“Country Fresh” renewable energy
May 4th, 2007 by Eric
Renewable energy. We’ve talked about it before, many times. Biodiesel, solar power, wind power, hydropower, geothermal power, wave power, ethanol, flower power… okay, maybe not the last one, but you get the gist. There is enormous potential for one or more of these to help solve our political, economic, and climate crisis born from the burning of fossil fuels.
These innovations are children of true “outside-the-box” scientific thinking, real progressive thought. But it is important not to stop at these. We can’t know any possible long-term shortcomings or negative side effects that these new energy sources might have, so we must continue to find and develop cheaper, safer, more efficient, and cleaner energy sources than even these.
And we are. According to LiveScience.com:
Researchers say they have successfully generated electricity from heat by trapping organic molecules between metal nanoparticles, a finding that could yield cheap refrigerators, not to mention new, more efficient energy sources in general.
Now, I’m no scientist; my wife is the atom-splitter (and dog neuterer) in our family. So, I won’t try to paraphrase. You can read the whole article here.
The same journal reports that electricity has also been generated using cow manure and stomach juices.
Microbes living in the rumen chamber of a cow’s stomach break down cellulose, a tough carbohydrate produced by plants, specifically in the grass cows munch on.
This process helps cows digest their meals, but it also releases electrons which scientists can harness for use in a battery. They used about a liter of microbe-rich rumen fluid to produce 600 millivolts of electricity, about half the voltage needed to run one rechargeable AA battery.
It doesn’t seem like much, and maybe it isn’t. But finding a good way to convert the excessive waste produced by huge corporate farms is as important as creating that small amount of energy. And continuing to find new and better ways to make the world spin is what being a progressive is all about.
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