More than hot air: thoughts on Wind Power

Although the study and implementation of wind power is not a novice idea, it does seem to be a widespread deal lately. One look at a renewable energy news resource shows numerous pages of stories specifically on the topic of wind power. The purpose of today's post is to take a look at the news stories of one day, today, and give briefings on each.

In the Telegraph & Argus, a story regarding a charity and a wind turbine unfolds. The plan, the construction of a 15 meter wind turbine that was to provide power to a center for disadvantaged youth, has been rebuffed, however, by the planning panel of Bradford Council. The concern of the residents who opposed the new technology was the increased air flow that would be created in the area in which the turbine was to be placed. A new proposal will likely be created that involves moving the turbine to the opposite end of the center.

How do wind turbines affect wildlife? That is the question that Keith DeWitt Lott, a wildlife biologist, hopes to answer through his latest research. Although Cleveland, Ohio is interested in the positive effects that wind-based energy can bring to the city, they desire to go about it in an environmentally responsible way. This news story was reported at Cleveland.com.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review provided a short clip on the considerations the city's council currently has regarding using the high wind level in Green Tree Park to provide power to the park. A wind turbine may be put in the park to help offset some of the costs the city incurs through leaving the lights on throughout the night.

The Bourne Carrier in Massachusetts reports the possibility of a wind turbine being constructed off Taylor's Point. Three agencies, the Bourne Recreation Authority, Massachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA) and Army Corps of Engineers, are seeking more ways to reduce their energy expenses and it is their hope to locate this alternative energy facility near the academy dock. This turbine would also aid in the Corps lowering its canal operation expenses. In addition to the wind turbines, Massachusetts Maritime Academy is also considering thermal panels on dorms and a hydro-electric facility.

With every new idea come those who advocate it and those who oppose it. The latter of these two extremes, opposition, is what is being seen in Maryland over a wind farm proposal. Seven hundred residents arrived at hearings regarding this proposal with the intent of protesting the plans. These individuals share the frustration of having an otherwise faultless landscape (including forest, lakes and mountain views) being interrupted by the wind farm's transmission lines webbing through the backdrop. The threat to tourism is also a concern for some of the residents. In response to the amazing opposition being voiced at the hearings, the commissioners of Garret Country voted unanimously against the wind farm proposal.

Above is a small selection of five new stories being reported on today. This illustrates to some extent, however, the magnitude of wind power in the news, as well as a selection of stories accounting the advocating and opposition of this green energy source.

David Tanguay is dedicated to providing research, reviews & helpful information to consumers and businesses. For more information related to Green Energy and Renewable Energy please visit http://greenenergyonline.org

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Dell and its Green Quest

The Round Rock, Texas headquarters of Dell has recently converted to 100 percent renewable energy. The 2.1 million square foot building completed its conversion and made the announcement on April 3rd. Dell's global headquarters campus has utilized thetechnology of wind power at the building, and 60 percent of its energy is now derived from this. The wind power is generated Energy Future Holding Corp's TXU Energy. The other 40 percent of Dell's green power is made possible via Waste Management's landfill gas to energy plant.

Waste Management has an ongoing national effort to erect 60 new renewable energy facilities over the span of the next 5 years. The energy that Waste Management currently creates is enough to power 1 million homes. The hope is to double that number by 2020. Don Smith, the general manager of Waste Management Central Texas says, "Taking landfill gas and converting it to green power is a buried treasure for the community. We take a once-wasted commodity and turn it into a long-term, reliable source of renewable energy, which is a major environmental plus for the Austin community and one of its major employers, Dell."

For those who are interested in the mechanics, here is how the plan succeeds in acquiring the energy: A network of pipes and wells are drilled into the landscape. Then, a vacuum system pulls the gas (mostly methane) from the landfill. This is then sent to the power plant, fueling the engines that allow the generators to create the electricity. There are more than 100 of these vertical extraction wells and 2100 feet of horizontal wells.

