Batteries Powered by Leftover Food 268
Lazyhound writes "Technologists at the University of the West of England in Bristol have come up with a cheap, organic battery that can run on household leftovers, and be manufactured for just £10." There's also a New Scientist article. The New Scientist would like to point out that they broke the story, and the BBC followed up.
Flux Capacitor (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Flux Capacitor (Score:5, Informative)
Flux Capacitor was inside the car, in the back seat area, and was shown as a Y shape.
Re:Flux Capacitor (Score:4, Funny)
And that little top-up of food generates 1.21Gigawatts, phew! I wouldn't like the idea of Mr. Fusion digesting all the leftovers of Sunday lunch from a large family! :)
picky (Score:4, Informative)
Re:picky (Score:5, Funny)
Ever notice.. (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Flux Capacitor (Score:5, Interesting)
Any Marines out there able to give a few better specifics?
Kinda off topic, but hey, it's still funny.
Re:Flux Capacitor (Score:3, Interesting)
It was the point of many jokes for the quarter of my electronics class when we dealt with capacitors and inductors.
Re:Flux Capacitor (Score:2)
Other movie Reference (Score:2)
Finally.... (Score:5, Funny)
many a person has pondered the food-to-fuel idea (Score:3, Funny)
I bet you could power a HUGE beowulf cluster (sorry had to) if only you could harness the gas from everyone eating taco bell. Now theres something to do if you have leftovers. Sort of a gas/electric hybrid, watch for Honda's next innovation. Should be interesting!
Re:many a person has pondered the food-to-fuel ide (Score:3, Funny)
Honest dear - if I stop farting in the car, we'll never make it there by 8pm!
Re:many a person has pondered the food-to-fuel ide (Score:3, Funny)
So that's why they call those big tailpipes on the backs of sticker-laden Hondas "fart pipes"!
Real men of genius (Score:5, Funny)
Today we salute you Mr.regardless-of-topic-lets-post-beowulf-cluster-
Without paying any attention to the story at hand you stay true to your mission of spreading the gospel of the Grendel slayer.
Grendel slayer
Be it virus spreading lego men, Jon Katz fanclub winamp skins, or coffee grinders running Red Hat...
running Red Hat
...you can imagine them all in multiplicitous clusters.
clusters baby
So next time you're browsing slashdot ignore all the posts blasting Python, Perl or patent lawyers just set the threshold to -1 and do a search for the hero of the Geats, then think for a minute Geats and Gates? Is Beowulf a prophecy?
Re:many a person has pondered the food-to-fuel ide (Score:3, Funny)
So, theorectically, a Slashdot Meetup could be used to combat rolling blackouts.
Re:many a person has pondered the food-to-fuel ide (Score:2)
And I just *love* your sig. Easily in my top 3 favorite Slashdot sigs.
siri
Wow! (Score:3, Funny)
This will be messy (Score:2, Funny)
liquifying tool. (Score:2)
They could give them away as sort of a promotion... "Buy this battery pack and we'll throw in a Fuelizer(tm) for free!"
Don't count on seeing it in your home anytime soon (Score:5, Funny)
Similar (Score:5, Informative)
hmm (Score:5, Funny)
then again, if it smells like garbage, maybe it could attract flies, and maybe the flies could feed it.. ah, that would be funny.
Carnivorous Robot (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item107.htm [howstuffworks.com]
Re:Carnivorous Robot (Score:3, Funny)
A Light Snack [angryflower.com] (C)Stephen Notley
I have the superpower (Score:5, Funny)
Web page of the team leader: (Score:5, Informative)
Prior Art (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Prior Art-Driving to work everyday 4 over an hr (Score:2, Funny)
That is exactly how I run my car too... Half eaten sandwhich over here, some chips on the seat, open soda cans between the seats, etc.
I still cant figure out why I can't have a second date with a chick tho. Go figure?
Leftovers? (Score:4, Funny)
It brings tears to my eyes. (Score:3, Funny)
Now snif, snif, I can finally take that road trip with only a laptop and 200 liters of soda that I always dreamed of!!
if only they make a satellite dish that works on pickled weiners...
Using myself to fuel the car (Score:4, Funny)
Scientists say 50 grammes of sugar would keep a 40-watt light bulb lit for eight hours.
