Technology Trends

No, it’s not a typo. American biologists have discovered that a common corn fungus is able to blast its spores with an acceleration equivalent to 870,000g (1g is the acceleration caused by Earth’s gravity). According to this Duke University news release, “Corn fungus is nature’s master blaster,” this acceleration breaks the previous natural record by two orders of magnitude. And these spores also travel much faster than rifle bullets, but they don’t go very far, stopping after only 5 millimeters. Is this discovery important for us? Probably not, but this is another story for the fungus. Moving away from the parent, the spores can get into air currents and acquire their independence. Read more…

Let’s start with a picture. The illustration below describes the launching devices of three different organisms (Credit: Steven Vogel).

The fungus Pilobolus is shown with the sporangium on top of the subsporangial swelling just before it shoots upward on a jet of cell sap. Sphaerobolus appears just before and just after a global mass of spores gets sent aloft by eversion of the floor of the cup. The seed Ruellia has been caught just before the end of launch, with each seed propelled upward by motion of the ejaculator beneath it.

Now, why are biologists studying such a phenomenon? Here is the explanation from the Duke University news release — obviously not written in plain English.

The purpose of the study that revealed the fungus’s extraordinary launch capabilities was to better understand the biological mechanism behind the fungal supergun.

Basically, the gun is powered by the buildup of pressure inside the spore-containing fungal fruiting body, called the perithecium, due to the ability of sap to create an osmotic pressure. Such pressure is due to water flowing across a membrane into the perithecium as it tries to equalize the concentration of a salt solution inside the chamber. In the case of the fungus, at question was whether the sugar mannitol or potassium ions were responsible for the osmotic pressure that generated the propulsive force.

The researchers — Frances Trail and Iffa Gaffoor of Michigan State University, and Steven Vogel of Duke University have published their findings in the scientific journal Fungal Genetics and Biology (Volume 42, Issue 6, Pages 528-533, June 2005). Here is a link to the abstract of this paper named “Ejection mechanics and trajectory of the ascospores of Gibberella zeae (anamorph Fuarium graminearum).”

One of the researchers, Steven Vogel, has recently written another paper on the subject, which has been accepted by the Journal of Biosciences, a quarterly journal published by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore. Here is a link to the full paper named “Living in a physical world: III. Getting up to speed” (PDF format, 10 pages, 278 KB). This article contains a table giving the accelerations for a large variety of biological projectiles. The image above comes from this paper.

And here is Vogel’s conclusion about the Gibberella zeae, the nature’s most powerful known cannoneer.

“An obvious question is why the fungus even bothers. Given the short range of its spores, why bother accelerating to eighty miles per hour to go a mere five millimeters?,” said Vogel. “Since there is almost no air movement at the surface where the spore grows, the real object of the launch is to get the spore even a little ways from the parent, so that it can get into air currents, which will really give the spore some range.”

It seems than even for fungus, kids need to run away from their parents…

Sources: Duke University news release, via EurekAlert!, July 25, 2005; and various web sites

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Like every year, this is the season for the Shell Eco-Marathon annual fuel-economy competition. Last week, the hydrogen-powered Swiss PAC-Car II broke a new record, using 1.02 gram of hydrogen to finish the race. This is the equivalent of 5,385 kilometers per liter of gasoline. For users of other units, this translates to a whopping 15,210 miles per British gallon or 12,670 miles per U.S. gallon. And this week, the British Ech2o car will attempt to break this record. Its designers say that this car, also hydrogen-powered, “can travel on less electricity than it takes to power a light bulb.” It will be driven by a 13-year old experienced go-kart driver.” Read more…

Let’s start with the PAC-Car II, designed at ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich). After breaking the world record for fuel efficiency, ETH Zürich published this news release on June 28, 2005.

ETH Zurich set itself a goal to construct a vehicle that used as little fuel as possible and provided the highest possible fuel efficiency. So they gave the so-called PAC-Car a fuel cell that produces electrical energy from hydrogen and drives two electric motors. The only “emission” from PAC-Car is pure water. The car is lightweight, weighing in at only about 30 kilograms.

And, PAC-Car has now achieved its goal: it finished the course at the Shell Eco-Marathon taking place on the Michelin test track at Ladoux, France, using only 1.02 grams of hydrogen. This converts to about 5385 kilometres per litre of petrol, a new world record in economical fuel consumption. This means that PAC-Car would only use eight litres to drive around the globe.

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Below is an image of the PAC-Car II in Zürich on May 10, 2005 (Credit: ETH Zürich). And here is a link to a larger version (2.37 MB).

And this is a picture of the PAC-Car II during the Shell Eco-marathon in Nogaro on May 21, 2005 (Credit: ETH Zürich) with a link to a larger version (418 KB).

You’ll find tons of other photographs in the different galleries available from this page.

And for more information, please visit this technical section.

The following paragraphs come from the Aerodynamics page.

PAC-Car II is equipped with 3 wheels; the single rear wheel is powered and steered, and the front wheels have a camber angle of -8°.

This solution allows the reduction of the frontal surface area because the room needed to steer the wheels is not needed. Some experiments on a test bench have shown that this camber angle does not provide too much rolling resistance.

[Note: for those of you not familiar with the notion of "camber," here is an explanation provided by the Ford Motor Company in this glossary: "Camber is the relative tilt of the wheels, usually slightly inward at the top edge, as viewed from the front of the vehicle. Camber is set to optimize handling and tire wear Front and rear wheels must also be aligned with respect to each other."]

You’ll find also more details about the fuel cell system on the Powertrain and Control page.

