NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Power a City With a Man-Made Tornado

This is an artist's rendition of an artificial tornado. Theoretically, such a system could generate enough electricity to power a city. Credit: Colin Anderson/Blend Images/Corbis

By Dan Levitan, IEEE Spectrum

Tornados are very energetic. But of course, they are far too unpredictable and uncontrollable to actually make use of that energy. Right?

Peter Thiel, billionaire founder of PayPal and early Facebook funder, says wrong. Thiel's foundation, through its Breakout Labs fund, awarded US $300,000 to a company called AVEtec, based in Canada, to work on designs and prototypes for an "atmospheric vortex engine." The AVE involves a circular chamber into which warm air is introduced at tangential angles, creating a rising vortex controlled by colder air above the chamber (mini-prototype pictured blow). Turbines at the base will spin thanks to the artificial tornado, generating energy. According to AVEtec, a 200-meter wide version of this could generate 200 megawatts of energy at a cost of only $0.03 per kilowatt-hour, below even the cheapest forms of power we have now.

In a press release from Breakout Labs, AVEtec founder Louis Michaud said: "The power in a tornado is undisputed. My work has established the principles by which we can control and exploit that power to provide clean energy on an unprecedented scale. With the funding from Breakout Labs, we are building a prototype in partnership with Lambton College to demonstrate the feasibility and the safety of the atmospheric vortex engine."

WIDE ANGLE: Tornadoes

Turbines at the base spin because of the artificial tornado. Credit: AVEtech

The best part of this idea -- other than the fact that it is a controlled tornado used to generate electricity, is that the heat source for the warm air could be standard fossil fuel power plants. (The chamber for the AVE could just be a power plant cooling tower.) Coal and natural gas plants don't operate at particularly high efficiencies, with much of the power in the fuel source lost as waste heat; one study from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory found that around 68 percent of all the energy involved with electricity generation in 2011 ended up as "rejected energy." Aside from power plant waste heat, the tornado could also be fed with warm water or solar power.

Thiel's foundation's backing suggests we might actually see a prototype built, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Michaud's idea has been floating around for some time now, and hasn't yet gotten off the ground; this very publication included it in a "Powered By Crazy" feature in 2010. This is the second such bit of insanity, pulling uranium from seawater being the other, that has gone from crazy to maybe just in the last few months. But even AVEtec's "endorsements" page doesn't feature too many "Eureka!" type explosions; as was noted in the 2010 article, the Canadian Academy of Engineering merely says the concept "does not defy known physics."

Following the laws of nature is a good first step, but let's see if Thiel's money, which, at $300K, is a homeopathic amount, for a billionaire, can actually yield a tame, electricity-generating tornado.

This article originally appeared on IEEE Spectrum as Tornado Power: Breakout Labs Funds Research Into Energy-Generating Vortex

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Spy Agency Predicts Megahumans By 2030

In the year 2030, Asia will surpass North America and Europe and become the global economic powerhouse it once was during the Middle Ages. Deaths from communicable disease will drop by 40 percent. The majority of the world's population won't be poor and among them will walk bionic superhumans with neuro-pharmaceutical drugs coursing through their veins.

These are just a very small fraction of the predictions made by the soothsayers over at the National Intelligence Council (NIC), a US coalition of 17 government intelligence agencies. The NIC's prophecies were recently detailed in Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, a 140-page report that identifies "megatrends" expected to emerge over the next 18 years and radically alter the world as we know it today. The report is the fifth installment of NIC's Global Trends series, which seeks to provide a proactive framework for thinking about the future.

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"We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures," writes Christopher Kojm, NIC chairman, in the report's introduction. "It is our contention that the future is not set in stone, but is malleable, the result of an interplay among megatrends, game-changers and, above all, human agency."

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Chief among the megatrends is the diffusion of power and individual empowerment. The West is set to take a back seat to Asia's economy as technology levels the playing field and other "non-Western or middle-tier states" begin to rise. The middle class is expected to expand in most countries, but won't feel secure due to the one billion workers from developing countries expected to flood the labor pool.

Global demographics are expected to shift as well. Life-expectancy rates are likely to soar, leading to an increase in global population from 7.1 billion today to around 8 billion in 2030. Much of this population will gravitate towards megacities as urbanization is set to grow by nearly 60 percent.

As population swells, so too will competition for resources. Demand for food is expected to rise 35 percent and energy 50 percent. Half the world will live in areas with severe water stress.