Dell is a member of the Austin Energy Green Choice power program. This program has thrived in becoming the United State's most successful utility-sponsored green power program, providing electricity that comes from clean, renewal sources.

In addition to the green power that is being completely utilized at the Round Rock, Texas location, Dell has also increased, from 8 percent to 17 percent, its renewal energy at the Austin Parmer Campus. Its Twin Falls, Idaho call center is also at 100 percent green energy - 97 percent of this location drawn from wind and the other 3 percent coming from solar energy.

President Paul Bell has the following to say to other technology firms, "It's time for our industry to take a lead role in creating a clean energy future. Today, we are challenging every technology company to work with their suppliers and partners in integrating green power and energy-efficient strategies into their operations." For companies who are leery to convert to green energy, Bell asserts, "We're using green technology to drive operating expense down."

It would seem that Dell is coming closer and closer to its plan announced last fall to go carbon neutral in 2008. Other companies may realize by following in the footsteps of Dell that, not only would similar plans benefit communities and the overall health of the nation, it would have many financial advantages to the company itself.

David Tanguay is dedicated to providing research, reviews & helpful information to consumers and businesses. For more information related to Green Energy and Geothermal Energy please visit http://greenenergyonline.org

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Solar Sail-- Earth Version

The Solar Sailer is a solar hybrid ferry working the Melborne Harbour. Very cool.
From their corporate bumf:

This document describes safe and efficient hybrid marine power (HMP) technology that is applicable today.
It features examples of vessels that can utilise such technology. The designs can be tailored to your specific needs. All are hybrid electric and add solar and in some cases wind to aide in propulsion.
All vessels are safe, efficient and capable of zero emissions at the wharf. They are ideal for the use of alternative fuels and as platforms for new technology such as energy storage and fuel cells.
Solar Sailor vessels are the “greenest’ vessels in the world commercially available and would
be a perfect fit with any modern, sophisticated organisation.

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi!

I was looking at TVs this week. Most of the shelf space was taken up with LCD TVs. I was thinking, "Heck, I better give up waiting and buy one of these." Now I have a reason to hold off-- why buy a TV like a sucker, when we're well on our way to holographic broadcasts:

Wireless Electricity Nudges closer

According to Leader-Post:

The MIT design consists of two copper coils. One, attached to the power source, is the sending unit. Rather than send out electromagnetic waves, it fills the space around it with a magnetic field oscillating at a particular frequency. The second copper coil is designed to resonate with that oscillating magnetic field. A copper coil within an oscillating magnetic field generates a current, enough, in MIT's case, to power a light bulb.

Power transformers make use of something similar, called magnetic induction, to transmit power between coils over short distances. But those coils aren't designed to resonate with each other. Resonant coupling makes the transfer of energy almost a million times more efficient.

Since the magnetic field doesn't radiate, most of the power that isn't picked up by the receiving unit is bound to the originating coil, rather than being lost into the environment. That also means that this system has a limited range, and the smaller the receiver, the smaller that range is.

Hopefully the cure for cancer comes before this is perfected otherwise, we'll all be trading tumor photos. No? Why is the rise in electrification and cancer cases nearly parallel?

Go to Ground

This old Modern Mechanix piece, may have a clue to some of our energy woes:

Iceless “Ice Box” Lowered in Ground Keeps the Food Cool

A COUNTERWEIGHT on one end, and a cylindrical container on the other end of a steel rope running over two pulleys supported on a pole, makes up the major portion of an ingenious contrivance for cooling foods.

The container, shown in the accompanying photo, fits loosely into a seven-foot hole in the ground lined with a steel casing. It has three shelves, and a door closes it off from the outside. Three iron rods about four feet long run from the top of this “cooler” container to the sustaining end of the rope or cable.