The fuel cell, a by-product of the PowerPac project, is of the PEM type (Proton Exchange Membrane) and benefits from an embedded auto humidifying area specially designed by PSI. The stack efficiency is exceptional, close to 70%.

Now, let’s move to the British challenger, described by CNN on July 5, 2005, in a short article, “Eco-car more efficient than light bulb.”

The Ech2o car is built by the BOC Group, a British gas firm, which issued a news release on July 4, 2005.

The BOC Ech2o has been designed with a simple goal to demonstrate fuel efficiency. But unlike most other eco-marathon vehicles that run on petrol or diesel, the BOC Ech2o’s driving force comes from electricity, created in a hydrogen fuel cell.

The car could travel around the world on less than the equivalent of two gallons of petrol, using 25 watts — a fraction of the power a light bulb uses.

It could also be the most efficient vehicle ever to move on wheels and, as its only emission is water, the car heralds a new age of clean virtually silent road travel, according to experts.

And why did the company choose such a young driver to try to break this fuel efficiency world record?

The BOC Ech2o car, driven by Jack Dex, 13, of Southam College, Warwickshire, will attempt to break the world fuel efficiency record of over 10,000 miles per gallon next week, during the Shell Eco Marathon at Rockingham Raceway in the Midlands.

The youngster was chosen because he is small and light enough to control the vehicle, without weighing it down — and because of his experience as a junior TKM Kart driver.

Will he break the record? Check the news near the end of the week.

Sources: Various news releases and web sites

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At Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), researchers are using new materials to build new and more efficient batteries to put in the vests that will wear next-generation soldiers. For example, the future Army’s Power Vest will use lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries which will deliver almost twice energy as current Li-ion ones. But Argonne scientists are also developing implantable batteries. These rechargeable batteries, which are 100 times smaller than a standard AA battery, can power implantable microstimulator systems designed to help patients with neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, or muscular impairments. These batteries are currently under evaluation by industrial partners and should soon be available. Read more…

The ANL news release is almost written in PR lingo, so you’ll find below only short excerpts of it. Let’s start with the body batteries.

Below is a picture of “the world’s smallest cylindrical, rechargeable battery ever made. It is 100 times smaller than a standard AA battery.” (Credit: ANL)

With research partners Quallion LLC and the University of Wisconsin, Argonne developed the battery chemistry for a tiny rechargeable battery — the smallest cylindrical polymer rechargeable battery ever made. The battery is 100 times smaller than a standard AA battery, and powers an implantable microstimulator system designed to help patients with neurological disorders and muscular impairments, such as stroke, Parkinson’s disease and urinary incontinence.

These microstimulator systems would be implanted near nerves, where they emit electrical micropulses that stimulate nearby muscles and nerves. Batteries previously used for medical devices are large, have short lives and are not rechargeable.

Quallion is already selling implantable batteries and here are its I SERIES Specifications.

Now, let’s look at the wearable batteries designed for the Army at ANL’s Chemical Engineering Division known as CMT.

The Army’s Power Vest requires almost double the best energy density currently available and safe, stable operation at varying temperatures. Some of CMT’s patented electrode materials and one of its electrolyte systems are being adapted for the Power Vest.

Compared to conventional materials, Argonne’s new cathode material extends the useable capacity from 150 milliampere-hours per gram to 260. When combined with Argonne’s new process for making spherical dense cathode particles, the combination could provide a 40 percent increase in available energy from the same size battery.

If you’re interested by these developments of new batteries at ANL, you should check this page about their lithium battery technology patents.

Sources: Evelyn Brown, Argonne National Laboratory news release, June 24, 2005; and various web sites

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What would happen if all U.S. current vehicles — powered by fossil fuels — were converted to hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles? In this article, Nature writes that a very detailed study from Stanford University reveals that up to 6,400 lives could be saved each year. Besides saving lives, this also may significantly improve air quality, health, and climate. After looking at several ways to produce hydrogen, the scientists have concluded that wind is the most promising means of generating hydrogen. It’s even cheaper if some hidden costs to produce gasoline are taken into account: gasoline’s true cost in March 2005, for example, was $2.35 to $3.99 per gallon, which exceeds the estimated mean cost of hydrogen from wind ($2.16 equivalent per gallon of gasoline). Now the researchers are calling for an ‘Apollo Program’ for hydrogen energy. Read more…

Let’s start with some short excerpts from the Nature article.

If all the nation’s vehicles were powered by hydrogen fuel cells rather than fossil fuels, the drop in pollutants that cause asthma, respiratory problems and other potentially life-threatening conditions could reduce deaths by over 6,000 a year. So says a study in Science conducted by Mark Jacobson and colleagues at Stanford University, California.

The work challenges a common objection to working towards a ‘hydrogen economy’, in which hydrogen replaces oil as the main fuel source. Many people argue that because hydrogen will probably be generated by burning fossil fuels, a hydrogen system is no better for our planet than oil. Both produce the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, although at different points in the cycle of fuel production and use.

However, the problem with the internal combustion engine is not just its carbon dioxide emissions. It also produces poisonous carbon monoxide, smog-inducing nitrogen oxides, and ozone, an eye and respiratory irritant. Worst of all, it creates microscopic soot particles that cause a host of health risks and affect climate.

The research work has been published by Science on June 24, 2005 under the name “Cleaning the Air and Improving Health with Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicles.” Here is a link to the abstract.

