Kirk Sorensen on Thorium as an energy source

Below is a great talk from an ex NASA innovator on why Thorium is the energy source we need to survive on the moon. He poses the question: what's stopping us from using in on Earth?

The Thorium cycle reactor has reduced environmnental footprint and related byproducts.

Growing batteries

Using a Paua shell as an introduction Angela Belcher leaps into a world of possibility where viruses are coaxed to help create nanoscale structures as a foundation for batteries. This fantastic talk discussed how to literally grow a battery or solar cell.

Dielectric Elastomer Generator

Bioengineers at the University of Auckland have come up with a light, cheap rubber power generator that can produce up to a Watt of power when embedded in your shoes.

"The researchers built on ‘dielectric elastomer generator’ technology that used the movements of a flexible, non-conductive material to build up charge in attached electrodes."

These Artifical Muscles  are electroactive structures consisting of two layers of conducting carbon grease separated by an extremely stretchy insulating polymer film.

"When a voltage is applied, the configuration behaves like a capacitor, with positive and negative charges accumulating on either side of the insulator. As the opposite charges attract one another the insulator is squashed between them and flattens and stretches. Turn the voltage off and it contracts again to its original size." says New Scientist

The first artifical leaf

This says it all.. "Scientists today claimed one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy - development of the first practical artificial leaf."

"The key to this breakthrough is Nocera’s recent discovery of several powerful new, inexpensive catalysts, made of nickel and cobalt, that are capable of efficiently splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen, under simple conditions. Right now, Nocera’s leaf is about 10 times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural leaf."

The 'leaf' is a silcon wafer around the size of a playing card, and floats in a pool of water. A catalyst is placed on either side, and as the silicon absorbs sunlight the energy is transferred to the catalysts which split the water into separate molecules of hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be used as a fuel cell to create electricity. This breakthrough allows for a source of cheap clean energy. 

Travelling Wave Reactor

While the Thorium Fuel Cycle is touted as a potential safe fission energy source, Freakonomics are examining the development of a new class of nuclear reactor. This is one of the projects Bill Gates has been working on since leaving Microsoft.

"TerraPower’s traveling wave reactor (TWR) will offer a path to zero-emission, proliferation-resistant energy that produces significantly smaller amounts of nuclear waste than conventional nuclear reactors"

Thorium as a potential nuclear reactor

Thorium, a pure white silvery metal is being developed in China as a safe nuclear reactor. The Thorium fuel cycle has a perfect overheating safety feature; “If it begins to overheat, a little plug melts and the salts drain into a pan. There is no need for computers, or the sort of electrical pumps that were crippled by the tsunami. The reactor saves itself,” says ex Nasa scientist Kirk Sorensen from Teledyne Brown.

Where do good idea's come from?

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Brilliant short animation showing how ideas are formed, watch to see where technology innovation comes from. "Chance favours the connected mind."

Ferrari 599 EV Hybrid

Ferrari 599, the ultimate supercar engine, goes electric:

Porsche Boxter full EV prototype

Porsche have two hybrid vechicles, including a 918 Spyder but today they announced the prototype Boxter EV:

Not for retail sale, a 'rolling labotory' it will be interesting to see what the other supercar manufacturers come up with.

The Great Energy Challenge

National Geographic are running a special series of articles titled The Great Energy Challenge. The site has a huge range of news, web apps and video so you can explore the issues, encouraging you to alter personal behaviour to effect global change.

One very interesting article is Going "All The Way" With Renewable Energy which posits the true issue is (lack of) political will:

"Worldwide production of the rare earth mineral neodymium would have to quintuple to supply the millions of wind turbines needed to power a 100 percent renewable future, two researchers say. They view political will as a bigger stumbling block than any materials bottleneck."

Energy bridge

Been a little slow on the blog, too busy enjoying Kahurangi National Park in New Zealand. Time to catch up, lets start with this innovative design for a bridge at Solarpark South from Calabria, Italy. Sculptured Wind Turbines complement a solar cell road, creating an ecosystem for growing plants and produce.

Personal Energy Generation

CES, the Consumer Electronics Show is on now in Las Vegas. One of the many interesting new technologies on display is PEG, the Personal Energy Generator from nPower. This device contains a battery and works by stashing it in your bag as you walk around. It converts kinetic energy into an electrical charge that the battery stores.