At the point where these rods are connected there is a large circular cover securely fastened. As the cooler is eased downward into the casing in the ground this cover settles over the brim of the casing, and closes it off from the outside. The photograph shows the cover within a few inches of the brim, the cooler being inside the casing.

This cover and the fact that the container is suspended by it several inches above the bottom of the hole, keeps rodents, dirt, and water out of the cooler. The counterweight keeps the device stationary at any level it is moved to.

What if we mine the Earth-- the depths (like 50' down) for the ambient cool? Pump hot air down, suck cold air? Geothermal pumps are nothing new, but what if their usage is expanded?

Fablabs are Fab!

Fablabs are taking one step closer to home usage. This from the NY Times:

Bill Gross, chairman of IdeaLab, says the technology it has developed, which uses a halogen light bulb to melt nylon powder, will allow the price of the printers to fall to $1,000 in four years.

“We are Easy-Bake Ovening a 3-D model,” he said. “The really powerful thing about this idea is that the fundamental engineering allows us to make it for $300 in materials.”

Others are working on the same idea.

“In the future, everyone will have a printer like this at home,” said Hod Lipson, a professor at Cornell University, who has led a project that published a design for a 3-D printer that can be made with about $2,000 in parts. “You can imagine printing a toothbrush, a fork, a shoe. Who knows where it will go from here?”

Three-dimensional printers, often called rapid prototypers, assemble objects out of an array of specks of material, just as traditional printers create images out of dots of ink or toner. They build models in a stack of very thin layers, each created by a liquid or powdered plastic that can be hardened in small spots by precisely applied heat, light or chemicals.

Imagine something that combines the qualities of a printer, a sprayer and an easy bake oven. It's terrific. When the price falls below $600, I am so going to buy one. They won't fall that low? Laser printers have gone from $20,000 to $3,000 in the mid-1980s to the inkjet alternatives today at $60 each. I don't think these will do this low, but it is reason to think they could get a mass market edition below $1000 in the next couple of years.

What will follow that? Open Source 3-D models. About 5% of the population will use this to replace alot of their manufactured items: kitchenware, toys, trinkets. About 5% will buy one and under-utilize them. Lots of places in the middle of nowhere will use these for most of their manufacturing, beholden only their supply of patterns, electricity and raw material. This will lead to the next invention: defablab. A De-Fablab will rip down any material into basic elements. Or, the killer FabLab generation will be the one that can rip anything down and turn it into fodder.

TCEO: Disposal vs. Re-useable Cups

Ilea has a piece from a UVic researcher, Martin Hocking written back in 1994 on what I call the "TCEO" (Total Cost of Energy Ownership) for reuseable cups vs. disposable cups. Disposable cups end up in the landfill; reuseable cups need to be washed. Which uses less energy?

This classic life-cycle energy analysis was performed by University of Victoria professor of chemistry Martin B. Hocking. Hocking compared three types of reusable drinking cups (ceramic, glass and reusable plastic) to two types of disposable cups (paper and polystyrene foam).

The energy of manufacture of reusable cups is vastly larger than the energy of manufacture of disposable cups (Table 1). In order for a reusable cup to be an improvement over a disposable one on an energy basis, you have to use it multiple times, in order to "cash in" on the energy investment you made in the cup. If a cup lasts only ten uses, then each use gets "charged' for one-tenth of the manufacturing energy. If it lasts for a hundred uses, then each use gets charged for only one-hundredth of the manufacturing energy.

But in order to reuse a cup, it has to be washed. The efficiency of the dishwasher, and the efficiency of the energy system that powers it, determine how much energy is required for each wash.¹ Hocking assumed a new, commercial dishwasher running on Canadian electricity, requiring about 0.18 MJ/cup-wash.² The total amount of energy per use is this wash energy plus the appropriate fraction of manufacturing energy, depending on the cup's lifetime. Figure 1 shows how the energies per use of the three reusable cups decline, the more you use them.