Now, what I will do, is to just connect this liposuction [discoverpl...urgery.com] device with me and their innovation, turn my fat into hydrogen and fuel my car [canadiandriver.com]. I assume my excess kgs of excess fat will take me to whereever I want. Haha! Here we come McDonald's [mcdonalds.com]!
Re:Using myself to fuel the car (Score:2, Funny)
I have no idea how this could work, but imagine uh nanobots or something that ran around your body using your fat for energy, and doing something useful, like uh strectching the muscles and whatever else nanobots do.
Read Moonbase. (Score:2)
Great for UPS!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine,
a stack of left over pizza suspended by a magnet waiting above "the Pit". when the power drops, the pizza drops.... voila, instant power back-up...
Need more power???, just add pizza.
Use in remote places (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Use in remote places (Score:2, Funny)
Simple. I have no idea about plants, but I imagine woodland creatures are bound to have some degree of the appropriate susbtances in them.
Gives a whole new meaning to the concept of an 'Energizer Bunny'.
clarification needed (Score:2)
Scientists say 50 grammes of sugar would keep a 40-watt light bulb lit for eight hours.
so does the e.coli eat it's excrement (hydrogen) and produce electricity? i'm guessing it's the cell in the battery that does this...
secondly - let's sterilize the hell out of our current landfills, and introduce this bacteria to them! same thing goes for our mouths - no more cavities!
I don't get something -- (Score:5, Interesting)
Huh? I for one would happily buy one if it could run my 40W max laptop for 8 hours on an ounce and a half (about 50 grams) of refined sugar. Why does it need further refinement before use?
Re:I don't get something -- (Score:2, Insightful)
Osmolarity (Score:5, Informative)
Read the article (Score:2)
"It has to be able to use raw materials, rather than giving it refined fuel."
I think you missed the point. At present, they probably do add water to the sugar. But they are aiming to process household wastes (carrot peels, sewage) rather than refined sugar (a pure carbohydrate like, er, petrol/gasoline).
Re:I don't get something -- (Score:2)
Finally (Score:3, Funny)
Boy: "Mom I don't want to eat my dinner!"
Mom: "Fine son well at least refresh the batteries in my Vibrator"
Boy: Sure Mom!!!
"Power hungry" ??? (Score:3, Funny)
Could the Colis be outcompeted? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Could the Colis be outcompeted? (Score:5, Funny)
It sure would bring a whole new meaning to the words "dead battery".
Re:Could the Colis be outcompeted? (Score:2, Interesting)
Thanks, but I'll wait for Mr Fusion (Score:5, Funny)
Huge implications (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article:
This I want to power my car. And laptop. And house appliances (not just so that I can pour coffee on my computer to recharge the battery)
This solves the hydrogen-storing problem in the hydrogen powered vehicles [geocities.com]: no more dangerous concentration of hydrogen, instead you get a small tank containing bubbling "mud". Not quite inflammable in case of a collision.
Add to this that it's hardly polluting (just as much as taking a dump in a bosquet, I'd say), and it even helps reducing the amount of houseold garbage (Powerplants recycling garbage, anyone ?).
The main aspect of this energy source is that it completely suppress the need for combustion. Instead it uses slow, catalyzed, controlled chemical processes that use a lower amount of initial energy. No more smoke.
Maybe I'm overstating all this, but it definitely looks cool. And it's cheap, too. Carrot-powered car, coming our way !
Re:Huge implications (Score:5, Interesting)
This has more meaning then you might think for the economy. The idea that a country will not have to import oil any longer to maintain its power systems / gas requirements is just as important as the savings for the individual from not having to go to the gas station.
This would put farmers back to work producing carets in every country in the world, even giving 3rd world countries an exportable resource. Not to mention the environmental effects of having thousands of caret crops producing oxygen on top of a mass reduction of toxins being thrown into the air.
With this, every 3rd world country that does not have pollution laws will find it cheaper not to pollute, and everyone could meet the Kyoto protocol. I can just imagine the new commercials coming out from the "Juice Man" now. With him dumping his carets into a juicer and drinking the juice, putting the pulp into his car...
