Promising Alternative Power - PEE!

IO9 is so good at finding such promising articles! Case in point?

A new company, named appropriately enough - Youtricity, is making the case for fuel cells as an answer to power hungry (urp....) areas. However the standard fuel cell often uses platinum in its' membrane and so is expensive, plus they often use fuels that are explosive and dangerous to handle, like hydrogen or methanol gas.

Now the company Carbamide Power System has developed a system that uses far less expensive materials in manufacture and a much safer fuel. Urine - that's right good ole h2 flow. Well to be honest the system in fact uses urea, which is a component of human and animal urine. Now urea is mass produced already as an industrial fertilizer, so initially the system could run on that, but the manufacture states that urine can be used just as easily and the output is electricity and clean drinking water...(urp...my drinking water? uhhhhh no...that's a little too first hand for me...I want a couple more steps in the process)

But knowing that in some areas the major pollutant is urine, if there was an economic incentive to collect and recycle the fluid sounds like a good idea. But I am just thinking out loud so to speak.

Here is the IO9 article

Paper Batteries a very real possibility

Consider this: Paper cell-phones or paper lap-top computers. Electronic paper that doesn't require any batteries or solar cells. Or batteries a mere fraction the weight and size of current technology, but still able to produce enough power to meet the needs of an electric vehicle but have far greater range.

Scientists at Stanford University in California report that regular paper could easily be turned into a super battery.

From the Yahoo news article sent in by Tim Sayill (click link for complete story)

• ...they have successfully turned paper coated with ink made of silver and carbon nanomaterials into a "paper battery" that holds promise for new types of lightweight, high-performance energy storage.

Researchers discover inexpensive method for spliting H2O

Shaun Saunders sends in a really exciting article concerning one of the major drawbacks to low cost solar and fuel cell power generation and storage. Up until now, the cost of storing the energy from the sun or splitting water molecules has been prohibitive. Thus pushing the tech into fringe markets. Now researchers from MIT have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy. Here is an excerpt from the article explaining the process:

• The key component in ... (the) new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

• Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

Though still in it's early stages, the implications are clear. Once implemented, cheap production of oxygen and hydrogen gases will lead to power generation at extremely lower cost which at the very least will reduce our dependence of foreign fuel supplies. Another benefit will be a much smaller carbon footprint.

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Electric fields could give subs 'fish-like' sense

Robotic and uncrewed submersibles could operate more effectively by mimicking the way some fish probe their surroundings with electric fields. Many marine and freshwater fish can sense electric fields, but some also generate their own weak fields over short ranges to help navigate, identify objects, and even communicate with other fish. Studying the biomechanics of these "weakly electric fish", researchers have now come up with an artificial electric-field sensing system. They say it could ultimately give robot submersibles the same additional sensory capabilities. The electro-location system consists of two field-emitting electrodes and two voltage-sensing electrodes. If the electric field is not disturbed by anything in the water, the two pairs of sensor electrodes should provide identical readings. But if something is placed within a few centimetres of the sensors, the field is disturbed and causes a variance in the sensor readings.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Belkin's Pitstop charging table

Belkin's Pitstop charging table lets you ditch those cables. By simply placing your rechargeable item on the table top, your electronic do dad gets a much needed top off - sans wires and wall warts. How is this black magic accomplished you ask? Well by simple induction I respond, knowingly. And there is the 10 thousand dollar word - induction. Anyone familiar with electronics (ahem, like yours truly) knows that if you cause current to flow through a conductor, you can start another current flowing in any conductor that lies near the original conductor. Now to totally confuse, you don't need an original conductor or original current...you can use say a - magnet. That's how electric motors and generators do their trick. But...back to the Pitstop - Think of how radio works - you have someone playing music at a station, someone takes that sound and with the help of wires and magnets, puts that signal on the station's long wire...better known as an antenna. Now in your car, you have another long wire, (the car antenna) and through it you receive the signal. Now what really happens is that the station induces a current on the car antenna that the radio uses to make audio signals. So how does this apply to your current starved mp3 player? well, say it has a very long wire wrapped up inside the case instead of a charger? You lay it on the Pitstop's table top that is acting something like a radio station. By being close by, your player can pick up the signal that the Pitstop is putting out. Your player turns that signal into simple current that can recharge the batteries in the player. This technology is far from new. Ever since there has been a transformer (wall wart or like that big round thing hanging off the telephone pole that has wires running from it to your house) there has been induction. This is just a very clever utilization. No wires to chafe, no transformer to heat up or short out and no plugs to wear out.