The lifetime needed for the energy per use of a reusable cup to become less than for a disposable cup, is called the 'break-even point." In Table 2, the break-even matrix shows how many uses are required for each reusable cup to do better than either disposable cup.

The results are extremely sensitive to the amount of energy the dishwasher requires for cleaning each cup. Hocking's choice for the dishwasher, requiring 0.18 MJ/cup-wash, is barely less than the manufacturing energy of the foam cup, 0.19 MJ/cup. If Hocking had chosen even a slightly less energy-efficient dishwasher as his standard, then the reusable cups would never have broken even with the foam cup.

The lesson of this life-cycle energy analysis is that the choice between reusable and disposable cups doesn't matter much in its overall environmental impact. One should use one's best judgement.

Indeed, in situations where cups are likely to be lost or broken and thus have a short average lifetime, disposable cups are the preferred option.

Stay tuned for my piece: "TCEO of DVDs: Why the RIAA is wrecking our planet and only Bittorrent can save us."

Sculpture or Power Solution? QR5 Wind Generator

The quietrevolution (QR) responds to the increasing demand for wind turbines in urban settings, where wind speeds are lower and wind directions change frequently.

The elegant helical (twisted) design of QR ensures a robust performance even in turbulent winds. It is also responsible for virtually eliminating all noise and vibration.

At five metres high and three metres in diameter, it is compact and easy to integrate, and with just one moving part, maintenance can be limited to an annual inspection.

This wind turbine that generates enough electricity to power a standard U.S. home or a small office. Unlike the shape of a conventional windmill propeller, it’s a Vertical-axis wind turbine. Whew. Those spinning propellors were forever taking out pets, children and BBQ guests.

It runs at almost $50k: twice the price of traditional generators.

Houses Are Expensive. I'll Live Outside

Stupid arguments do not change reality.

I've watched housing move from costing five years of gross annual income to eight years of an annual income in just a few short years. That dramatic rise hasn't stopped people from considering life indoors-- they just realize the neccessity and commit to the expense. One reason is the amortization.

The argument against alternative energy is the expense. While traditional generation has a carbon hit, the upfront dollar costs are cheap. People don't want to spend the upfront costs. But I think the ice is thawing. I was at Costco, and they are selling portable solar arrays for $300. The massive power outtages have given people reason to doubt the constancy of their power supply. Like it or not, people are going off the grid-- either they are choosing energy alternatives or they're getting punted off of the grid when their power supplier fails them. What if there were a way to amortize your alternative energy?

Enter Citizenre. This company is going to home owners with an offer: let Citizenre install a solar array capable of supplying the home with power and let Citizenre charge you for the power coming down from the roof. The homeowner pays a small amount upfront as a deposit. Within 15 years, the cost of the equipment should have been paid off by the homeowner's payments to Citizenre. The equipment has a likely lifespan of 25 years so Citizenre can use those 10 years as their profit margin. In effect, Citizenre becomes a power supplier-- instead of threading 1000 miles of cable that bleed EM into our cells, their power runs 20 feet to a power inverter.

The people behind Citizenre, namely Rob Styler bailed out of California company, Equinox, three years before the Federal Trade Commission shut it down. So, is this like Hill-Murray and Associates for a consumer model of delivering alternative energy? Or could this be the real deal? The good side: regardless how well Citizenre does this, other players can come into the marketplace: without the need for infrastructure, there could be 50 amortized energy players in a market without threat of a market glut. Even if there is a glut, these suppliers can go overseas to Asia and Africa and electrify them one hut at a time.

Nano Technology Update : Nanogenerators

The march of nanotechnology involves building very small mechanisms. According to Sci-fi.com, scientists at the University of Edinburgh have created a motor mechanism for a nanomachine. Last year researchers at the University of Georgia developed minuscule nanogenerators to power the nano world, but this latest unimaginably small machine — about 80,000 times thinner than the thickness of a human hair — runs on its own power.