Re:Huge implications (Score:2)
At last! (Score:2, Funny)
Potato clock (Score:3, Interesting)
--trb
Re:Potato clock (Score:3, Informative)
The article describes a microbial fuel cell that is totally different.
The potato clock is a different deal... (Score:5, Informative)
On a related note, because the amalgam fillings in your mouth contain two dissimilar metals (silver and mercury), and saliva is an electrolyte, you could conceivably power your cell phone with your fillings. I am NOT making this up, there are documented medical cases where galvanic reactions involving amalgam fillings have been observed, e.g.: "Dr. William Cheshire, a physician at the Mayo Clinic, reports on a case where a woman's trigeminal neuralgia (tic douloureux) was traced to a galvanic reaction between an amalgam filling and an adjacent gold-alloy crown. Consumption of tomatoes and other acidic foods produced intense jolts described as being like those of an 'electrical battery'." (The abstract is here [yourhealthbase.com].
Interesting (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
40W bulb * 8 hours = 40 J/s * 8 hr = 1,152,000 J
50g sugar * 4 Cal/g = 200 Cal = 800,000 J
Aren't they off by a factor of 2?
From the article... (Score:3, Funny)
I dont know how comfortable I would be with on eof these in my home...
airline food... (Score:5, Funny)
no more gasoline (Score:2, Funny)
Re:no more gasoline (Score:4, Informative)
It's quite ingenious, though highly illegal...
So when does the time machine come out? (Score:2)
A few considerations (Score:4, Insightful)
2. Besides sugar, the cell needs some mysterious 'redox chemicals'. How expensive they are? Can they be produced environmentally-friendly? Are they safe to store? So, this might or might not be a great invention.
Two important questions... (Score:2)
Scientists say 50 grammes of sugar would keep a 40-watt light bulb lit for eight hours.
Two questions:
This being said, this is truly interesting!
Re:Two important questions... (Score:2, Informative)
50g gives 40 watts for 8 hours = 0,32 Wh. Where I live that's about 7 cents worth of electricity.
But the really interesting part is of course how it compares to conventional means of disposing garbage. And I'm pretty sure that 0,32 Wh of portable electricity is quite a lot better than the power output from burning 50g of sugar (or placing as part of a large smelly pile...)
Re:Two important questions... (Score:4, Insightful)
I can nip down the supermarket and buy a bag of sugar for 54p (0.54GBP). This bag contains 1Kg of sugar. So 50g. of sugar would cost under 3p.
So threepence worth of sugar would keep my 40 watt light bulb on for eight hours.
If electricty is charged at 6p per Kw/h (can't remember exactly, not got electricity bill on me) then the cost of lighting that 40w bulb is just under 2p. So there's not a lot in it!
However this is mere nitpicking and missing the point entirely. At the moment they're using sugar in the prototype. They intend to refine the bio-generator to use first carrots rather than pure sugar, and move on household waste. STUFF YOU THROW AWAY and is therefore worthless. At that point, the running cost is effectively zero.
So not only would this reduce the amount of rubbish thrown away by the average household, but it also reduces environmental damage done by power generation.
Just don't throw your old antibiotics in it!
When will is use leaves and grass clippings (Score:4, Interesting)
What I need is a back yard composter/fertilizer dispenser/generator that I can throw leaves, grass (actually I mulch these now), kitched scaps (sugar cubes, carrots, etc).
I sell the extra energy back to the power grid, and spread the fertilizer on my yard.
No wait, this would make to much ecological/economic sense, I must be some kind of hippie, tree hugger, freak.
The engine will run on carrots?! (Score:2)
Great... no matter what color car I buy, it will eventually turn orange.
50 grams - 40 watts????? (Score:3, Informative)
Let's do the math. 50 grames = 12 1/2 servings. Or, 12.5 * 15 = 187.5 C (That's big C calories or really kilo-calories).
40 watts * 8 hours =
A KW Hours costs about
A round cylindrical sugar container of the coffee area variety has 567g's so were talking about 1/10 of a thing of sugar which costs about $.50.
So, the sugar costs 10 cents but the same energy produced by a power plant costs
So, when the greens step up the argument of, big business is squashing new alternative energy sources, maybe there's sound economic reasoning on the part of the neysayers.
cash from the trash (Score:2)
If you imagine how much food goes down garbage disposals or gets dumped into landfills, there's conceivably millions of kilowatt-hours worth of power being lost. Reclaiming that power would be revolutionary.