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You see where this is going. As the global population becomes more intelligent, more healthy and more prosperous due to positive technological developments in a wide range of fields, it's creating a promising, yet vulnerable future. That's to say nothing of game-changing scenarios like nuclear war, pandemics and bioterrorism.

"Our effort is to encourage decision-makers, whether in government or outside, to think and plan for the long term so that negative futures do not occur and positive ones have a better chance of unfolding," writes Kojm.

Who those decisions-makers will be and whether they'll lead the globe into chaos or order, feast or famine, is anyone's guess. What's crystal clear, though, is that 2030 will be beyond our wildest imagination.

"As replacement limb technology advances, people may choose to enhance their physical selves as they do with cosmetic surgery today," the report states. "Future retinal eye implants could enable night vision, and neuro-enhancements could provide superior memory recall or speed of thought."  

via RT

Credit: Digital Vision / Getty Images

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Friction And Static Could Charge Smartphones

Static electricity is good for sticking balloons to walls, but who knew it could be used to prolong the battery life of a smartphone. Sihong Wang and Long Lin, graduate students in Georgia Tech's materials science department have developed a two-layered material that generates power from static electricity and flexing.

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They've used a thin film made of a layer of polymer and another of aluminum. Both layers have tiny structures etched on them at the nanometer scale. When the plastic and the metal come in contact with each other, they accumulate a static electric charge. Flexing them generates a current.

The etched nanostructures increase the surface area, which gives electrons a lot more room to gather and boosts the charge accumulated. The efficiency with which the material turns the mechanical motion of flexing into electricity can go as high as 40 percent, according to the paper.

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Wang has done similar work before: in 2009 he demonstrated that a hamster could wear a jacket that generated power in a similar way.

So how much power can it make? In a paper in the journal Nano Letters, Wang and his team say they have hit 230 volts, at 15.5 microamperes per square centimeter, with a power output of 128 milliwatts per cubic centimeter. That means a sheet the size of the latest iPod Nano –- about three inches by 1.6 inches –- would generate just enough to charge the iPod as it is being flexed.

If it were used in the real world, odds are this wouldn't replace a battery, but it could extend the time between charges.

Via Technology Review

Credit: Danilo Calilung/Corbis

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Handlable Fireball How-To: Gotta-See Video

Make a Fire Ball That You Can Hold in Your Hand

This isn't very high tech, but it's amazing nonetheless. Learn how to, step by step, make a golfball-sized fireball that you can toss around in your hands. Impress your friends! Don't burn the house down! Seriously -- don't burn the house down.

via wonderhowto.com

 

Want to recommend a video? Tweet it to @Discovery_News with the hashtag #GottaSeeVideos.

Don't miss today's Must-Read DNews Nuggets and you can watch Discovery Curiosity video here.

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Handlable Fireball How-To: Gotta-See Video

Make a Fire Ball That You Can Hold in Your Hand

This isn't very high tech, but it's amazing nonetheless. Learn how to, step-by-step, make a golfball-sized fireball that you can toss around in your hands. Impress your friends! Don't burn the house down! Seriously -- don't burn the house down.

via Wonderhowto.com

 

Want to recommend a video? Tweet it to @Discovery_News with the hashtag #GottaSeeVideos.

Don't miss today's Must-Read DNews Nuggets and you can watch Discovery Curiosity video here.

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IKEA Energy-Independent by 2020: DNews Nugget

IKEA Energy-Independent by 2020: The Swedish-based furniture company -- the largest of its kind in the world -- has announced that it will be energy-independent by 2020. It's investing $1.95 billion toward that end and will use the money to install solar panels on all of its stores and warehouses, reduce overall energy use, invest in wind farms and grow enough trees to replace the wood used in its products.

In addition, by 2017 it will buy 10 million cubic meters of wood annually, half its total use, from such sources certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. via Phys.org

GET MORE MUST-READ DNEWS NUGGETS HERE!

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Magnetic Floating Centerpiece: Gotta-See Video

Levitation is a hot topic, from maglev trains to quantum trapping. YouTube and DiscoveryNews are full of stories on levitating various objects. In this case, scientists are levitating a giant metal plate.

The video isn't actually about levitation, but instead about the creation of the electromagnet as a means of induction. Not only does the plate here float, but creates heat and light as well! The ideas are wonderfully simple, and seemingly magical. You gotta-see this. via The Verge

Want to recommend a video? Tweet it to @Discovery_News with the hashtag #GottaSeeVideos.

Don't miss today's Must-Read DNews Nuggets and you can watch Discovery Curiosity video here.

