First discovery of a new electricity source in more than 160 years... - Page 2

Immortal Wombat · October 22, 2003, 16:12

thanks

Q Classic · October 22, 2003, 16:15

yeah, but you're a girl. that alone sends a bunch of the people here into twitters.

st_swithin · October 22, 2003, 16:20

Well, at least it works for me somewhere. Doesn't do a damn thing for me in RL, that's for sure.

Q Classic · October 22, 2003, 16:22

hey, we should set up a st_swithin fan club, like the ones we had for blackwidow and femmeadonis...

st_swithin · October 22, 2003, 16:27

Thanks. I'm not sure if my poor little Asian-influenced sense of humility could stand the pressure though.

Mercator · October 22, 2003, 17:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Dissident
we have many better ways of generating electricity. but we still have crappy ways of storing electricity

One word: Hydrogen. I recently saw a TV program about the "hydrogen revolution", very interesting.

Let me see...
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/hydrogen.html
http://people.howstuffworks.com/hydrogen-economy.htm
http://www.emagazine.com/january-feb...0103feat1.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/...793581,00.html

Q Classic · October 22, 2003, 22:33

even with bush's investment, it's not going to happen. it's fuel cells or bust.

to develop an infrastructure based around hydrogen would be extraordinarily expensive, not to mention difficult to actually roll out.

MrFun · October 22, 2003, 22:38

Quote:

Originally posted by ixnay
Oh crap my cellphone has run dry let me go fill it up

Yeah -- don't you hate it when that happens?

MrFun · October 22, 2003, 23:39

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmitchell
We're going to find that some liquids do it better than others. A far-off distant place will hold most of the liquids. We will endlessly meddle in their affairs.

I'll stick to supporting solar + hydrogen + hydro + nuclear, at least until these things become seriously efficient.

You say you're going to support the types of energy you mentioned only until they become more efficient, then AFTER they become more efficient, you're not going to support them?

st_swithin · October 23, 2003, 00:05

I want to see what happens with the pentaparticles. Maybe they'll find a use for the quarktets.

Dis · October 23, 2003, 02:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Q Cubed
even with bush's investment, it's not going to happen. it's fuel cells or bust.

to develop an infrastructure based around hydrogen would be extraordinarily expensive, not to mention difficult to actually roll out.

we did it with gasoline. It's not like it's impossible.

Wraith · October 23, 2003, 07:38

--"we did it with gasoline. It's not like it's impossible."

Depends how you're defining impossible. Certianly not impossible from a technical standpoint, but there are a couple things to consider.
One is that we've already got a distribution system for gasoline. When we built that infrastructure, there wasn't one for anything directly competitive (unless you want to count coal, but there weren't ever many coal-burning cars). Replacing a legacy system is always going to be more difficult than creating a new one from scratch.
Second is that the technology would be more difficult. Hydrogen isn't the easiest stuff to move around. The best bet would be to use things like the mini-nuke plant in the other thread to have point-production scattered around where necessary, but politically that one will never happen (NIMBY, etc). Unfortunately, that doesn't leave much. I don't think solar or wind are reliable and predictable enough for people to want to base a business (ie. their hydro-gas station) off of them, and if we're making it with power from coal and oil... well, what's the point? Hydrogen just doesn't transport well, which means it doesn't lend itself to a few large-scale factories and distribution centers.

Wraith
"I'm an engineer, not a normal person."
-- Dilbert ("Dilbert")

Q Classic · October 23, 2003, 19:56

yes, we did it with gasoline. but gasoline, after it was rolled out, was very quickly profitable.

i don't see the same result with h. too many people will be using the old cars, using old engines, and gasoline will be cheaper, at least for the first few years, if not permanently.

unless it's heavily subsidized by the government, even as it runs at heavy losses for several years, the infrastructure will not develop.

mrmitchell · October 23, 2003, 20:23

Quote:

Originally posted by MrFun

You say you're going to support the types of energy you mentioned only until they become more efficient, then AFTER they become more efficient, you're not going to support them?

'These things' refers to the runnnig water devices

The Vagabond · October 23, 2003, 22:26

LOL. I bet if you simply rub silk (

or should it be wool?) against a glass wand you'll get more electricity, and with less energy expenditure. Sure, their work is interesting. But it doesn't justify the kind of fuss produced around it (well, it seems that U of A excels at publicity). As people here already pointed out, all this makes sense only if it is (at least, remotely) feasible to get more energy out of it than the energy pumped in to pump the water flow. Unfortunately, the cited article avoids mentioning this problem at all. So, for now, it looks like exploding an atomic bomb in order to heat up a cup of coffee.