Converting all U.S. onroad vehicles to hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (HFCVs) may improve air quality, health, and climate significantly, whether the hydrogen is produced by steam reforming of natural gas, wind electrolysis, or coal gasification. Most benefits would result from eliminating current vehicle exhaust. Wind and natural gas HFCVs offer the greatest potential health benefits and could save 3700 to 6400 U.S. lives annually. Wind HFCVs should benefit climate most. An all-HFCV fleet would hardly affect tropospheric water vapor concentrations. Conversion to coal HFCVs may improve health but would damage climate more than fossil/electric hybrids. The real cost of hydrogen from wind electrolysis may be below that of U.S. gasoline.

Jacobson has put a copy of the Science article on Stanford’s servers. Here is a link to the article (PDF format, 5 pages, 462 KB).

This research work was also commented by the Stanford Report in this article where Jacobson says that an ‘Apollo Program’ for hydrogen energy is needed.

The Science study compared emissions that would be produced in five cases — if all vehicles on the road were powered by 1) conventional internal-combustion engines, 2) a combination of electricity and internal combustion of gasoline, as in hybrid vehicles, 3) hydrogen generated from wind electrolysis, 4) hydrogen generated from natural gas and 5) hydrogen generated from coal gasification.

After concluding that wind is the most promising means of generating hydrogen, the study compares the cost of a gallon of gasoline with that of a gallon of hydrogen generated by wind electrolysis.

The cost of making hydrogen from wind is $1.12 to $3.20 per gallon of gasoline or diesel equivalent ($3 to $7.40 per kilogram of molecular hydrogen)—on par with the current price of gas. But gasoline has a hidden cost of 29 cents to $ 1.80 per gallon in societal costs such as reduced health, lost productivity, hospitalization and death, as well as cleanup of polluted sites. So gasoline’s true cost in March 2005, for example, was $2.35 to $3.99 per gallon, which exceeds the estimated mean cost of hydrogen from wind ($2.16 equivalent per gallon of gasoline).

Jacobson calls for a two-step plan, generating electricity from wind and producing hydrogen using wind-generated electricity.

While wind subsidies are on the order of $100 million per year, Jacobson said, other energy sources hog subsidies of $15 to $20 billion. He advocates supporting the infrastructure needed for wind production of hydrogen to a level similar to the $20 billion recently proposed for a new natural gas pipeline from the continental United States to Alaska.

What do you think? Will Jacobson’s ‘Apollo Program’ be ever launched? Please post your thoughts below.

Sources: Philip Ball, Nature, June 23, 2005; and various web sites

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Imagine a gun sending bullets at 34 kilometers per second, faster than Earth moves through space. This is the new speed record recently broken by the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). With this machine, Sandia researchers have “accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second.” But not for long: their bullets are very small aluminum plates — only 30 mm by 15 mm in cross-section, and 850 microns thick. And the “bullets” don’t go very far. They can strike their targets after only five millimeters, but their impacts create incredible shock waves, reaching up to 15 million times the atmospheric pressure. Among other things, the researchers hope that their machine will help them to stabilize the U.S. nuclear stockpile without having to explode a nuclear weapon or to better understand what’s inside Saturn and Jupiter. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs of the SNL news release.

Sandia National Labs has accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second.

The speed of the thrust was a new record for Sandia’s Z Machine — sometimes referred to as the fastest gun in the West. Actually the fastest in the world, it is now able to propel small plates at 34 kilometers a second, faster than the 30 km/sec that Earth travels through space in its orbit about the sun, 50 times faster than a rifle bullet, and three times the velocity needed to escape Earth’s gravitational field.

This spectacular picture shows the “arcs and sparks” produced during the Z machine shootings (Credit: Sandia National Laboratories). And here is a link to a larger version (2.52 MB).

The picture above shows Marcus Knudson, Sandia researcher and lead scientist for this project, with “the Z insert that sends flyer plates hurling at phenomenal speeds” (Credit: Randy Montoya/Sandia National Laboratories). And here is a link to a much larger version (710 KB).

Here is some more technical information.

The plates are small — only 30 mm by 15 mm in cross-section, and 850 microns thick. The trick in accelerating the fragile aluminum plates at 10-to-the-10th Gs (force of Earth’s gravity) without vaporizing them lies in the finer control now achievable of the magnetic field pulse driving the flight.

The arrival of energy at the target is staggered over three hundred nanoseconds, so that the amperage arrives less like a brick wall that would vaporize the plate and more in controllable increments.

All these numbers are impressive, but what can we expect from such a system? Here is the SNL answer.

The immediate purpose of these very rapid flights is to help understand the extreme conditions found within the interiors of the giant planets Saturn and Jupiter, hasten the achievement of virtually unlimited energy through peacetime atomic fusion, and provide more information about the condition of the U.S. nuclear stockpile without having to explode a nuclear weapon.

As I’m not a nuclear physicist, I wouldn’t have immediately thought of these possible usages. But after all, they’re the specialists.

And they still have other tricks in their bags. They want to achieve plate velocities of 45 to 50 kilometers per second within a year.

Sources: Sandia National Laboratories news release, via EurekAlert!, June 7, 2005; and SNL website

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• Nuclear
  
  
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The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of the largest genomics data centers in the world. In “The Hum and the Genome,” the Scientist writes about the IT infrastructure needed to handle the avalanche of data that researchers have to analyze. With its 2,000 processors and its 300 terabytes of storage, the data center uses today about 0.75 megawatts (MW) of power at a cost of €140,000 per year (about $170K). But the data center will need more than a petabyte of storage within three years, and its yearly electricity bill will reach €500,000 (more than $600K) for about 1.4 MW, enough to power more than a thousand homes. Read more…

Below is a small diagram showing the current IT infrastructure of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, used by the Human Genome Project (Credit: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute).