Re:50 grams - 40 watts????? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know where you're shopping, but you're paying too much for sugar.
It gets even better when you buy it in bulk. Also, consider that you would no longer necessarily have to use sugar that was intended for human consumption. With that in mind, I'm sure there's probably "waste sugar" -- maybe its discolored, maybe it got contaminated in some way -- that still is suitable for the battery. That might be cheaper.
Also, don't forget that the ultimate goal is to use leftovers, not pure sugar.
Finally, you're using the traditional "free-market" technique of *not* looking at *all the costs*. Continuing to use traditional power plants running on oil means that we're constantly having to defend our "interests" in the middle east, spending billions and billions of dollars on military equipment and personel. This military intervention is what keeps our oil prices low. Thus, part of that cost has to be figured in to the cost of the electricity, and at that point the sugar wins hands down, I think.
Re:50 grams - 40 watts????? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes! Invade Hawaii!
That's nice and all.. (Score:4, Insightful)
With this method, you run into the same problems that we have with automobiles and other gas powered devices. They are less efficient than large scale counterparts, which leads to waste energy, lost in poor engines, and exhaust.
It seems to make more sense to be to centralize the "compost" and generate electricity that way. This would keep bacteria in one place, and minimize the lost energy. It really wouldn't be any different than a power plant.
infact i'm pretty sure that's already been done. What are the benefits to localizing the energy generation? I can't see any. People will have to clean the devices, organic matter doesn't rot away into nothing. There are components to the waste generated by the bacteria organisms. you cant really stick in food and have it *all* gone
i see problems that are going to be difficult to fix. We already have a huge waste management system. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch for waste management to begin compost of organic waste and become power stations with the tech available. then the generated energy can just be stored in traditional batteries. it doesnt seem that these organic batteries offer any improved life over chemical batteries at all.
Re:That's nice and all.. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, if people had a incentive for composting, they would put all of their waste into the battery located in the back of their house, say. While not all of the scraps would be gone, it would probably decay much more quickly than it would in a landfill, and it would generate some electricity.
Waste management crews could pick up the waste once it had been decomposed, filter it, sanitize it, and sell it as a fertilizer or soil filler.
The improvement is that chemical batteries actually add to our trash volume and these might reduce it.
Are you mad? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't even know where to begin! Converting organic matter to electricity on demand on a portable scale - and you dismiis it as silly!
I'm a bit rusty on my recycling but:
- Primary: re-use for original purpose (e.g.
second-hand clothes)
- Secondary: re-use for alternative purpose (e.g. clothes as wiping rags)
- Tertiary: reclamation of materials (e.g. clothes as paper fibre)
- Quaternery: reclamation of energy (e.g. burning the clothes to warm you up)
So unless you like eating someone elses left-overs, want to replant the seeds of the tomato they've eaten, or make a halloween pumpkin, you are left with energy or land-fill. Silly energy!?I simply don't understand the argument that it is more efficient to gather the waste to a central location (by truck?), burn/convert it there, transmit across a high voltage line to your house, charge a NiCd, etc, than to stuff your leftovers in a CD size case and get energy provided by nature's best organic catalysts in the middle of no-where, or at the bottom of your loo.
Or were you planning to hook up all of Africa to the American grid? This would be ideal for families in developing countries to run a lamp bulb (or radio, or even a computer) off after 6 p.m. on the equator.
Gaah, nuff said.
Finally, It has a use (Score:3, Funny)
waste removal (Score:3, Funny)
(Of course, this is not a problem for backyard generator type of systems, but might be for your laptop)
Re:waste removal (Score:2)
"Damn, my battery's crapped out again!"
Third World fuel (Score:3, Insightful)
Eco tax evasion? (Score:2)
Re:Eco tax evasion? (Score:2)
Re:Eco tax evasion? (Score:2)
146% efficiency??? Something smells funny here!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
-lets do a little math...
The article claims 8 hours @ 40 watts from 50 grams of sugar: 40watts=.04kW
according to the domino box in my hand, 4grams sugar=15 Calories, so the sugar contains 12.5*15=187.5 Calories
So-- they claim to be getting 1152kJ output for a 785kJ input???? 146% output is impressive, but not likely.
