Tiny Canisters Fuel Cells

Add Just a Bit of Water To Tiny Canisters And Power Fuel Cells on the Go
Even in places where potable drinking water is scarce, some kind of water is ofter obtainable--even if it’s the stuff that usually ends up in the latrine. SiGNa Chemistry Inc. is taking advantage of the hydrogen in that water with a new portable canister that can power a small fuel cell to juice up mobile electronics on the go. Think of it as fuel for a fuel cell; just add water.

This kind of technology isn’t entirely novel. We’ve written about magnesium-based power packs designed for the military that can generate power from saltwater (or a GI’s urine if needs be). And SiGNa itself has integrated its own sodium silicide technology into an electric-assist bike engine. But now the tech is being reduced to a canister that could fit in a pocketable fuel cell that allows users to recharge on the go.
SiGNa isn’t elaborating on all of the details of its proprietary sodium silicide tech, but it goes something like this: sodium is absorbed into silica, which makes for a grainy black powder that is stable in the open air for more than two years (so it has shelf life). Add water to the mix and a low-pressure reaction takes place that gives off hydrogen. Top that with a tiny, inexpensive fuel cell and you’ve got a tiny power plant fueled by water.

The sodium silicate leftover is a common element found pretty much everywhere, and the heat given off is negligible (and apparently some is siphoned back into the power-generating process.

The breakthrough here was simply slimming everything down to a pocketable size, meaning the replaceable sodium silicide cartridges had to be scaled way down. But the canisters are still big enough to give off 5 watt hours, or about the equivalent of 4 AA batteries, SiGNa’s CEO told Ars Technica. Which, as Ars points out, makes it unclear whether it may be just as easy to carry around conventional batteries. SiGNa hasn’t yet priced the canisters or said exactly when they’ll become avaialable for purchase, but you can bet that when they do they’ll retail for something close to the price of 4 AA batteries, for obvious reasons.

Source: PoPSci

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Energy From Canal Water

Hydrovolts Wins Imagine H2O Prize, Harnesses Energy From Canal Water
A competition designed to accelerate innovation in water technology, Imagine H2O, chose a winner last night in San Francisco for its Water-Energy Nexus Prize: Hydrovolts.

The Seattle startup makes small-scale hydropower turbines. They can be used to harness energy from the flow of water in canals. Unlike hydropower turbines in rivers or the ocean, Hydrovolts turbines take advantage of already zoned and installed water infrastructure. That means they’re not likely to disturb marine life where they’re installed. They also float and are portable.

The Imagine H2O prize included $20,000 in cash and $15,000 each in accounting and legal services from PWC and Cooley LLP, respectively for Hydrovolts
Source: GreenTech

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CoolPlanetBiofuels Draws Google Ventures Investment To Make Gas From Grass

CoolPlanetBioFuels is developing a revolutionary thermal/mechanical processor which directly inputs raw biomass such as woodchips, crop residue, algae, etc. and produces multiple distinct gas streams for catalytic upgrading to conventional fuel components.

In support of the above biomass fractionator , the company is also developing a range of simple one-step catalytic conversion processes which mate with the fractionator's output gas streams to produce useful products such as eBTX (high octane gasoline), synthetic diesel and proprietary ultra-high crop yield super fuels.

CoolPlanetBioFuels plans to package its proprietary biomass fractionator together with an "open architecture" chemical processing section in standard modular shipping containers which can each produce up to 1 million gallons of fuel per year. These modular fuel processors can be equipped with CoolPlanet's catalytic conversion processes and/or your own selection of dryers, separators, catalytic processes, etc.
Fast thermal/mechanical processing of biomass typically also produces a large quantity of neutral carbon since biomass has substantial excess carbon versus hydrogen when used to produce conventional petrochemical fuel components. The company is also developing long term sequestration options for this excess carbon.

When the excess process carbon is used for fuel such as a coal substitute, the entire process is carbon neutral and, thus, produces both carbon neutral petrochemical compatible components and a carbon neutral coal substitute.