Here is a link to a larger version of this chart.

Now, let’s look at this IT infrastructure in detail.

• Computers




• Today: The datacenter hosts about 2,000 Alpha processors, originally designed by Digital Equipment (DEC), before its acquisition by Compaq, and later by Hewlett-Packard (HP).


• Tomorrow: The Sanger Institute is looking at cheaper solutions, especially now that HP has officially stopped any development on the Alpha front.


• Storage




• Today: Three different computer rooms have a total capacity of about 300 terabytes.


• Tomorrow: The IT management forecasts about a petabyte within three years — at least.


• Databases




• Today: There are about 40 different databases, and only two of them are in the 50 terabytes area.


• Tomorrow: One of the databases, the Trace sequence archive currently contains about 700 million entries, and it doubles every 10 months.


• Power bills




• Today: The current equipment needs about 0.75 megawatts for a cost of €140,000 per year (about $170K).


• Tomorrow: The new setup will need about 1.4 megawatts, which will raise the yearly bill to about €500,000 (about $615K today).

The supercomputer vendors can say all they want about diminishing costs. But they almost never talk about the power bills…

Sources: Stuart Blackman, The Scientist, Volume 19, Issue 11, Page 15, June 6, 2005; and various websites

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Making diesel-like liquid from carbohydrates found in plants has been done before by fermenting glucose into ethanol added to gasoline. But this process was inefficient and expensive because the ethanol needed to be separated from water at the end of the fermentation process. Now, a team of chemists at University of Wisconsin-Madison has found a new way to create green diesel from plants which avoids this costly separating phase. Nature adds that this fuel born from carbohydrates could be clean and easy. And this plant-derived fuel can use existing infrastructures for distribution, which is not the case for hydrogen. But don’t rush to your gas station today. Even if this new way to produce green diesel is promising, there are still some challenges to overcome before it becomes commercially available. Read more…

Here is a short description of this new process, provided by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering researchers have discovered a new way to make a diesel-like liquid fuel from carbohydrates commonly found in plants.

Professor James Dumesic and colleagues [have built] a four-phase catalytic reactor in which corn and other biomass-derived carbohydrates can be converted to sulfur-free liquid alkanes resulting in an ideal additive for diesel transportation fuel.

Nature gives additional details.

A magnesium-based catalyst then knits these molecules together to create the longer carbon chains required for diesel fuel. Adding more pressurized hydrogen, and removing any remaining oxygen atoms with a platinum catalyst, delivers the finished fuel.

Below is a diagram showing the four-phase catalytic processing (Credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering).

This other diagram illustrates the conversion of carbohydrates to a diesel fuel additive (Credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering).

Both of these images come from the headlines news for June 2, 2005 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering.

According to the University, this process is very energy-efficient compared with the production of ethanol.

About 67 percent of the energy required to make ethanol is consumed in fermenting and distilling corn. As a result, ethanol production creates 1.1 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed. In the UW-Madison process, the desired alkanes spontaneously separate from water. No additional heating or distillation is required. The result is the creation of 2.2 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed in energy production.

So will we buy soon such fuels at our gas stations? Here are some answers from Nature.

If all goes according to plan, Dumesic estimates one could grow enough plants in the United States to power a significant percentage of the country’s vehicles.

The next challenge is to work out how to extract the all-important carbohydrates from plant matter. The chemists used a pure carbohydrate supply in their tests, and Dumesic says that plants may have to undergo extensive processing to remove unwanted chemicals.

The research work has been published by Science under the title “Production of Liquid Alkanes by Aqueous-Phase Processing of Biomass-Derived Carbohydrates” (Vol. 308, Issue 5727, Pages 1446-1450, June 3, 2005). Here is a link to the abstract (Free registration required).

Sources: University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering news release, June 2, 2005; Mark Peplow, Nature, June 2, 2005; and various websites

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In January 2005, a world’s premiere took place in a farm near Princeton, Minnesota. The event went largely unnoticed, except by the Princeton Union-Eagle in “Hydrogen fuel cell project at Princeton farm called world’s first.” Now, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture is celebrating the first hydrogen fuel cell powered by cow manure. The Haubenschild farm already was producing electricity from its cows, by using methane gas as the vehicle. But now, the farmers wanted to know if hydrogen fuel cells could produce enough electricity to power a farm and dubbed their effort the “cow power.” Read more…

Now, let’s go back to January 27, 2005 with the Princeton Union-Eagle.

Neither the public nor the cows likely knew why Haubenschild and two men from the University of Minnesota and a man from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture were celebrating last Friday with a cake and some champagne in a utility room on that farm.

What happened on Jan. 27, and what last Friday’s celebration was about, was that common cow manure was turned into electricity via a hydrogen fuel cell at the farm. The fuel cell stands about six foot high, is about the same length across and is at least a yard deep.

Phil Goodrich, the University of Minnesota principal investigator in the hydrogen fuel cell project at the Haubenschild farm, last Friday backed the assertion that this was a world’s first. The project was to see if running methane gas produced from cow manure into a hydrogen fuel cell could make electricity.

Now, let’s see the full process, from the cows to methane gas, and from hydeogen to electricity.

About five years ago Haubenschild and his two sons had already supplied the means of getting the methane production started at the farm. They completed a project with the help of the state to set up an anaerobic digester to turn cow manure at the farm into methane gas.