Don't leave things over (Score:2)
Sure this is a good idea, but it only uses the energy in the food - i.e. all the time you use to cook it, decoration etc. are still completely wasted efforts. I'm sure the battery would still work if you put the "raw materials" in it i.e. eggs, meat, vegetables, sugar, grain etc.
Cooking it then feeding it to a battery instead of eating it just makes no sense to me. Unless they make a battery with a sense of taste.
Efficient? (Score:2)
They gave a rough figure of 50g of sugar powering a 40W light bulb for eight hours.
40W x 8hrs = 0.32 kWh
50g * 2.204623 = 0.110 lbs
Cheap bags of sugar at netgrocer are $0.66/lb.
0.11 lbs * $0.66 = $0.073
1/0.32 = 3.125
$0.073*3.125 = $0.23
So by my rough calculations, if you bought bags of sugar to feed the fuel cell for house power, you'd be paying $0.23/kWh, which is significantly higher than I pay for electricity here in Texas.
Their currently technology only uses pure sugar. They're working towards carrots they claim - but I would imagine the efficiency can only decrease from the raw sugar efficiency per dollar unless the fundamentals of their technology improve.
Mandatory ex-wife joke (Score:3, Funny)
Batteries that poop (Score:4, Funny)
Be sure your batteries get plenty of fiber to avoid constipation.
I can see it now... (Score:2)
NURSE: I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do.
OWNER: But my laptop was just fine a few minutes ago? What happened?
NURSE: Your organic batteries have food poisoning.
OWNER: Oh my lord... what can I do!?!?
NURSE: Nothing... he's dead now Jim.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Filed under brilliance for... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Filed under brilliance for... (Score:5, Informative)
Most strains of E. Coli are harmless in normal concentrations, and indeed live in your gut without causing any problems at all. Students at universities/colleges worldwide use it in concentrated culture all the time without any special precautions. Only E. Coli 10571 (iirc), a weird mutant strain, poses a food poisoning risk.
Bob
Re:Filed under brilliance for... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Filed under brilliance for... (Score:5, Informative)
I also think it is a bit of stretch to say that this is a "weird mutant strain" since there are plenty other types of E. coli that can cause diarrhea via food poisoning (including the closing related Enteropathogenic E. coli. Incidentally, O157:H7 doesn't seem to hurt adult cattle too much, it just seems to have a really bad effect inside us (particularly children and elderly).
Brian.
Re:Filed under brilliance for... (Score:2)
Re:Filed under brilliance for... (Score:3, Informative)
Absolutely - ignorant media hype at work again. The pricks almost always get science wrong. The worst thing is that so many people fall for it.
The real reason that Escherichia Coli gets such bad press is a mere side effect of that it's such a common and incredibly populous inhabitant of a healthy human intestinal tract. That's what makes it such an excellent indicator of untreated sewage content.
When you're investigating possible sewage pollution, there's no point beginning with looking for the rare stuff that's dangerous in needle & haystack concentrations. No, you're better off counting the numbers of something that you're guaranteed to find, and extrapolating from there.
Of course, the media then jumps to the conclusion that, because a high E. Coli count probably means Really Bad Things are in the water, E. Coli itself becomes a Really Bad Thing.
Re:Filed under brilliance for... (Score:5, Funny)
nickel-cadmium, lead-acid, nickel metal hydride, carbon-zinc, lithium... ummmm, it makes my mouth water.
Re:Ideal (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We have the infrastructure now!!! (Score:2)
Maran
Re:stinking tech? (Score:2, Funny)
I imagine they will build the device so the actual reaction chamber (artifical gut?) would be enclosed. The hydrogen gas generated by the bacteria is converted to electricity and water vapor. Assuming rotten food is used, there will be waste from that. This leads me to the (obvious) question -- what kind of solid waste will this system produce and how will it be removed from the unit? We all know what the solid waste output from humans and animals is, so will the solid waste output from this unit be similar? I can see it now -- cleaning up dog crap, changing the litter box, and cleaning out the "organic battery" crap! I csn see it now -- "Honey, I got to take the car out to take a dump!"
Oh well, if the price is right, I guess I can handle disposing of a little more crap...