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Technology Science

Microgenerators Coming Soon to Electronics Near You 254

Posted by michael from the kickstart-your-cellphone dept.
fygment writes "A new microgenerator developed at Georgia Tech can now produce enough power to run a small electronic device, like a cell phone, and may soon be able to power a laptop. The microgenerator is about 10 millimeters wide, or about the size of a dime. When coupled with a similarly sized gas-fueled microturbine (or jet) engine, the system, called a microengine, has the potential to deliver more energy and last 10 times longer than a conventional battery. This is still just a quarter of the problem. A turbine is still being developed to turn the generator and that will require fuel and storage of some kind."
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Microgenerators Coming Soon to Electronics Near You More

Microgenerators Coming Soon to Electronics Near You

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  • No thanks. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by davidbrit2 ( 775091 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @09:59AM (#10917643) Homepage
    Yes, what a great idea, let's INCREASE our dependency on fossil fuels for powering our portable electronics.

    And the hot exhaust from the turbine would feel absolutely lovely against one's leg while being carried in a pocket.

    Somehow I don't see this miniature jet engine concept really "taking off" (hur hur).

    • Re:No thanks. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by beders ( 245558 )
      Yeah, becuase the electricity in your batteries comes from tickling flowers and my laptop is ice cold

      • Re:No thanks. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Chess_the_cat ( 653159 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:10AM (#10917711) Homepage
        No, the electricity in your batteries most likely came from burning coal. But I'd rather burn American coal than buy Arab oil.

        • I'd rather burn American coal than buy Arab oil.

          From Grandparent post INCREASE our dependency on fossil fuels

          The post I replied to doesn't make the distinction between the two, either way the power is coming from a non-renewable source. Though the mini gas turbine is likely to be more efficent.

        • Re:No thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by stephenbooth ( 172227 ) * on Thursday November 25, 2004 @11:00AM (#10917939) Homepage Journal

          There's a good chance that's Chinese coal you're burning.

          I'd be most interested in these generators if they ran on vegetable oil. Large areas of South America (especially Brasil) have been using vegetable oil as a major fuel source (especially in the automotive arena) for some time. I'd rather plant sunflowers or corn than drill oil wells.

          Stephen

          • Re:No thanks. (Score:2, Informative)

            by N1EY ( 817702 )
            We import coal from South America on occasion to obtain the better emission outputs. Much of our coal comes from Wyoming. We have sent coal and a great deal of ores such as taconite to China. Canada is sending a lot too. Bill

          • Re:No thanks. (Score:2, Insightful)

            by lazy_playboy ( 236084 )
            I'd rather plant sunflowers or corn than drill oil wells

            Agreed. Burning biofuel has zero carbon dioxide release net - it would have decomposed anyway and we're just harnessing the energy released. Burning fossil fuels on the other hand releases CO2 locked up ages ago and so is fucking things up.

            Anyway it's all a bit irrelevant from an environmental point of view. We might as well accept that _all_ the fossil fuels reserves will be burnt sooner or later. Only when the reserves get low will prices get push

    • Re:No thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:06AM (#10917687)
      Oil doesn't depend on fossil fuels. It's just currently the cheapest source. It should bequite easy to use vegetable based oil, and the great thing about that is that you can even use old stuff that's already been used for cooking if you want to filter the crap out.
      • Is that a solution that scales well? Nope. Though the smell of french fries emanating from my pocket would make for interesting conversations...
    • Well, you can probably just run it on ordinary lighter fluid or other combustibles. It doesn't need to be fossil fuel you know. And your current batteries are charged with electricity generated using fossil fuel, or nuclear. I think the real advantage here will be size and weight. If the turbine problem is solved it might be possible to have many of those mini generators in one small package, generating as much power as a big battery. And, refueling is faster than recharging. For mobile use it's also much e
      • And, refueling is faster than recharging.

        I can just see it now...I'm pouring fuel into my laptop and all of the sudden I have a pint of unleaded all over my keyboard. If my keyboard doesn't like soda, imagine how it is going to react to some kind of fuel.

        And an aerosal type refill is crap, I have never seen one of those refills work more than a few times without getting jammed or broken or something.

        I think this is a cool idea, but I think I will stick to solid state (more or less) when choosing my pow

      • Re:No thanks. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by john.r.strohm ( 586791 )
        Dude, lighter fluid is a combination of various light hydrocarbons, most probably produced from natural gas.

        It *IS* fossil fuel.

        There are other processes for making the hydrocarbons, but they require a LOT more energy input than refining natural gas.

        And natural gas is too damn' valuable as a chemical process feedstock to waste it in a fricking fire!