To make a long story short of how the chemical reactions take place, hydrogen that was in the methane is freed up inside the fuel cell. Hydrogen and oxygen end up on opposite sides of a series of plates coated with a proprietary 3M chemical.

Rich Huelskamp, the U of M technician handling the mechanical part of the project, explained that a voltage difference between the sides of the plates is created, causing electrons to flow. The electron flow is the electricity.

Now, do these hydrogen fuel cells produce enough electricity to power a farm? Here is the answer from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

University of Minnesota researchers have been able to run the fuel cell on biogas intermittently and are working towards running the fuel cell on biogas continually. The fuel cell is a proton electron membrane (PEM) and produces 5 kilowatts of electrical power. A fuel cell of this size is ideal for research purposes but not large enough to power the dairy or produce electricity for sale.

The farmer himself seems to disagree, according to the Princeton Union-Eagle.

Haubenschild said farmers like him can’t afford to subsidize consumers to buy energy from renewable sources by selling it for less than it cost to produce. He said it costs 5.1 cents per kilowatt hour to produce electricity from the fuel cell and Great River Energy will buy the surplus electricity from the fuel cell for four cents per KWH.

So will there be enough electricity for sale or not? Anyway, the farmers have even more ambitious projects.

Now Haubenschild is betting that perhaps the public could get interested in one of the newest waves in energy research — the hydrogen fuel cell. He even envisions selling tanks of the hydrogen fuel to gas stations where the public could buy the containers and hook them onto cars and trucks equipped with hydrogen fuel cells.

For more information about the previous innovations done at the Haubenschild Farms, you should visit this page about the Haubenschild Farms Digester, which contains links to other papers.

Finally, here is a link to Phil Goodrich’s current research about Advancing Utilization of Manure Methane Digester Electrical Generation.

Sources: Joel Stottrup, Princeton Union-Eagle, February 14, 2005; and various websites

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According to this news release from the National Science Foundation (NSF), American researchers have developed a porous-silicon diode that “convert low levels of radiation into electricity and can have useful lives spanning several decades.” The new ‘BetaBattery’ is more efficient than conventional chemical batteries and potentially cheap to manufacture. It uses a radioactive source as its fuel, the tritium, an hydrogen isotope. When the tritium releases electrons in a process called beta decay, the ‘BetaBattery’ generates electricity by absorbing these electrons. So far, the ‘BetaBattery’ doesn’t deliver as much power as chemical batteries, but it could be extremely useful to power devices which have a long life and are difficult to service, such as structural sensors in bridges and satellites. Read more…

Here is the description of the ‘BetaBattery’ concept.

Using some of the same manufacturing techniques that produce microchips, researchers have created a porous-silicon diode that may lead to improved betavoltaics. Such devices convert low levels of radiation into electricity and can have useful lives spanning several decades.

While producing as little as one-thousandth of the power of conventional chemical batteries, the new “BetaBattery” concept is more efficient and potentially less expensive than similar designs and should be easier to manufacture.

The battery’s staying power is tied to the enduring nature of its fuel, tritium, a hydrogen isotope that releases electrons in a process called beta decay. The porous-silicon semiconductors generate electricity by absorbing the electrons, just as a solar cell generates electricity by absorbing energy from incoming photons of light.

This is not the first time that a radioactive element or even the tritium is used. The real difference of this new device is not its source.

The new cell will have a unique advantage — the half-millimeter-thick silicon wafer into which researchers have etched a network of deep pores. This structure vastly increases the exposed surface area, creating a device that is 10 times more efficient than planar designs.

On the photo below, “Wei Sun of the University of Rochester holds the wafer test fixture the researchers used to test the new porous-silicon diode and its interactions with tritium gas. The diode is the dark wafer in the center of the top plate.” (Credit: University of Rochester; BetaBatt, Inc.)

You can see a larger version of this picture and other images on this page at NSF.

And what will be some applications for these future batteries?

“The initial applications will be for remote or inaccessible sensors and devices where the availability of long-life power is critical,” says Larry Gadeken of BetaBatt, [the only commercial entity involved in this research].

If the new diode proves successful when incorporated into a finished battery, it could help power such hard-to-service, long-life systems as structural sensors on bridges, climate monitoring equipment and satellites.

If you’re interested by the subject, the research work has been published by Advanced Materials on May 3, 2005 (Volume 17, Issue 10, Pages 1230-1233), under the name “A Three-Dimensional Porous Silicon p-n Diode for Betavoltaics and Photovoltaics.” Here is a link to the paper if you’re a registered user (there is no abstract).

And please note that BetaBatt, from Houston, is already selling “a quarter size battery with a 12-20 year lifespan and mission critical reliability” based on its patent number 6,774,531 which carries the name “Apparatus and method for generating electrical current from the nuclear decay process of a radioactive material.”

Sources: National Science Foundation news release, May 10, 2005; and various websites

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In a very interesting article appearing in the May issue of Technology Review, “Environmental Heresies,” Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog writes that the environmental movement should — and maybe will — reverse its opinion on several controversial subjects. He says that environmentalists should be more opened and look at different eyes to issues such as population growth, urbanization, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power. Will Brand be heard — or be anathematized by other environmentalists? Time will tell. However, you should read his arguments, even if you’re not part of a so-called ‘green’ movement. Read more…

I don’t want to summarize the whole article and here I just want to focus on nuclear energy. But before, and even I don’t want to enter a debate about genetically modified crops, here is a short — and surprising — quote of what Brand thinks about them.