Alternately, if the excess carbon is sequestered long term as soil conditioner, the corresponding petrochemical components can have an N100 Negative Carbon Rating. That is, their use is not only carbon neutral in nature, but has associated with it, an equivalent amount of carbon sequestration, thus providing up to twice the global warming reduction benefits of today's cleanest technologies such as solar or wind electricity production and solar or wind recharged electric vehicles. Thus, some of the worst gross polluters can instantly become the cleanest and greenest by adopting N100 fuels.

Source: CoolPlanetBiofuels

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‘Solar Soldier’ Project Creating Power-Harvesting Uniforms for British Infantry

Future camouflage uniforms will draw power from the sun during the day and from a soldier’s body during the night, turning infantrymen into true sunshine patriots. The system could provide continuous power for a radio, GPS and weapons, but at half the weight of traditional battery packs.
The Engineering and Physical Research Sciences Center in the UK is working on a new type of fabric that uses solar photovoltaic cells, thermoelectric devices and advanced lightweight batteries. Because the system absorbs heat, it could even serve as a type of wearable stealth cloak, making a soldier less susceptible to detection with infrared cameras.
Other militaries have been looking into solar energy use, which could be especially useful in sunny hot spots like the Middle East and Africa. A U.S. Marine Corps battalion is already using portable solar panels to reduce battery weight, for instance. The system includes solar-panel tent shells and foldable arrays. Other systems designed to cut weight use fuel cells or li-ion batteries incorporated into armor.
But this new camouflage adds in thermoelectric energy, ensuring a constant power supply even when it’s dark or hazy.
Batteries can account for 10 percent of the 100-150 pounds of equipment that infantrymen currently carry, according to Duncan Gregory, a professor at the University of Glasgow who is working on the project. Reducing that weight could make infantry soldiers more comfortable, and therefore more mobile and perhaps more effective.
Beyond helping soldiers, the system could be used for powering satellites, keeping medicines cool in disaster areas, or supplying fresh food in hot climates.
The $1.04 million project aims to have a prototype system by December.
Source: popsci

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PepsiCo to Coke: Our 100% PlantBottle Is 70% Plantier Than Your PlantBottle

Coca-Cola made headlines in 2009 when it introduced the PlantBottle, a beverage bottle made from petroleum-based materials and 30% plant-based materials. The company's ultimate goal has been to make a 100% plant-based bottle--but now PepsiCo has beaten it to the punch.

PepsiCo, who's in the middle of a big SXSW Interactive push (did we mention that?) also announced this week that it has figured out how to make fully recyclable, 100% plant-based bottles from switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. Eventually, the company plans to use oat hulls, potato and orange peels, and a variety of other agricultural by-products from its Quaker and Tropicana brands.
The company's plant-based bottle has a molecular structure that is identical to petroleum-based PET (polyethylene terephthalate)--meaning it looks and feels exactly like any other PET container.
Scott Vitters, global head of sustainable packaging for Coca-Cola, tells the company's 100% plant-based bottle is on the horizon. "Our work is not about whether or not it's possible. We know we can do it," he says. "The real step is figuring how to make it sustainable in the market." That means building a supply chain that uses diverse feedstocks found in local markets.
In any case, Vitters says, Coke isn't concerned about Pepsi's plans. "They're looking at how you test [the 100% plant-based bottle] to learn how to scale it up."
Coke already has 2.5 billion of its 30% plant-based bottles on the market, while Pepsi won't begin pilot production of its new bottle until 2012.
source: FastCompany

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The Missing Link Between Air Density And Wind Power Production

The power produced by a wind turbine is given by a simple formula:
P=1/2 x the density of air x the area swept out by the turbines x (the windspeed)^3

Clearly the most important variable is windspeed. The area swept out by of the turbine is a constant and the density of air is generally taken as 1.225 kg/m^3, its value at sea level at 15 degrees C.
Today, Zénó Farkas from Eotvos University in Hungary, points out that the density of air is not constant. And that taking it into account is a relatively straightforward and valuable exercise when calculating the power that a turbine can produce.
To prove the point, he took standard air temperature, pressure and relative humidity measurements to calculate the air density at a wind farm in Hungary over a period from 2004 to 2006. His calculations show that, in that time, the pressure varied by more than 20 per cent.
He then used a neural network to fit the data from the wind speed and air density to the curve of the actual power produced at the windfarm. In fact, he used data from 2005 and 2005 to train the net and the data from 2006 to test it.
The result was a significantly improved estimate of the power production. Compared to the estimate using a constant air density, Farkas says his results are 16 per cent more accurate.