        • And natural gas is too damn' valuable as a chemical process feedstock to waste it in a fricking fire!

          I live near a refinery and more often than not they have a 50 foot pillar of flame coming off one or another of their towers. If it's so valuable, why are they just burning it? :-) I don't know how often I've thought, "Man, if they'd just pipe that stuff to my furnace, I'd never be cold again!".

          Seriously, though, if they can make "micro"-generators that are going to be efficient and cheap enough to r

    • Re:No thanks. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Sai Babu ( 827212 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:32AM (#10917805) Homepage


      Who says the turbine has to be powered by fossil fuel? It could be a hydro turbine with penstock attached to your dick. Or perhaps methane powered with a hose stuffed in your ass. Vegans are known for producing copious quantities of methane [counterpoint-music.com].

      .Other methane sources include your composting latrine [mtu.edu], port to cows stomach [nyud.net], and even composting of dead cats [amazon.com]

      .

    • Re:No thanks. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Murphy Murph ( 833008 ) <sealab.murphy@gmail.com> on Thursday November 25, 2004 @11:11AM (#10918005) Journal
      And the hot exhaust from the turbine would feel absolutely lovely against one's leg while being carried in a pocket


      On your fears of hot exhaust:

      My cell phone = 3.6v battery @ 850 mah.
      That is 3.06 watt hours.
      If I talk non-stop on my phone it takes two hours to kill the battery.
      That's 1.53 watts consumed at FULL usage.
      1.53 watt hours = 1,316 calories.
      That's enough heat to raise 1.3 Liters of water one stinkin' degree - over the course of one hour.
      I'm willing to be your thigh contains more than 1.3 Liters of water.

      Assume 33% efficiency and you still don't have much to fear.

      • Um, yea, your phone uses 1.53 watts (this is probably when it is close to a cell, when it transmits @ ~0.6W, further away, modern phones scale up their power up to ~3W). Even so, the turbine assuredly does not run at 100% efficiency, and therefore a lot of heat will escape in the exhaust gasses. If we consider 20% efficiency (equivalent to many car engines) even at low power, that means that 4x1.53W= >6 watts will be dissipated in the exhaust gasses. 6 watts is actually a fair bit of heat, especially whe

    • Re:No thanks. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dnnrly ( 120163 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @11:12AM (#10918011)
      More than likely these microgenerators will be powered by methanol. It's easy to produce, well understood, and easy to handle. All this makes it CHEAP! Since methanol will come from specially grown crops, so in some respects it can be regarded as CARBON NEUTRAL. In other words, it won't contribute any more CO2 to the atmosphere than was taken out to produce it.

      Factoring in the other energy used to produce the crop (such as powering tractors, transporting it etc) can be quite complicated and will no doubt slightly offset the advantages but overall I seem to recall that it isn't a bad trade off.
      • Unfortunately, we already rely heavily on petrolium-based produces such as fertilisers and pesticides to produce the crops needed at the moment. Unless this changes, methanol is actually worse than using something distilled directly from oil.
    • "A turbine is still being developed to turn the generator and that will require fuel and storage of some kind"

      [Sigh]
      Do I have to all the thinking round here? Just turn the turbine with an electric motor running off a battery.

  • Steam? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:01AM (#10917653)
    Welcome to the age of steam powered laptops!

    • Re:Steam? (Score:2, Funny)

      by AndroidCat ( 229562 )
      Laptops? What about listening to music on your Steam-Pod? Stoke up the volume!

    • Virtually everything is "steam" powered! (Score:5, Informative)

      by laetus ( 45131 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:31AM (#10917798)
      Shows how much you know about modern power. Almost all of our electrical power sans wind generated, dammed or solar, are "steam" powered as you say.

      A nuclear plant is nothing but a fancy way of boiling water to turn, you guessed it, steam turbines to generate electricity. Same with gas and oil-fired power plants.

      • Actually, even most solar plants use steam. They use an array of mirrors to focus sunlight on a tower that has water in it that boils to steam, which powers a turbine. A more interesting exception is gas-generating coal and fossil fuel plants. Instead of burning coal to produce steam, they chemically react it to produce gas which directly powers the turbines. Some of the reactions are exothermic, so steam can still be used in the process.
      • And whats the most dangerous part about working at a nuclear fired power plant ?
        The same thing as any other power plant.
        Steam leaks.
        At least it is according to the 45min OSHA video and 30min Plant Safety video I had to sit through in order to set foot on the site to do work.

  • Size (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:01AM (#10917657)
    The microgenerator is about 10 millimeters wide
    Or "one centimeter" as we say in English.