GM crops are more efficient, giving higher yield on less land with less use of pesticides and herbicides. That’s why the Amish, the most technology-suspicious group in America (and the best farmers), have enthusiastically adopted GM crops.

Now, let’s look at the issues of climate change and the global warming effect caused by our appetite for energy currently mostly satisfied by burning fossil fuels. Can a catastrophe be avoided? Here are some excerpts of Brand’s thoughts.

First, what alternative sources of energy are available today?

Everything must be done to increase energy efficiency and decarbonize energy production. Kyoto accords, radical conservation in energy transmission and use, wind energy, solar energy, passive solar, hydroelectric energy, biomass, the whole gamut. But add them all up and it’s still only a fraction of enough. Massive carbon “sequestration” (extraction) from the atmosphere, perhaps via biotech, is a widely held hope, but it’s just a hope. The only technology ready to fill the gap and stop the carbon dioxide loading of the atmosphere is nuclear power.

Nuclear plants are certainly atmospherically clean, but are they safe?

Nuclear certainly has problems — accidents, waste storage, high construction costs, and the possible use of its fuel in weapons. It also has advantages besides the overwhelming one of being atmospherically clean. The industry is mature, with a half-century of experience and ever improved engineering behind it. Problematic early reactors like the ones at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl can be supplanted by new, smaller-scale, meltdown-proof reactors like the ones that use the pebble-bed design. Nuclear power plants are very high yield, with low-cost fuel.

Brand also looks at the problem of storing radioactive waste and offers an innovative solution, even if I don’t see it today as being easily implemented.

The storage of radioactive waste is a surmountable problem. Many reactors now have fields of dry-storage casks nearby. Those casks are transportable. It would be prudent to move them into well-guarded centralized locations. Many nations address the waste storage problem by reprocessing their spent fuel, but that has the side effect of producing material that can be used in weapons. One solution would be a global supplier of reactor fuel, which takes back spent fuel from customers around the world for reprocessing. That’s the kind of idea that can go from “Impractical!” to “Necessary!” in a season, depending on world events.

So is nuclear energy in our future? Maybe yes, maybe not.

Nuclear could go either way. It would take only one more Chernobyl-type event in Russia’s older reactors (all too possible, given the poor state of oversight there) to make the nuclear taboo permanent, to the great detriment of the world’s atmospheric health. Everything depends on getting new and better nuclear technology designed and built.

Finally, after reading Brand’s article and/or these excerpts about nuclear energy, do you think that environmentalists will one day embrace the idea of nuclear plants? Please post your comments below.

Sources: Stewart Brand, for Technology Review, May 2005; Wikipedia website

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Do you want to use an economical and environmentally friendly biofuel? Just grow grass. Burning grass pellets will produce an energy-efficient biofuel, according to Jerry Cherney, a professor of agriculture at Cornell University. In this news release, “Grass as Fuel,” he says “Burning grass pellets makes sense; after all, it takes 70 days to grow a crop of grass for pellets, but it takes 70 million years to make fossil fuels.” Unfortunately, there is anything like a grass political lobby in Washington, so he might not be heard. But with current oil prices, more and more people will be tempted to use cheaper — and cleaner — sources of energy. Read more…

Here is the introduction of the Cornell University news release.

Grow grass, not for fun but for fuel. Burning grass for energy has been a well-accepted technology in Europe for decades. But not in the United States.

Yet burning grass pellets as a biofuel is economical, energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and sustainable, says a Cornell University forage crop expert.

This alternative fuel easily could be produced and pelleted by farmers and burned in modified stoves built to burn wood pellets or corn, says Jerry Cherney, the E.V. Baker Professor of Agriculture. Burning grass pellets hasn’t caught on in the United States, however, Cherney says, primarily because Washington has made no effort to support the technology with subsidies or research dollars.

Why is it important for environment?

Burning grass pellets makes sense; after all, it takes 70 days to grow a crop of grass for pellets, but it takes 70 million years to make fossil fuels,” says Cherney, who notes that a grass-for-fuel crop could help supplement farmers’ incomes.

Cherney points out that grass biofuel pellets are much better for the environment because they emit up to 90 percent less greenhouse gases than oil, coal and natural gas do. Furthermore, he says, grass is perennial, does not require fertilization and can be grown on marginal farmland.

Cherney recently presented his conclusions about grass biofuel at the Greenhouse Gases & Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture and Forestry conference, held March 21-24 in Baltimore.

You can find the abstract of his talk, “Grass Bioenergy in the Northeastern USA,” on this page. Just scroll a little bit or search for Cherney on the page.

If you’re interested in this subject, here is a link to the July 2004 issue of the “Dairy & Field Crops digest” (PDF format, 12 pages, 728KB). The article “Grass Management for Forage or Biofuel?” appears on pages 7 and 8.

In this article, Cherney argues that “grass is converted to useable heat at over 80% efficiency, with an energy output:input ratio exceeding 10:1, compared to other bioenergy sources with typicalsystem energy output:input ratios around 1:1.”

The cost-effectiveness of pelletized grass as a fuel results from:

• efficient use of low cost marginal farmland for solar energy collection
  
• minimal fossil fuel input use in field production and energy conversion
  
• minimal biomass quality upgrading which limits energy loss from the feedstock
  
• efficient combustion in advanced yet modestly priced and simple to use devices
  
• replacement of expensive high-grade energyforms in space and water heating

Cherney is convincing, but it’s hard to help him while living in Paris.