So that's an easy way to improve power estimates from wind farms. It's the kind of simple but effective science that can sometimes make a difference .

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1103.2198: Considering Air Density in Wind Power Production
Source: TechnologyReview

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Nanotech Advance Will Make Tranportation of Hydrogen Fuel Safer

As an eco-fuel, hydrogen has numerous advantages, including clean emissions. Storing hydrogen, however, has been proven difficult and dangerous--until now. The Department of Energy has achieved a nanotech breakthrough that will allow for the safe storage and transport of hydrogen.
Hydrogen has potential uses in the aviation and road transport industries, in fuel cells and other alt-fuel systems--but hydrogen is dangerous, highly-flammable stuff (just picture the hydrogen fire that destroyed the Hindenberg, or the hydrogen explosions that damaged the nuclear power stations in Japan). Storing hydrogen safely for transport requirements means designing robust and potentially heavy gas tanks, which decrease the efficiency of the whole vehicle. But work by scientists at the DoE's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab have created a wholly new composite material packed with nanoparticles that absorbs the gas into its structure for safer, more reliable storage.

The trick was to distribute nanoparticles of magnesium through a polymer called polymethyl methacrylate, creating a nanocomposite material. The resulting material is good at rapidly absorbing molecules of hydrogen gas into its structure, and then quickly releasing it on demand at "modest" temperatures, all without oxidizing the metal in the material (other similar solid storage methods for hydrogen involve serious heating and cooling).
The nanocomposite could be packed into a fuel tank and hold the hydrogen gas in a stable manner, without taking up too much volume in the tank--meaning that if the tank was ruptured in an accident, there would be much less chance for rapid release of hydrogen gas, and any resulting explosions. It could even work for pocket-sized fuel cells in future computers or cell phones.
Source: FastCompany

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French greens call for end to nuclear energy

The Japanese Daiichi 1 facility north of Tokyo started leaking radiation after an explosion blew the roof off the plant that had been shaken in a massive earthquake on Friday, raising fears of a meltdown.
French officials were due to meet to discuss the situation and possible precautionary measures, but green groups said it was time to dump a technology that had led to the worst civilian nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986.
"It's clear that when there's a significant natural disaster, all the so-called safety measures fail in a country with the highest level of technical know-how," Cecile Duflot, head of the green Europe Ecologie-Les Verts party, told Reuters.
"The nuclear risk is not a risk that can really be controlled."
France has 58 nuclear reactors spread over 19 sites, providing almost four-fifths of the country's electricity and making it the second-biggest nuclear country after the United States. Japan has 55 nuclear reactors.
French anti-nuclear network "Sortir du nucleaire" described Japan's stricken nuclear plant as a "new Chernobyl."
"This is indeed a very serious nuclear accident that is currently taking place in Japan, of a severity comparable to that of Three Mile Island and that of Chernobyl, which took place just about 25 years ago," the group said in a statement.
Chernobyl exploded in 1986, spewing out clouds of radioactivity. Human and technical error caused a confused response at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, leading to a meltdown of the core and a write-off of the reactor in 1979.
Japan's nuclear safety agency said they rated the incident as less serious than both accidents.
Nuclear experts also said the explosion at the Japanese reactor should not reach the magnitude of Chernobyl because the reactor's core seemed to be intact.
But Greenpeace said the situation was "more and more alarming."
"An explosion in one reactor could already have released very high doses of radioactivity, and other reactors also seem to be in a critical situation," Greenpeace said in a statement.
France's ASN nuclear safety authority said it was stepping up the monitoring of air quality over France.
The president of the IRSN radiation protection and nuclear safety institution, Agnes Buzyn, told a news conference that real-time data on air quality would be made available to reassure the public.
Buzyn and ASN President Andre-Claude Lacoste were due to meet Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Energy Minister Eric Besson and top executives from nuclear reactor maker Areva and power giant EDF at the ecology ministry later on Saturday.
Source: reuters

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