Any comparison with solar batteries is irrelevant and confusing, since we don't need to pump any energy for them to work (the energy comes from the sun). As for the physical effect itself, it was known before. But, again, their work is interesting and important, if only because they've achieved a better quantitative understanding of the effect. They've done a good job (at least, the graduate student Yang did

), and they don't deserve such a false and silly publicity.

Quote:

a new method of generating electric power by harnessing the natural electrokinetic properties of a liquid such as ordinary tap water, by pumping fluids through tiny microchannels.

Pumping fluids through tiny microchannels requires a hell lot of energy by itself, and is itself a subject of studies how to do it more efficiently.

But on the other hand, I can imagine a practical application on a "by-product" basis. For example, if you have a system where water gets pumped through tiny microchannels anyway (for some other reason), why not to harness the electricity thereby produced. Perhaps even a small amount of electricity produced in this way will be useful for something within the same device.

Velociryx · October 23, 2003, 22:30

St_swithin....you're awesome!

-=Vel=-
(and sign me up for that fan club!)

st_swithin · October 24, 2003, 00:20

I wonder how many flavours those quarktets are gonna come in...probably a multiple of 5.

Ted Striker · October 24, 2003, 00:28

you have to take baby steps before you can sprint people

don't hate congratulate

Urban Ranger · October 24, 2003, 00:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Q Cubed
i don't see the same result with h. too many people will be using the old cars, using old engines, and gasoline will be cheaper, at least for the first few years, if not permanently.

Economic incentives could do wonders

Q Classic · October 24, 2003, 07:54

i mention that:

Quote:

unless it's heavily subsidized by the government, even as it runs at heavy losses for several years, the infrastructure will not develop.

Drake Tungsten · October 24, 2003, 08:41

Quote:

Why not? I'm just as big a geek as the next guy.

You have a better sense of absurd timing than the other people here.

It certainly has nothing to do with you being a woman. I don't treat Q Cubed any different because she's a chick.

Q Classic · October 24, 2003, 09:00

Quote:

It certainly has nothing to do with you being a woman. I don't treat Q Cubed any different because she's a chick.

what makes you think i'm a girl?

Urban Ranger · October 24, 2003, 23:13

Q^3 is a woman?

mrmitchell · October 24, 2003, 23:24

Oh yeah, BTW

The first new one in "160 years"? So nuclear power was not found within the last 160 years? I assume ol' Ben Franklin drew up the designs for a nuclear power plant, eh?

Hasn't electricity (the harnessing of it) only been around for so much longer than that, anyways?

Q Classic · October 24, 2003, 23:34

Quote:

Q^3 is a woman?

might explain why i don't have a thing for britney, if ted striker's to be believed.

but my gf thinks i have a flat chest. i just asked.

Dis · October 25, 2003, 03:06

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Oh yeah, BTW

The first new one in "160 years"? So nuclear power was not found within the last 160 years? I assume ol' Ben Franklin drew up the designs for a nuclear power plant, eh?

Hasn't electricity (the harnessing of it) only been around for so much longer than that, anyways?

The thing about nuclear power is nuclear fission does not actually produce electricity. A nuclear reactor is essentually a big heater.

It is a generator spun by a steam turbine that produces the electricty. That method of producing electricity has been around for a while.

st_swithin · October 25, 2003, 18:26

Q^3: ask your gf if you have no a55 too.

DT: must have been all those episodes of Monty Python's I viewed as a child, seeping into my present-day absurdity.

Vel: You're my new hero!!

Velociryx · October 25, 2003, 20:50

*contemplates being St_Swithin's hero*

-=Vel=-

KrazyHorse · October 25, 2003, 21:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Asher
http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/e...?p_ID=5117&s=0

The benefits look great, at least for devices with low current requirements, given that the technology matures. Can the physics-types here give their opinion on this?

Also see the BBC article and The Globe & Mail.

Yeah. My opinion is that

a) They'll never get close to the energy density of a battery using this method.

b) We already have a method of generating power via pressure differential; it's called a turbine, and is almost certainly more efficient.

c) Who the hell wants water flowing through an electronic device?

It's interesting but silly. I can guarantee that turbulence going to heating up waterflow is stealing more energy from you than is reasonable.

Kuciwalker · October 25, 2003, 21:24

KrazyHorse - how could it even work at all? Would the water have to be flowing continuously for it to store energy? Isn't it no different from using a flywheel as a battery? Won't it stop because of friction?