Sources: Cornell University News Service, March 31, 2005; and various websites

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In a very well-documented article, Computerworld describes the current status of building automation systems (BAS) that control heat, air conditioning or lighting and how these systems are merging with traditional IT infrastructures. Computerworld writes that they’re not enough standards in this industry and asks a fundamental question: who will administer these building networks, IT or facilities managers? Take for example Yale University which wants to connect 210 campus buildings, but also wishes “to integrate the BAS with the university’s accounting system for billing and chargeback.” Imagine the security risks involved with such an approach. Read more…

Let’s start with a an assessment of the current situation.

As building automation systems (BAS) that control heat, air conditioning, lighting and other building systems get smarter, they’re converging with traditional IT infrastructures. Emerging standards are enabling data sharing between building systems as well as with other business applications, improving efficiency and real-time control over building operating costs. Information security concerns, immature standards, the reluctance of vendors to give up proprietary technologies and ignorance among IT professionals of the convergence trend are all slowing the pace of this transformation, but it’s gathering momentum.

But who will control such networks? And are there enough standards in this industry?

Open standards are just beginning to evolve and will likely break down the silos between building systems ranging from physical security to elevator controls. And the data from those systems is likely to be shared with other business applications such as the accounting system. This will allow for more-efficient buildings as applications are developed that can capitalize on newly converged data streams and real-time access to data.

[Right now,] standardization has started from the bottom up. Proprietary cabling systems in networks that link sensors and other devices to controllers on individual floors have given way in recent years to two competing, open protocols, BACnet and LonTalk, while floor controllers are migrating onto IP backbones.

Barry Haaser, executive director of LonMark International, says LonTalk and BACnet will prevail at the device level for technical and cost reasons. Others aren’t so sure. “Instead of two guys running the IT and controls networks, why not one guy? I see IP going down to the individual device,” says Anno Scholten, chief technology officer at BAS vendor Plexus Technology Ltd. in Irving, Texas.

Let’s take the example of Yale University to see how complex can be the merge between control systems and IT infrastructure.

But sharing the IP backbone raises security concerns among network administrators. Yale University is starting a project to consolidate its BAS onto an IP network that will link 210 campus buildings, and it plans to tie the BAS into a room-scheduling system that will automatically control energy usage based on room occupancy. For security reasons, Bill Daniels, manager of systems and technologies for the university’s facilities group, has created an isolated, parallel network that’s protected by firewalls and uses nonroutable IP addresses to keep data off the Internet.

Jerry Hill, director of systems engineering at Yale, says security is paramount. “We don’t want a student to hack into our building management systems just because they can,” he says.

The problem is that Daniels wants to integrate the BAS with the university’s accounting system for billing and chargeback.

One thing is sure: I wouldn’t apply for an IT security job at Yale University. Too many nightmares…

Finally, this must-read article looks at how web technologies are used in building automation systems, such as the use of encrypted XML messages via SOAP to control heat and lights at an airport gate when needed.

Source: Robert L. Mitchell, Computerworld, March 14, 2005; and various websites

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Several companies around the world are experimenting with wind-assisted ships, which would reduce fuel consumption at a time where fuel can represent up to 60 percent of the running costs of operating a ship. But another goal is to reduce pollution: the toxic emission volume of the world trade fleet is roughly equivalent to the U.S. one today. In “The new age of sail,” New Scientist describes a ship that will be partially pulled by a high-tech kite flying at an altitude of up to 500 meters where winds are more stable than at sea level. The German designers, who tested a prototype last year, estimate that such a hybrid sailing ship would see a 50 percent reduction of its fuel consumption. Danish and Japanese companies are also designing wind-assisted ships. Read more…

So let’s look at this ship — partially — pulled by a kite.

For several weeks last summer, a team of German engineers sailed back and forth across the Baltic Sea playing with a large inflatable kite. The engineers, from the Hamburg company SkySails, were testing the potential of high-tech kites to pull a ship across the ocean by hitching a ride on winds high above the waves.

But will such a ship be more efficient than today’s ships?

Last year’s trials in the Baltic, aboard an 8-metre model of a cargo vessel, were mostly carried out in unfavourable conditions of weak and variable winds. Nevertheless, they showed that the SkySails kite can generate 1 to 1.15 kilowatts for every square metre of aerofoil. “In favourable winds it would generate a lot more thrust,” says Stephan Wrage, founder of the company. The kite is designed to be retrofitted to ships of almost any size, but SkySail’s largest version, with an area of 2000 to 5000 square metres, will generate propulsive power equivalent to a large ship’s engine, he says.

And of course, this will contribute to reduce fuel operating costs.

For its part, the Danish company of naval architects Knud E. Hansen started another kind of wind-assisted ship back in 1995. You’ll find more details by reading the “Modern Windship Phase II” section on this page.

The company confirms the SkySails’s findings about fuel savings.

Where the weather/wind conditions are reasonable - e.g. on Atlantic routes - fuel savings of about 27% can be achieved. On routes where the superior internal volume capacity of the WindShip can be properly utilised, 50% fuel savings are possible.

And here is what New Scientist adds about the Danish effort.

Could this signal a sea change for sail? “It will now be profitable both environmentally and economically to build the windship,” says Anders Carlberg of Knud E. Hansen. Other new sailing ship projects are already in the works, one in Germany and one in Japan. Carlberg and his team estimate that full-scale trials of their design will start within three years.

It is not just the oil price that has moved in the windships’ favour. The Danish team is confident that it will be able to design a more efficient vessel. Jesper Kanstrup, Knud E. Hansen’s senior naval architect, says that the original designs concentrated on minimising the amount of space the engine and sails took up to maximise cargo space. “They weren’t designed for fuel economy.”