The next challenge will be to load these with logic-- with a computer or similar means of directing nanomachines. One thought: leave them dumb. Give them to ability to recieve and act on external directions then transmit directions via radio waves, lasers or similar. Then the computer sending the messages could work from a theoretical model of where the nanobots are and what they should be doing and update the actions so that many nanobots could work in tandem.

trackback: http://blog.scifi.com/cgi-bin/blogroot/mt-tb.cgi/2000

Battery Breakthrough?

I found this news from Technology Review:

A secretive Texas startup developing what some are calling a "game changing" energy-storage technology broke its silence this week. It announced that it has reached two production milestones and is on track to ship systems this year for use in electric vehicles.

EEStor's ambitious goal, according to patent documents, is to "replace the electrochemical battery" in almost every application, from hybrid-electric and pure-electric vehicles to laptop computers to utility-scale electricity storage.

The company boldly claims that its system, a kind of battery-ultracapacitor hybrid based on barium-titanate powders, will dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety. Pound for pound, it will also pack 10 times the punch of lead-acid batteries at half the cost and without the need for toxic materials or chemicals, according to the company.

The implications are enormous and, for many, unbelievable. Such a breakthrough has the potential to radically transform a transportation sector already flirting with an electric renaissance, improve the performance of intermittent energy sources such as wind and sun, and increase the efficiency and stability of power grids--all while fulfilling an oil-addicted America's quest for energy security.

The breakthrough could also pose a threat to next-generation lithium-ion makers such as Watertown, MA-based A123Systems, which is working on a plug-in hybrid storage system for General Motors, and Reno, NV-based Altair Nanotechnologies, a supplier to all-electric vehicle maker Phoenix Motorcars.

"I get a little skeptical when somebody thinks they've got a silver bullet for every application, because that's just not consistent with reality," says Andrew Burke, an expert on energy systems for transportation at University of California at Davis.

That said, Burke hopes to be proved wrong. "If [the] technology turns out to be better than I think, that doesn't make me sad: it makes me happy."

Richard Weir, EEStor's cofounder and chief executive, says he would prefer to keep a low profile and let the results of his company's innovation speak for themselves. "We're well on our way to doing everything we said," Weir told Technology Review in a rare interview. He has also worked as an electrical engineer at computing giant IBM and at Michigan-based automotive-systems leader TRW.

Much like capacitors, ultracapacitors store energy in an electrical field between two closely spaced conductors, or plates. When voltage is applied, an electric charge builds up on each plate.

Ultracapacitors have many advantages over traditional electrochemical batteries. Unlike batteries, "ultracaps" can completely absorb and release a charge at high rates and in a virtually endless cycle with little degradation.

Where they're weak, however, is with energy storage. Compared with lithium-ion batteries, high-end ultracapacitors on the market today store 25 times less energy per pound.

This is why ultracapacitors, with their ability to release quick jolts of electricity and to absorb this energy just as fast, are ideal today as a complement to batteries or fuel cells in electric-drive vehicles. The power burst that ultracaps provide can assist with stop-start acceleration, and the energy is more efficiently recaptured through regenerative braking--an area in which ultracap maker Maxwell Technologies has seen significant results.

Wow. Haliburton is going to have to start a big war to prevent these batteries from making electic cars viable. What ???

if

War = High gas prices = more research into alternatives

why are we further from electric cars now than we were five years ago? Does that sound stupid? So do the last seven years.

Wired NextFest Infrared X-ray Machine

Last week my ear was bugging me. I thought, "an X-Ray" is totally overkill for just figuring out what's clogged up. Then, I wished for the Star Trek: Next Generation level of technology. The "scans." Bah. Too far in the future. Actually, it was one week into the future... Live at the WIRED NextFest at the Jacob Javitz center in New York City, an Infrared X-ray Machine displays your vessels and muscle directly on top of your skin by just moving your body under the beam.

