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aamukherjee Entropie -
alchymista Alchymista -
crownedrose Hymn To The Sea -
epistemophobiarunsdeep Falling Over Myself. -
expose-the-light Quarks to Quasars -
ikenbot cwl -
pieceinthepuzzlehumanity This Is The Right One -
project-argus Hello, Universe. -
torgothegreat God Delusion
Compound eyes of the black fly at 33x magnification. 10th place in the 1988 Nikon Small World Competition.
Again with this needing to be in 3D.
expose-the-light
Glass frog
Germany
The see-through skin of an inch-long glass frog reveals her eggs. Native to Venezuela, the frogs lay eggs in bushes and trees overhanging streams. Tadpoles hatch, then tumble into the current to be swept away. (Heidi and Hans-Jurgen Koch)
Researchers in the US have built a prototype device which they say can generate electricity from waste water.
The team at Pennsylvania State University says the technology would simultaneously treat the water.
They suggest the process could be adopted in developing countries, providing clean water and power for homes.
Details are published in the journal Science.
Scientists in the Netherlands have for some years been exploring the idea of generating renewable power along the country’s coastline, where fresh water from rivers meets the salt water of the sea.
Using a process called reverse electrodialysis (RED), fresh water and seawater are placed in intermittent chambers separated by membranes, and an electrochemical charge is created.
A Norwegian company is developing a similar technology using saline and fresh water.
The Penn State team says RED technology is problematic because of the large number of membranes required, and because power plants have to be located by the sea.
They claim the number of membranes can be reduced and the power output boosted by combining the technology with what are called microbial fuel cells (MFCs). These use organic matter in solution to create an electric current - in this instance waste water.
The prototype technology also bypasses the need for salt water by using ammonium bicarbonate solution as a substitute, meaning the system could work in communities far from the sea.
The ammonium bicarbonate solution would be constantly recycled, using waste heat from local industry.
“If we treat waste water in just a microbial fuel cell, we don’t create much power and it takes a long time,” lead researcher Professor Bruce Logan told BBC News.
“In our process, we have the MFC part which is treating waste water and creating energy, and we have the RED stack which is just boosting that process, it’s making it happen more efficiently.”
He says the process could potentially be used anywhere, but could provide both clean water and power to communities in developing countries.
“The main application right now is in waste water treatment where you could effectively treat the water, but also gain some extra energy from waste heat.
“Instead of having a net drain, we have a net gain.”
ikenbot
crownedrose
Masked Royalty
Image courtesy NASA/Caltech/UCLA
In a newly released mosaic picture, NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, space telescope helps royals blend in with a crowd: the bright stars of the constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus seem to vanish among the millions of other stars and dense clouds of dust revealed by the spacecraft’s infrared vision.
Cassiopeia and Cepheus were named after a mythological queen and king of Ethiopia. To the naked eye, the constellations are easily visible in the northern sky every night for most U.S. observers.
Published January 13, 2012
Sony extracts power from cardboard
At an exhibit in Tokyo, the company showed how cardboard can provide enough energy to power a fan.
Corrugated cardboard was used as a source for cellulose, whose glucose chain was broken up with enzymes to produce hydrogen ions and electrons. The electrons delivered electricity while the hydrogen ions reacted with oxygen, which resulted in water.
Don’t get excited about a novel way to reuse old cardboard just yet: Sony notes that the power output is very low and a commercialization should not be expected anytime soon. Apparently the method is good enough to power digital music players, but it cannot recharge or replace common batteries.
Economic Analysis Puts Solar Power in a Good Light
It’s time to stop thinking of solar energy as a boutique source of power, says Joshua Pearce. Sure, solar only generates about 1 percent of the electricity in the US. But that will change in a few years, says Pearce, an associate professor of electrical engineering and materials science at Michigan Technological Univ. The ultimate in renewable energy is about to go mainstream.
It’s a matter of economics. A new analysis by Pearce and his colleagues at Queen’s Univ. in Kingston, Ontario, shows that solar photovoltaic systems are very close to achieving the tipping point: they can make electricity that’s as cheap—sometimes cheaper—as what consumers pay their utilities.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-Economic-Analysis-Puts-Solar-Power-in-a-Good-Light-120211.aspx
Right on! Can’t wait til we have solar powered city grid, would be the smartest move we can possibly do right now and this sort of tech needs to be adapted as we let go of the old, destructive energy sources.