About 15 minutes of walking creates 1 minute of charge for a high powered device such as an iPhone. If this can be shrunk you can see these popping up as extremely useful devices in our increasingly gadgetized world.

Lighter side of Life

A brilliantly funny sketch by Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you in 2011.

Piezoelectrical Harvest

The New York Times has a brief article on a new way to draw electricity from the wind: oscillating wind panels. The initial premise is that wind turbines are noisy and dangerous to wildlife, however in each case there is conflicting evidence. Regardless, these are pretty cool:

Imagine wind blowing through trees, rustling the leaves. This idea is that by using piezoelectric materials you can turn the movement into a vibration, which in turn is converted to electricity. They are much smaller than a turbine, and can be placed on individual building roofs, so a whole community can benefit from wind power regardless of size or electrical grid constraints. One of the best innovations in energy production for 2010.

Google building an offshore Wind Farm

According to Google's blog they are about to build a massive 6GW wind farm 10 km from the Atlantic coastline, stretching over 500 km. The Atlantic Wind Connection as the project is known is planned to supply enough electricity for 2 million homes.

 "The Mid-Atlantic region is ideally suited for offshore wind. It offers more than 60,000 MW of offshore wind potential in relatively shallow waters that extend miles out to sea. These shallow waters make it easier to install turbines 10-15 miles offshore, meaning wind projects can take advantage of stronger winds and are virtually out-of-sight from land. With few other renewable energy options ideally suited for the Atlantic coast, the AWC backbone helps states meet their renewable energy goals and standards (PDF) by enabling a local offshore wind industry to deploy thousands of megawatts of clean, cost-effective wind energy."

World's Largest Fuelcell... 1 MegaWatt

FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) and Ballard Power Systems (TSX: BLD; Nasdaq: BLDP) are testing an innovative utility-scale fuel cell system designed to produce one megawatt of electricity. Considered the world's largest proton exchange membrane hydrogen-powered fuel cell, the 54-foot-long unit is mounted on a tractor-trailer for mobility and produces only heat and water as by products.
 

"Finding new sources of clean, renewable peaking energy is important for meeting our customers' energy needs and helping us meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements," said Gary R. Leidich, executive vice president and president of FirstEnergy Generation.  "This fuel cell system has the added benefit of being mobile, so it can provide peaking power when and where it's needed."

Read the details here: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/firstenergy-and-ballard-begin-demonstration-of-one-megawatt-mobile-fuel-cell-system-106463533.html

New Energy from Hydrogen

Take half an hour to listen to Dan Nocera talk about the future of energy on National Radio from Saturday Morning on 27th November.

Dan discusses the development of inexpensive catalyst materials that can be used to produce hydrogen fuel using only water and sunlight.

Play (Windows)
Play (Other)

Audi E-Tron update

An update on the recently covered Audi E-Tron R8:

The Audi E-Tron scores first place at the new, alpine electric car rally, Silvretta E-Auto in Austria. Check out the video below to see it in action:

Audi call this a 'technology platform', with a standard skin, the R8 shell. So what will the real thing look like? It has been revealed that the skin will be much more like a Spyder:

All the pic's can be found at world of cars.

Audi R8 E-Tron Electric Car

Check out the very real Audi R8 E-Tron, the sports version electric car. Each wheel has its own electric motor, to give 313 hp and 4,500 Nm (3,319 lb-ft) of torque, enough power to go from 0 to 100km/h in 4.8 seconds and a top speed of 200km/h.

The battery stores 53KWh of energy, taking up to 8 hours for a full charge on 220V/15amps, with higher voltage this decreases to as little as 3 hours. Distance on a single charge is around 240 kilometres.

Expected to cost around $200k USD when its released in 2012. Check out the video from Cruchgear below, I agree with the reviewer; the sound of all 4 motor's at speed is incredible!

Uncharted Territory

One of the speakers at this year's Web 2.0 conference was internet entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. In the talk below he discusses his vision for the company; developing a true social graph, which is an open* graph. He see's Facebook as a faciliator making rich data sets interoperable as one of the defining things that will allow for innovation over the next few years. (fast forward to 30:46s)

Some comments he makes:

"Over the next five years every vertical is going to be rethought as social. rethink verticals.

mindsets: enterprise software development versus personal software development "we need a feature checklist' vs 'what is really good to use?"

In essence he see's a space where they are building an internet enabled social engine. Everything is about to change all over again.
building a better energy future