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Backyard Inventors Print Mini Solar Panels

Two inventors have figured out how to print their own miniature solar panels that can be used for charging up cell phones and kids' toys to almost any small consumer electronic device. Their "solar pocket factory" uses 3-D printing techniques and inexpensive PV material.

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The pair recently raised $77,000 on Kickstarter and are now hoping to actually build a miniature factory using a laser cutter to speed up production. Shawn Frayne and Alex Hornstein, two MIT grads, said they came up with the idea after finding micro-sized solar panels that were too expensive, tended to break and didn't last very long.

"This simple question led us on a voyage of investigation and discovery through the world of small, low-cost solar; through rotting solar factories in Southern China to shivering, soaked motorcycle trips across unelectrified tropical islands in the Philippines and countless late nights working on prototypes in an industrial building in Hong Kong," the pair write on their Kickstarter page. "And all along the way, we kept asking questions, and started to find answers."

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The inventors say their small printing machine is cheaper than large-scale factory production of micro-solar panels. That means that rather than outsourcing labor to poorer countries, they can use the device to make the panels right where they will be used.

Via GigaOm

Credit: Solar Pocket Factory

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Navy Wants to Turn Seawater Into Jet Biofuel

Naval scientists are turning seawater into biofuel. Besides using a readily available resource, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory thinks its special process could make seawater jet fuel as cheap as regular gasoline.

Refueling at sea currently costs a ton of money because all that fuel requires extra fuel to be delivered. This week the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, the Navy's scientific lab based in D.C., announced that it's hard at work on an intricate process that breaks seawater down into hydrogen gas and hydrogen, which could then be converted into biofuel.

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The NRL's press release about their scientific process had echoes of an academic paper for a chemistry journal, but from what I gather they've got a portable prototype called a "carbon capture skid" that's about five feet tall. Inside are three chambers designed to produce hydrogen gas and capture carbon dioxide.

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After the seawater goes through the skid, there'd be a two-step process to make liquid hydrocarbons -- proto-jet fuel if you will -- from the hydrogen gas and CO2. Then that liquid would just need to be converted using another reaction. We're not at a point where this all works smoothly, yet. The NRL is still developing all those steps.

"The potential payoff is the ability to produce JP-5 fuel [jet fuel] stock at sea reducing the logistics tail on fuel delivery with no environmental burden and increasing the Navy's energy security and independence," Navy research chemist Heather Willauer said in the release.

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Over the course of last year, the Navy delivered around 600 million gallons to its vessels at sea. Such a feat required running 15 replenishment oilers worldwide. But as Treehugger's Mat McDermott rightly pointed out, the green aspect here isn't reducing emissions but reducing the energy required to transport fuel in the first place. Emissions would still be similar to what they are now.

The economic advantages to this emerging tech might be more persuasive. The NRL's initial studies predict jetfuel could cost as little as $3 to $6 a gallon using this seawater process. That's a boatload of savings.

Photo: A U.S. Navy aircraft launches from the flightdeck in August. Credit: John Haynes, U.S. Navy

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Sweet! Batteries Made From Sugar

The standard battery for gadgets is lithium-ion, which stores a lot of energy for its weight. But lithium is a rare Earth element with most of the deposits located in Chile, Argentina, China and Australia. This is one reason the batteries in the average laptop are so expensive.

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Lowering the cost of batteries is one reason researchers have been exploring other materials. A team at the Tokyo University of Science, led by Shinichi Komaba, have been looking at sodium-based batteries, using sodium ions as the cathode (positive side) and carbon from ordinary sugar as the anode (negative side).

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To get the carbon from the sugar (sucrose), the scientists burned it in the absence of oxygen at a temperature of 1,800 to 2,700 degrees -- hot enough to melt cast iron at the upper end. That produces a hard black carbon powder of high quality. In this form, the sodium-sucrose battery stored 20 percent more energy than one made with conventional carbon.

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It will be some time before such a battery is commercialized, but if it's successful, it will mean that batteries can be made of materials that have essentially no supply problem. While lithium is recycled, it is only on a limited scale. Sodium, by contrast, is everywhere (including in table salt), as is sucrose.

One of the issues with sodium-based batteries is that they don't survive as many charge cycles as lithium-ion batteries do. Improving that will be the next step. Komaba told Diginfo.tv that it will likely be about five years before we see the first sodium batteries on the shelves. 

Credit: Corbis Images

Via The Register, Diginfo.tv

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