  • Already slashdotted. (Score:4, Informative)

    by amigoro ( 761348 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:01AM (#10917659) Homepage Journal
    Already slashdotted.
    The Cache of the magazine [66.102.7.104]

    The cache of the gatech site [google.com]

  • pointless? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zing22 ( 787912 )
    Surely, if it's a generator running off a turbine running off another fuel, surely it's just a whole big waste of energy in a small space? My science skills are not what they used to be but I don't see why this is great?

    Enlighten me please!

  • This explains those new Energizer commercials.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Eric Giguere ( 42863 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:04AM (#10917676) Homepage Journal

    You know, the one where the guy is chasing his MP3 player down the street. I didn't realize that they were turbine Energizer batteries. Duh!

    Eric
    See your HTTP headers here [ericgiguere.com]

  • Don't drop it (Score:5, Funny)

    by shiba_mac ( 415267 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:04AM (#10917677)
    I can see MP3 players of the future becoming like cars in the movies. Drop it, and watch the spectacular explosion as all the fuel goes up.

    • Re:Don't drop it (Score:4, Funny)

      by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @11:11AM (#10918007) Homepage
      Just the thing when the RIAA comes a-calling.

      Now you might be asking yourself: Did he play five hours of music or six? .."

    • It might happen in the movies for mp3 players too, but gasoline doesn't shock combust. None of the consumer grade fuels do. At least, not for any reasonable definition of 'shock'. Nor is it particularly likely that the extremely low internal voltage in the device will short circuit catastrophically and arc substantially enough to ignite the somehow-ruptured fuel canister.

      Basically, when was the last time you saw a dropped lighter explode? And they have a much flimsier construction than electronic devices r

  • what's next? (Score:2, Funny)

    by rollx ( 830963 )
    The next thing will be a private nuclear reactor.
    • I had this idea of having a communal fusion reactor, that if launched in space and kept at a large enough distance, would be bright enough to generate heat and light all across one side of the planet at a time.
    • Dude, you just gave me a chubby.
  • What I want to know is can I use this to build my mouse a gocart. At last he will no longer live in the shadow of that bastard speedy gonzales!

  • It's the size of a dime... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ....and is a "quarter" of the problem. Hahahaha. That's some funny shit.


  • Ga Tech /.ed? seemedawfully slow. So, here's the big JPEG cached.

    tdh42134.jpg [nyud.net]

  • Thermoelectric generators... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mikael ( 484 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:13AM (#10917732)
    A while back, there was an article about how implants could be powered using body heat [obgyn.net] by using the thermoelectric effect (heat causes electrons to move, which creates current). Wouldn't it be possible to do the same thing with the heat coming off a computer system, especially the CPU and GPU?

    • Yes, it would, but you'd get into some pretty hairy heat transfer problems moving the heat to your generator. (By the way, the word is "cogeneration" and the big companies who have to run big thermal generators for other reasons do it all the time, and sell the power back to the local utility, or use it themselves.)

      It was easier in the old days, when computers were a lot bigger. Commercial Information Corporation of Woburn MA used to heat their building in winter with the waste heat from their Xerox Sigm
      • IBM 360 mainframes were like that as well. One company I worked for, used the heating from the cooling system to keep the semi-underground open-air car-park warm. Even during a Winter blizzard, the heat from the system was enough to allow staff to walk around in T-shirts.
      • In the UK, subsidies used to be paid to Combined Heating and Power {CHP} plants -- not sure if they still are, but the tech was seriously promoted in the 80s/90s -- I'm just not sure if it failed, or succeeded to the point it became non-newsworthy. But the basic idea is that instead of installing a simple heating boiler for an industrial facility {factory, office block &c.} you install a generating plant of such a size that it will produce the same amount of waste heat as you need to run your facil

  • The perfect "turbine" is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bshroyer ( 21524 ) <<bret> <at> <bretshroyer.org>> on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:14AM (#10917735)
    A turbine is still being developed to turn the generator and that will require fuel and storage of some kind.

    Think outside the box. You've got a 10mm generator, but no way to turn it...

    Hamsters! They're cheap and portable. They're a renewable resource. They generate very little excess heat. Their fuel source is available almost anywhere, is non-toxic, and doesn't explode.

    Just picture it, the whole world over, millions of laptops, and on top of each screen a hamster in a cage. This is the face of technological improvement.
  • Didn't we just see an article about exploding phone batteries? Is this competing to make smaller things explode in an even more impressive way?

