Posted by Mike on April 11th, 2008 in material, power generation, vibrations, wind
http://www.rdmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=014&ACCT=1400000100&ISSUE=080 4&RELTYPE=MIC&PRODCODE=0000000&PRODLETT=EI&CommonCount=0
A Zenit-3SL rocket explodes on its floating launch platform—an incident initally described as an “anomaly”—on January 30th. (credit: Sea Launch)
I came across this interesting piece of research about sound and vibrations induced by sounds and while some folks would just blow by it without notice, I could not help but read this and start […]
Posted by Mike on March 25th, 2008 in power generation, power storage, vehicle
http://www.physorg.com/news125666441.html
Well, if we are going to have a hydrogen future, it’s either going to be based on fossil fuel in the form of a fuel cell reformer - the part of fuel cell that takes what ever you feed it and strips out the hydrogen- or it going to be based on some other […]
Posted by Mike on February 7th, 2008 in power generation
http://www.physorg.com/news121610315.html
Well, kiddies, here we go on the free energy warpath again. From cold fusion, to the Grigg’s hydrosonic pump (Google that one for a walk on the wild side), to Perepiteia, we all want to violate the fundamental laws of physics. Right? So, do you think we know all of the laws? What […]
Posted by Mike on November 30th, 2007 in heat, power generation, sound
It seems that everyone is looking for ways of scavenging power from, well anywhere. This physics professor challenged his doctoral student to improve the design of a thermoacoustic engine driven by waste heat to make sound energy. This, in turn, vibrates piezoelectric devices to generate electricity.
There are sources of waste heat everywhere, and for the […]
Posted by Mike on November 28th, 2007 in power generation
The desalinization of seawater has been a Holy Grail for tinkerers forever. Finding a cheap, fast, mobile method of removing salt from water may be the most important scientific challenge for this century. I think by now we all can see the handwriting on the wall. Lake Lanier is about as gone as the water […]
Posted by Mike on November 27th, 2007 in heat, power generation
This article points to the possibility of using heat to make a thermal logic gate, which could be a great way to make a new type of computer that is powered by a heat source. At first pass, it didn’t really strike me as that significant. After all, just because you can build a logic […]
Posted by Mike on November 21st, 2007 in heat, power generation
This snippet of an article published in the Applied Physics Letters may be the harbinger of something of huge importance. While graphene is a sheet of nanoparticles, and therefore not immediately relevant, the area of work (specifically in the thermoelectric arena) is one of great impact. If you think about all of the available direct […]
Posted by Mike on November 19th, 2007 in biology, power generation
This is a great example of out of the box thinking. It uses the excess energy of a beating heart to generate enough electricity to recharge the batteries in a pacemaker or batteries in an LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device) or other implanted body helper.
I must say that inventors have been tap dancing around this […]
Posted by Mike on November 14th, 2007 in heat, power generation, power storage
Ever since the term “Hydrogen economy” crept into our vocabulary, the counter argument has been storage: How do you store this energy source in a way that makes engineering and economical sense?
First, we wanted to compress it into super cold – 253C liquid H2 tanks. This provides the fastest access to […]