Will these wind-assisted ships be part of the future of sea commerce? I really don’t know. What do you think about these projects?

Sources: Mick Hamer, New Scientist Print Edition, February 26, 2005; and various websites

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The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has unveiled its fourth generation of its Truck Stopping Technology since 2001. A small device mounted on a truck can be remotely controlled by law enforcement officials if they suspect the truck is hijacked and being used for a terrorist action. They’ll use a handheld controller to activate the device which will deploy the truck’s air brakes and bring the truck to a complete stop before attacking a nuclear plant or other sensitive facilities. The LLNL engineers also have developed antennas which can be put on sensitive buildings and which will activate the device if trucks seem to come too close. These devices cost about $800 apiece, but cannot be mounted on trucks before some changes in legislation, in California and elsewhere. Read more…

Here are the key points of the LLNL announcement.

The Laboratory, part of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, today unveiled its latest version of the technology, a remote-controlled device that brings trucks to a screeching halt. The device was commissioned by and created for the California Highway Patrol to prevent tankers and other hijacked vehicles from becoming “bombs on wheels.”

By enabling remote control technology, the device can be used to protect buildings such as government facilities, power plants and stations, and other areas where sensitive materials or critical infrastructures are housed.

This technology has been developed by David McCallen (short bio), diector of the LLNL Engineering Technology Center for Complex Distributed Systems with the help of outside consultants.

How does this fourth incarnation of truck stopping technology work?

The remote controlled variation works much like a child’s radio-controlled toy. In a roadside emergency, patrolmen would use a hand-held controller to activate the device, which now sits behind the cab of a tractor trailer, to deploy the air brakes and bring the car to a screeching halt.

Laboratory researchers have taken the remote technology one step further by using a system of antennas that could be placed around various buildings. If a runaway truck tried to crash through the gates, the antennas, operating on a continuous signal, would activate the technology once the truck passed by, preventing any attack.

Press releases need to be optimistic, but will this technology be really deployed one day?

The devices cost approximately $800 apiece. The Laboratory, California Highway Patrol (CHP) and a commercial truck company already are testing an earlier impact version of the device on California highways. To have the devices automatically equipped on all commercial transportation vehicles will require legislation.

For more information about this technology, you can visit the Truck Stopping Device page at LLNL, which describes the history of the project and contains images and links to videos.

Sources: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) news release, February 22, 2005; and various LLNL websites

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At Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), researcher Jonathan Weiss, nicknamed the “light wizard,” uses inexpensive soda-straw-like glass tubes for solving a variety of sensing problems. His twelve patents cover areas such as detecting if a car battery is about to die or if dangerous chemical materials are about to escape from a landfill into groundwater. He also developed a sensor which can tell the difference between two liquids in a container. This could be used by oil companies which need to safely determine when to stop pumping oil from the ground before water invades a tank. This market represents about $750 million per year and these sensors should be available in two years according to an interesting story from the Albuquerque Tribune, “Bright Idea: Random chat leads to sensor pact.” Apparently, Weiss found an industrial partner for SNL on a flight between Albuquerque and New York. Read more…

Please read the SNL news release for details about the dead battery problem and the waste detection device through landfills. And let’s focus here on Weiss’s fiber optic sensor that uses light to tell the difference between two liquids in a container.

Imagine you’re in the oil business and you’ve pumped oil and water (just the way it increasingly comes out of the ground) into a holding tank. You want to retrieve only the oil floating atop the water so you can transport the least possible weight from the oil field to a refinery. How do you know — accurately, safely, and simply — when to stop pumping?

Here is the description of Weiss’s solution.

Take two five-foot-long optical fibers made of plastic. Mount them vertically in a tank that holds water with oil on top. Send light down one fiber, and then detect light carried back up by the second fiber. The strength of the detector’s signal depends on the height of the oil/water interface. If the tank is all water, the signal is very strong, and the pumping machine is instructed to stop pumping fluid; there is no oil left.

The Albuquerque Tribune gives more details on why this sensor will be built by Custom Electronics, a New York state company.

When physicists Jonathan Weiss and Allen Anderson, [from Custom Electronics,] met on an airplane, a business opportunity popped out of the quantum mist.

The two didn’t know each other before that flight a year ago, but now Weiss is a Sandia-employed consultant for Anderson’s company, which is working with the lab to license Weiss’ technology.

“My co-worker and I ended up getting separated, and I ended up sitting next to Jonathan and his wife. He told me he was a physicist and I said, hey, I’m a physicist, too,” [said Anderson, the company's director of product development.]

The product could be ready in the next two years according to Anderson. He added that SNL found found a market potential between $250 million and $750 million for the device.

Weiss received a patent in February 2004 for this sensor. You can find technical details on this patent by visiting the United States Patent and Trademark Office and search for patent number 6,693,285.

Here is a direct link to this patent named “Fluorescent fluid interface position sensor.” And here is the abstract.

A new fluid interface position sensor has been developed, which is capable of optically determining the location of an interface between an upper fluid and a lower fluid, the upper fluid having a larger refractive index than a lower fluid. The sensor functions by measurement, of fluorescence excited by an optical pump beam which is confined within a fluorescent waveguide where that waveguide is in optical contact with the lower fluid, but escapes from the fluorescent waveguide where that waveguide is in optical contact with the upper fluid.

Sources: Sandia National Laboratories news release, January 11, 2005; Sue Vorenberg, The Albuquerque Tribune, January 24, 2005; and various websites

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