  • Related Article (Score:4, Informative)

    by DosBubba ( 766897 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:15AM (#10917741)
    Jet Engine on a Chip [slashdot.org]

  • 1/Thermal efficiency means 3X hotter laptops (Score:3, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:16AM (#10917748)
    Given the nasty realities of thermal efficiencies, I doubt this thing can be more that 33% efficient. That means that the device will run 3 times warmer than current battery-operated versions. Given the behavior of most modern-day laptops, that will be far too hot.

    Of course, the invention will work very well with better designed hardware and software. Anyone who thinks they need more than 500 MHz processor for most applications (and more than 50 MHz for basic office applications) is either playing games or using bloatware.
    • Systems check: go
      Fuel check: go
      Ignition: GO!
      fffffffwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiwwwwwrrrrrrroooOOOOOOOAAAAA AAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!!
      Please type Ctl Alt Del or insert your smartcard.

      (At least we won't be able to hear this annoying sound when windws boots.)
    • I doubt this thing can be more that 33% efficient. That means that the device will run 3 times warmer than current battery-operated versions

      Either your maths has gone a bit screwy or you have some unstated assumptions.

      Suppose it's 33% efficient - that means 67% is dissipated as heat (let's assume it's all dissipated as heat).

      For it to be three times warmer, that means that batteries must dissipate one third the amount of heat (or roughly 22%), which means that you're assuming batteries are 78% effici
      • No, it's your physics which are screwy. By "device", the grandparent poster meant the whole laptop. 67% is dissipated as heat immediately, and the rest is dissipated as heat in the electronics and hard drive and stuff. (Ok minus a small amount which is radiated as visible light)

        With a regular laptop, the battery is close to 100% efficient, and therefore it will dissipate only a third of the energy of the 33% efficient turbine-powered laptop.

  • The beginnings of distributed power? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by vudufixit ( 581911 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:17AM (#10917750)
    Fuel cells, increasingly efficient solar, modular, small scale (pebble bed) nuclear reactors - I'm seeing the beginning of the end of the conventional power grid.
    One of the advantages of decentralization is you no longer have big juicy targets for terrorists - who'd attack a neighborhood-size solar station or fuel cell stack? And if they did, the damage would be limited in scope.
  • Wouldn't it be fantastic if they made it detachable with a cord and some sort of clamp? You could stick it out the window of a train or car and tied with a regular battery and a nice propeller, you could have power for your laptop through long journeys.

    If only planes had windows...

    • If you used the wind created by the motion of the vehicle, you'd be sapping power from the vehicle's engine anyway. You're increasing the frictional drag on the car; the engine will have to work a little bit harder to overcome the increased drag. Due to inefficiencies in the system, this will cost you at least as much fuel as if you just coupled a generator straight to the engine. {In any case, this is what usually happens in a train. The engine runs at a constant speed, and is permanently coupled to a

  • More Links to Slashdot (Score:4, Informative)

    by otuz ( 85014 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:34AM (#10917817) Homepage
    Here are links to more articles:

    Space Daily [spacedaily.com]
    GaTech [gatech.edu]
    A Student's description [gatech.edu]

  • Tech Specs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by otuz ( 85014 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:37AM (#10917829) Homepage

    Consumers, industry, and the military are all demanding smaller power supplies for smaller and more pervasive electronic devices. Researchers at the National University of Singapore and California State Polytechnic University (Pomona) recently developed a microgenerator to meet these needs. As long as hydrogen and air are fed into it, the 1-cm3 device generates 4.5 W.

    Previous proposals for microgenerators attempted to scale down existing generator designs, but their moving parts made them difficult to manufacture. The team's proposal dispenses with moving parts entirely. The new design radiates heat obtained from hydrogen combustion. A selective emitter focuses the radiation into a small range of wavelengths, and a photovoltaic converter subsequently turns the radiation into electricity.

  • A hamster in a wheel? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Maljin Jolt ( 746064 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:50AM (#10917889) Journal
    Or perhaps a micro steam engine could be used till the turbine one is fully developed...

    Just imagine:
    >dmesg
    cdrecord: cannot burn dvd,code=72,reason=coal buffer empty
    ACPI: hamster in sleep mode on CPU3, processor offline
    kernel panic: /dev/hda water tank overflow occurs, fsck recommended

  • Tiny Engines (Score:4, Informative)

    by pvg ( 152136 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @11:05AM (#10917961)
    While genetically engineered microscopic hamsters may be some years away, research into tiny internal combustion engines that could drive such a generator is definitely being done. The work of the Berkeley Combustion Processes Lab was in the news a couple of years ago when they showed some prototypes. The stuff can be seen in some detail at http://www.me.berkeley.edu/mrcl/ [berkeley.edu]

  • Minijets (Score:2, Funny)

    by __aavljf5849 ( 636069 )
    "Detailed calculations indicate that the actual scaling is not quite that dramatic, but a millimeter-size engine would have a thrust-to-weight ratio of about 100:1, compared with 10:1 for the best modern aircraft engines."

