protect the bacteria from the toxic materials. While completing the complex task of stabilizing radioactive spills, the bacteria simultaneously creates energy that can be harnessed and used as a zero-emissions power supply."
Before anyone has a knee-jerk reaction and says that it is bad because it's about nuclear power and genetically modified life forms, let me summarise for you the most important result of this research in the most straightforward way possible:
nuclear energy + genetic engineering + nanoparticles = clean planet
Now, if those so called environmentalist are really fighting for cleaner planet and healthy energy then they must support this technology. If they oppose it, then it is a clear proof that their motivations are not as clear as they wish us to believe. Anyone who is truly concerned about our environment must admit that there is no cleaner energy source then nuclear and using genetically modified microbes to clean up the nuclear waste is the last nail to the coffin of the opposition to the use of nuclear energy. I don't care about CO2 because this is what plants are breathing, and quite frankly I'd prefer having a little bit warmer climate, but I do care about polution and using clean, not necessarily renewable, energy sources is the answer to that problem.
This is an example of great research. I am proud that it was all done by a team of female researchers.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
Now if we can only find a bacterium that converts sunlight into nuclear waste we'll have near infinite clean energy!
So, feeding microbes mutagenic nuclear waste. What could possibly go wrong?
The rain was getting harder. It was now precisely 11:51 PM, and Mark was into his fifth beer. He was feeling pretty invincible but the night was young, and he intended to get wasted before it was all over. He had put in a rough week at work and he deserved it.
He lit another cigarette. He and his drinkin' buddies sat in their traditional circle, in Ian's apartment. The talk wandered from sex to work, back to sex, to basketball, finally settling on sex. Mark had eaten lunch at Taco Bell, and had drunk four cups of coffee between lunchtime and quitting. In addition, the beers were beginning to settle in. And now, at 11:51 PM, Mark had to take a shit. He stood up. "Shit break," he announced. It was customary among this group to make such an announcement.
Mark walked to the bathroom. As he locked the door behind him, thunder boomed. It was storming out there.
He pulled his pants down and sat on the toilet. Ian's bathroom was a mess. He counted five empty toilet paper rolls, two paperbacks, and yesterday's newspaper. His friends laughed about something. The lights flickered for a moment, and the pre-shit growl came from within. He could feel the product lined up inside him for disposal. Then, he began to push.
Plop. The first piece fell to the water. Then some movement, and Mark felt the main feature inside him, the mother lode. He grunted softly as he squeezed it out. It crackled past his sphincter, and splashed neatly into the bowl.
Then another one queued up, and came out. It was almost as big as its predecessor. Mark would have well-purged bowels tonight, he realized with a smirk. He heard thunder again, closer this time.
Another one? Jeez, he thought. When was my last shit? It ventured forth, Mark's muscles helping it out. It was the biggest one so far. The shit's passage through his anus, that rarest mix of pain and pleasure, was longer than any he could remember. Ahhhh...the stout log advanced with conviction. This was definitely going to be his finest creation; this was a huge one. Still grinning, he wondered if Ian had a camera.
He pushed. Peering between his legs, past his genitals, he saw that it had reached the water. This was like seeing the longest freight train ever. Damn, it was a wide one. And it was still attached! And there was more! He pushed more, harder. It kept coming. He couldn't even feel the end of this one yet; soon it was bending, folding on itself like a sundae topping. Mark stopped pushing and caught his breath. He was sweating; he realized that however long this piece of shit was, it wasn't nearly all the way out yet. He still couldn't feel the end.
He pushed, he strained, it kept coming. His intestines couldn't be that damn long, but this shit just wouldn't quit. In fact, he was feeling the diarrhoeal urgency of *having* to shit. He dutifully answered nature's call, and pushed harder. His efforts were rewarded with more shit. His sphincter was too strained to even pinch the loaf off. It was whole and complete.
He couldn't feel the end.
Fear now came to Mark. He flushed the toilet to make room for more. Even as the bowl refilled, the cramps rose up, and he pushed. Within seconds, the shit extended from his anus to bottom of the bowl. The harder he pushed, the more he had to shit. And it was getting worse. He scarcely had time to catch his breath; his face was quite red as he grunted and struggled to keep up. The shit seemed endless. He looked between his legs again, and gasped as he saw that the bowl was fully a quarter filled with his product, the water dangerously high. The tank wasn't even done filling, but he flushed again. Unfortunately, the plumbing was unable to handle the volume of feces, and the toilet backed up. Mark jumped when the cold water touched his buttocks.
It was now 11:57. Thunder roared outside as water and shit particles flowed onto the tile.
Mark's pants were bunched about his ankles, and he was in pain. The shit advanced relentlessly as he stumbled into the bathtub. He was almost panicking now, and
How is this renewable energy??? is there a constant influx of nuclear waste?? oh yes there is... sorry, my bad
Note that what is going on is essentially chemical, not nuclear. That is, the bacteria are getting energy out by chemical processes of elements that happen to be radioactive. If one had a sample of pure uranium 238 (which is radioactive but only a tiny bit so, with a very very long halflife) these bacteria would act identically. And if one could magically make uranium not radioactive the behavior of these bacteria would not change at all.
The Inhabitat article adds nothing to the MSU article. Why is it in the OP?
This is slashdot, and using a topic to pursue your own agenda is part of what makes this a shitty experience.
What The F?
I'm always impressed by the quality of the writing in these sorts of things. It's honestly inspiring because I know anyone who would seemingly waste such talent on anonymous shit stories must find better outlets for their abilities. I hope you are creating something that makes the world a better place, you can.