Wanted: Buzz Hargrove For Crimes Against Humanity

On Tuesday, CAW union leader, Buzz Hargrove expressed concerns that the clean-air laws would “devastate” the auto-industry. Thanks to the auto-industry, we can get everywhere faster. Automobiles make us look cool. They make people like the Saudis wealthy—wealthy enough to fund terrorist attacks. They are the #1 cause of accidental deaths. Oh, and the pollution belched by cars is killing our planet. If you’re pro-auto industry, you’re against humanity.

Hargrove is whining that he wasn’t consulted about the Conservatives’ plans. The auto industry is doubly at fault for greenhouse emissions. Getting Hargrove’s input is like the farmer getting the fox’s input on the henhouse design.

This is a criminal mindset that exposes the true face of organized labor. The CAW pretends to be a benevolent organization that is fighting for the rights of the underclass. It is a partisan organization that has one goal: to promote the well being of its members at the expense of all others. The only difference between big business and big labor is big business aims to provide something for everyone; big labor aims to provide something for itself from everyone else.

Cars and industry vie for first place as the worst polluters on the planet. Canada’s new laws push to clean up the auto industry. Technology has to reach a critical mass to become affordable. DVD players cost $500 five years ago; now they’re $25. If the same level of attention were put on the energy industry, we would undergo a revolution like the personal computer revolution. Energy usage is our chief way to convert tasks from menial labor to automation. Instead of hauling water, your pump can siphon water to your home. Cleaner energy. More efficiency. Variety of power generation. All of these are possible if alternatives are explored. The energy question needs the equivalent of a Steve Jobs: part-psychopath; part-visionary; part-expert. With the right amount of money, will and experience, the energy consumption could be revolutionized. Hargrove is jeopardizing the people who he is charged with helping. Instead of positioning them and their industry to take advantage at the next chapter of transportation, he is digging his claws into the past and holding on for dear life.

In lieu of visionaries, we have dogma. Buzz Hargrove is trying to protect the income of his union members. They contribute to the brute force size of the CAW and the clout of Buzz Hargrove. The auto industry will drag its heels because it’s in bed with Big Oil. So, when the new legislation makes life hard on the auto industry, it will make life hard on the autoworkers. Luckily, ex-autoworkers cannot vote out Buzz Hargrove for his actions in the battle to control Greenhouse Gases and global warming. But Hargrove needs to be held accountable for abusing his clout to endanger our lives—to trade in our future for a 3% wage increase and job security for a people who build devices that cause so much so much harm.

Stroke It Up For a New Engine Base don An Old Idea

This article from Wired Magazine has me excited. What happens if you're in the back pocket of big oil and you made Detroit into Motor City; and the whole world is tired of gasoline engines superheating the world and belching out carcinogens. Sure, oil revenues funded 9/11, but let bygones be bygones. Oh, and Hugo Chavez is awash in American money so he can live large as a burr in the side of the White House. It seems like gasoline engines are passe. But, wait! What if engines could get twice the mileage and emit just an inkling of lung disease? If the Scuderi Group have their way, this could be the future of automobiles.

From Wired:

Carmelo Scuderi, a Massachusetts engineer and inventor, started tinkering with the fundamentals of the internal combustion engine when he retired in the mid-1990s. The result was a radical new design that could make engines for anything from gas-powered lawn mowers to diesel locomotives lighter, far more efficient, and a whole lot easier on the environment.

Scuderi died in 2002, shortly after patenting the basic concept for his engine. Since then, his children have made it their mission to bring the engine to market. Five of them now work full time for the family startup, the Scuderi Group.

Scuderi began by splitting the heart of the internal combustion engine -- the chamber where air is compressed, mixed with fuel and then ignited -- into two separate cylinders, linked by a passage. Air is compressed in the first cylinder, and then shot through the passage into the second cylinder, where it mixes with the gas and burns.