    This gives me visions of a jumbojet with the whole wingspan covered in thousands of really small jet engines. :)
  • This will be worse than people concentrating on their cell phones being run over in traffic.

    I predict a wave of guys getting nailed by buses because they're totally focused on their Gameboys, and having an entire city block nuked when the jet fuel tank on the guy's back goes up in flames as a result...

  • self-winding? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @11:44AM (#10918192) Homepage Journal
    Since these generators are so much more efficient than batteries, and so small, why not hook them to an electrolyzer, storing the energy as hydrogen, in pancake-sized cells with gyros to spin them? Human motion can be captured for all our devices. Not only will we power devices without foreign oil, but Americans will have a reason to get off our asses and exercise - desperately needed by the most battery-hungry demographics.

  • Where are the tree huggers? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Funny, we hear all this new technology like hydrogen fuel cells using sodium borohydrate, microgenerators. We also hear a lot about "alternative energy". Alternative = anything but oil. Yet we never hear about the consequences of these alternative energy sources. Occasionally, on page 16 of the local newspaper, you'll see a story that talks about the hazardous waste problem in China, Malaysia, or Korea due to the manufacturing of these "alternative energy" products.
    And we tell ourselves that we're be
  • Hmmm, this sounds like one of those ideas that's bound to lose: When you shrink a generator and turbine to one tenth its former size:
    • The power output goes down by a factor of 1,000. (power out is proportional to L x W x H )
    • The friction in the bearings goes down by a factor of 100 (proportional to surface area of bearings)
    • The windage losses due to air friction between the generator rotor and stator stay about the same.
    • The air friction losses in the turbine may go waay up (as the ratio of turbulent
  • Surely fuel cells have potential to be more effecent then using a minature engine burning fuel, as that has to go through several energy conversions (chemical > mechanical+wasted heat > electrical) rather then converting the chemical energy straight to electricity

  • This WARNING label on gaming notebooks recommends: (Score:5, Funny)

    by flowerp ( 512865 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @12:29PM (#10918407)
    To power the new Radeon Mobility X800 graphics card, your laptop will enable the afterburner. This will inject kerosene into the exhaust jet to provide additional power to the generator. Please keep the laptop away from combustible materials for your own safety. During operation, you should wear noise protection earmuffs and keep a fire extinguisher handy. Turbine blades must be inspected by your closest General Electric Turbines facility each 10,000 hours of operation. Only use unleaded JET A1 fuel. DANGER: Avoid jet blast! Do not obstruct the air intake or data loss may occur.

  • C'mon, you lardasses (Score:2, Interesting)

    by blair1q ( 305137 )
    I can generate well over 300 watts on a bicycle. You can generate 100 watts essentially indefinitely without breaking a sweat.

    You want to listen to your iPod? Hook it up to your bike!

    I wear my iPod when I'm on my bike. Imagine how much cooler it would be if it didn't neeed a battery...
    • Local laws notwithstanding (because I'm sure you were talking about a stationary bike, right?), why don't you try to build one yourself? There are already plenty of plans [speedfactory.net] on how to build iPod charger using batteries. So it's not so much of a stretch to imagine a generator charging the battery pack, charging the iPod...

  • Why not mini-Stirling engines? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cratos ( 795425 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @01:13PM (#10918700) Homepage
    Shouldn't these engineers be concentrating on building a miniature Stirling engine instead? The processor itself could provide most of the heat for the engine. Also, this would make the whole system a lot more efficient. Instead of generating more wasted energy in the form of heat, the heat from the processor would be recovered and turned into more electricity.
    • I like this idea.. The CPU would need a kickstart from a battery pack to start work, then as the BTUs rise, the cycle would change over and the Stirling would pick up the load, charging the "starter" batteries, and providing power.

      Quite efficient, Stirlings.. The Aussies are using two to drive a unmanned station down in Antarctica. Pricey tho.. 10,000 AU$ each for a pair of 1500w units.
  • Reminds me of a radio that runs wihout batteries or a plug. There was a how-to-build-it in Popular Science many years ago.

    You take a crystal radio, tune it to a strong AM station, run the output not to a loudspeaker but to a rectifier, then use that to power a transistor radio which you can tune to any station.

    Viola! Free energy!

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