Holy Crap -- 42 x 10
This would have almost fitted into the beginning of a "Six Feet Under" episode.
Reminds me of the movie Matrix in which human were generating energy for the machines..We may not be far from there now :)
Hooking up wires to millions of tiny bacteria is going to take a lot of time.
just add nuclear waste
GiTS fans know what I'm talking about.
I guess it's time to nuke mars and infect the tires of the next rover with these things.
No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!
I kind of liked the setting of the story being a,(wait for it), "dark and stormy night..."
FTFA, “Our findings clearly identify nanowires as being the primary catalyst for uranium reduction.They are essentially performing nature’s version of electroplating with uranium, effectively immobilizing the radioactive material and preventing it from leaching into groundwater,”
The biggest bleeding hemorrhoid of New Clear Power is the Radio Waste. Filter the radio active part away from the trash, and the trash can recycled. The Radio Active Waste part can then be recombined into something else that is useful. I was thinking of expensive blast furnaces with a combination of fractionating columns. But if some type of Bacteria can do the job, all be it one atom at a time, then my giant blast furnace patent could be in real jeopardy. So this now begs the question, how could one test it? Maybe a road trip to Chernobyl?
I have modpoints. I want to mod you up for an artful dissonance. But this work is worth far more than that, so instead I'll come here in my right nym and say: "recommended" because I think that is worth more. It's disgusting, vile, and recommended. Art like this is never off-topic. But now I need a shower to feel clean.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Now if only people would shoot themselves in their foot, and be sacrificial fodder for the greater good, we could force them to spend exorbitant amounts of their dollars into making nanowires, improved syntheic bacteria based on the ones the researchers used.
Why aren't anyone shooting their own foot for the greater good?!! People are so selfish.
BTW I won't shoot my own foot because I genuinely need it. So don't blame me. There are people who can afford to shoot themselves in the foot. Ask them to pay for it. Or better, let us force them to pay for it.
The aim here is only to chemically transform the uranium molecule, to a form where it's unable to bind to water.
So it only stops quick spreading.
- it does not transform(transmute) the U. atom
- it does not remove the radioactivity
- it does not remove or concentrate the already spread uranium : you cannot cleat it
- the effect is (i suppose, chimists may confirm) only temporary. U. needs millions of years to loose radioactivity
Furthermore, while U. is a big problem around old uranium mines (steriles), the biggest problem is waste that comes out from nuclear reactors, which includes nearly all elements of the mendeleiev table, in various radioactive forms. That is not possible to clean up.
I also have modpoints and would also mod you artfully dissonant. Send it to Hustler Magazine with an SASE and see if they buy it. And work on your standup routine.
Uranium generally isn't a problem in radioactive spills or contamination. It's not particularly biotoxic as a metal or oxide and with very long half-lives for the two most common isotopes (U-235's half-life is 700 million years and for U-238 it's 4.5 billion years) it's not even very radioactive by itself. Most uranium ore bodies contain a lot of decay products like radium, thorium, polonium etc. which have built up over millions or billions of years and these are exposed to the wider environment when the uranium ore is mined and refined. A method of concentrating and sequestering such short-halflife isotopes from mine tailings would be more useful than this biological method which only, it seems, concentrates uranium. Right now the Japanese would really like a variant that, say, concentrated cesium in a similar manner as Cs-134 and Cs-137 are 99.9% of the contamination problem in the area around Fukushima.
It might be this particular form of the bacteria could be better used to extract uranium from lesser ore bodies or even seawater where it is present in quantities of about 3 tonnes per cubic kilometre but right now and for the next fifty years or more uranium ore is plentiful enough that the costs of such marginal operations would outweigh the value of uranium metal (currently trading on world markets for 60 dollars a kilo) extracted by them.
Of course uranium has a scary reputation -- see this news report for an example. Further comments suggest the uranium in question was 500 milligrammes of yellowcake in a sealed vial, a gift from a friend studying chem eng who had prepared it from ore found in New Mexico (just lying about out in the open! Horrors!).
1. Wacky new source of power reported that will POWER ALL THE THINGS!
2. Never heard about again
3. "What ever happened to that what's it called? The thing? The- ah, never mind..."
Reguera has filed patents to build on her research, which could lead to the development of microbial fuel cells capable of generating electricity while cleaning up after environmental disasters.
Way to speed up the process of building tools to protect people from disasters!
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
This is excellent research. I noticed in the picture of the MSU research team that they're all women. I hope they can inspire more women to join the scientific research community. We need more people in it, and women are the majority of people. Without getting closer to 50:50 gender parity, we're losing the talent and hard work of a large fraction of the people pool we need to draw from. More role models will get more women to follow suit, just as they do for men.
--
make install -not war
Could this explain the "Cold Fusion" results?
Not entirely sure I understand it, but does this mean they can clean up depleted uranium/ nuclear waste? That would be awesome.
The scientific inaccuracies in the summation and the article are the result of OP posting a science article from an design fetishist SEO content farm site. Hard to get the science right when you are masturbating to "100 Danish Pendant Lamps"...
We must make sure we keep this out of enemy hands. The Daleks could reclaim their planet Skaro from the Thals with this technology.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
nuff said!
http://geobacter.org/
Derek Lovely, the guy who found this bug, lab's website.
Proof that we're living in The Future. Ghost in the Shell fans will recognize the Japanese Miracle in action. The '30s should be an interesting decade...
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness
Hoping good results coming out.