The general idea of a split-cycle engine has been around for a century, but none have ever matched the efficiency of traditional engines. Scuderi believed he could solve the problem by pumping highly pressurized air from the compression cylinder into the combustion chamber, and then allowing the fuel and air to ignite when the head of the piston was already moving away from the top of the combustion cylinder.

The method was counterintuitive, because it creates a condition known as firing after top dead center, considered a cardinal sin in engine design since at least the days of Henry Ford.

"In a normal engine, firing after top dead center doesn't work, because the piston will outrun the flame, so you can't build up any pressure," says Scuderi's son, Sal. In the Scuderi engine, however, the combination of highly pressurized air and firing after top dead center creates a highly turbulent environment where the fuel and air ignite explosively, producing far more power than conventional engines.

So far, the engine exists only as a computer model. Two real-life prototypes -- one diesel and one gasoline -- are under construction at the Southwest Research Institute, an engineering research lab in Texas, and are due out next year.

While it is possible that engineering problems may yet emerge, those involved in the project believe the prototypes will work as planned. Computer-generated models are universally used in the automotive industry to design new engines and other parts, and are considered extremely accurate in predicting performance.

Those models show the combustion in a Scuderi engine will be not only more powerful than conventional engines; it will also, surprisingly, be cooler. That means it will spew out far fewer pollutants than today's engines do.

The Scuderi engine could even boost mileage by recapturing energy normally lost during braking, as do hybrid cars. "Unlike current electric hybrids which store the energy in a battery, we are able to store energy in the form of compressed air," says Sal Scuderi. That can be done by simply adding a small air-storage tank, which costs far less than the generators and banks of batteries gas-electric hybrids need.

While working models of the Scuderi engine won't see the light of day until next year, the radical design is already attracting a lot of attention in the automotive world. The company is in talks with big automakers, and when it showed off the new engine at a major automotive-engineering conference in Detroit earlier this year, the Scuderi booth was mobbed.

Your Own Windmill

This from Discovery News:

A small, affordable wind turbine available for the first time this September promises to help homeowners fight the rising cost of energy.

The Skystream 3.7, a wind generator from Southwest Windpower in Flagstaff, Ariz., stands 35 to 100 feet tall — depending on the location — and costs about half that of conventional turbines currently available.

Southwest Windpower is planning to mass produce the Skystream and sell it for between $10,000 to $12,000 installed, about half the cost of similar size turbines, which are typically assembled by hand on a much smaller scale.

This windmill could payt for itself in 12-24 years. Not great, but it lessens your dependance on others. Besides: micro generation units are so pricey because so few people include them in their set-ups. Imagine if 1/10 the homes had installed toilets? The prices per unit would be much higher. Let me say this: live off of the grid.

Homebrewing Genes

This is from Wired:

As the tools of biotechnology become accessible (and affordable) to a wider public for the first time, hobbyists are recapturing that collaborative ethos and applying it to tinkering with the building blocks of life.

Eugene Thacker is a professor of literature, culture and communications at Georgia Tech and a member of the Biotech Hobbyist collective. Just as the computer hobbyists sought unconventional applications for computer circuitry, the new collective is looking for "non-prescribed uses" of biotechnology, Thacker said.

The group has published a set of informal DIY articles, mimicking the form of the newsletters and magazines of the computer hobbyists -- many of which are archived online. Thacker walks readers through the steps of performing a basic computation using a DNA "computer" in his article "Personal Biocomputing" (PDF). The tools for the project include a $100 high school-science education kit and some used lab equipment.

Other how-to articles guide readers through cultivating skin cells and "Tree Cloning" -- making uniform copies of plant tissue.

Thacker calls the spirit of his article "playful," but adds that it's entirely possible that hobbyists could be part of the future of important biotechnology.

Take this technology to parts of world where they get mail (e.g. equipment and supplies); and have electricity (to power the doo-dads); and lax regulations with a less puritanical approach to DNA. A team of kids in Mumbai could hack their way into the next technological revolution: desktop genetic engineering. People could literally cook their own critters. The parable from mainframes to desktops could be repeated for genetic engineering: from lab coats to t-shirts.

Gene hackers could publish the how-tos for free and then get a piece of the hardware pie. Maybe they could publish the information on line and use a Google affiliate program to get the cash. I'm sure gene splicing equipment manufacturers out there don't have affiliate programs... yet.

Cool Phones: None Will EVER Cost Less Than $50

This from Silicon Valley News:

What will your mobile look like in 2015? Like a necklace, some specs, or a ring? See the photos here.

Those are just some of the ideas dreamt up by 26 design students from London's Central St Martins College of Art and Design, tasked by phone maker Nokia with coming up with the next must-have device for 2015's users.

As part of the union, Nokia set the designers a brief of creating a mass market mobile - with the winner seeing their design made up by the Finnish firm and receiving an internship with the company this summer.

(the gallery is here)

I think some of these innovations are like food pills. Possible, handy and cool: we may never see them. People sometimes weigh value by the pound. Look at laptops vs. desktop computers. You can put a huge amount of computing power into the space of an LCD monitor. Desktops still rule.
Cellphones will (continue to) be huge. Why? The answer: cellphone dealers. The profit margin has to yield enough dollars for the phones to be worth selling. Too cheap and they're in the realm of disposable cameras. Too much and a predator will come in with a cheap product. By packing features, you can keep the price point stable and keep the dollar flow stable to resellers. Discreet devices will carry little value because of their size.

I'm Thinking Of A Letter...

From http://www.physorg.com/news69039322.html:

"B-O-N-J-O-U-R" he writes with the power of his mind, much to the amazement of the largely French audience of scientists and curious onlookers gathered at the four-day European Research and Innovation Exhibition in Paris, which opened Thursday.

Brunner and two colleagues from the state-financed Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York were demonstrating a "brain Computer interface (BCI)," an astounding technology which digitalizes brain signals emitted as electrical impulses -- picked up by the electrodes -- to convey intent.

While no spoons were bent, this was definitely mind over matter.

Without recourse to nerves or muscles, BCI "can provide communication and control to people who are totally paralyzed" and unable to unable to speak or move, explains researcher Theresa Sellers, also from Wadsworth.

Dr. Sellers estimates there are some 100 million potential users of BCI technology worldwide, including 16 million sufferers of cerebral palsy, a degenerative brain disease, and at least five million victims of spinal cord injury. Another 10 million people have been totally paralyzed by brainstem strokes, she said.

Scientists have been experimenting with ways to translate thought directly into action for nearly two decades, but BCI has only recently begun to move out of the laboratory and into the daily lives of those trapped inside bodies that no longer respond to their will.

Possible applications extend beyond the written word into physical movement -- it is only a matter of time, Sellers says, before the same technology is used to operate motorized wheel chairs. "We can do already. But it is a complex problem, and for now it would be unsafe," she says.

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Viral Batteries

This from http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1628408.htm:

Genetically manipulated viruses could replace standard lithium-ion batteries, packing two to three times more energy than other batteries, researchers say. Cool! Battery acid create a chemical reaction. Viruses and bacteria can do the same-- after all, look at the amount of heat and carbon dioxide created by yeast cultures.

The virus batteries could be thin, transparent, and lightweight, according to a US study published online recently in the journal Science by Professor Angela Belcher of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and team.

Because less material is devoted to packaging, more of the battery is used just for generating power.

"What we're trying to do is have all of the mass and volume be used for the purpose it is to be used for, which is to power the device," says Belcher.

The researchers say such a battery should last as long as conventional batteries. And it could power anything from microelectronics, including chemical and biological sensors, 'lab on chip' devices, and security tags to larger items such as mobile phones, computer displays and even electric cars.

Building batteries, like building anything, requires assembly. The smaller the battery, the more challenging that is.

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