Tag Archives: battery

What Flavor EV Will Prevail?

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A few weeks ago, Sam and I became more intimately involved in the EV (Electric Vehicle) controversy.

Which helped us discern the slew of issues involved with adopting these wonderful vehicles.  Like the environmental costs of mining lithium, the fact that we haven’t upgraded our electric grids (and even killed Senator Manchin’s compromise bill that would have allowed us to more rapidly replace our aging electric infrastructure- because without it, we are going to be forced to use fossil fuels as the electric supply for these batteries), among other cost/environmental situations arising as we grow this business segment.

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Even at 97, one can get a real charge!

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 I know I am an old fart.  But, it is hard for me to realize that my kids don’t really know the “pleasure” of finding just the right battery for their flashlight, their radio, or other electronic devices.

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The brains behind “Copper Top”

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So, when I  visited my son (he lives in Downtown Manhattan), I just had to visit my old library haunts. One of them is the main library building in Manhattan- the one in Bryant Park. (This used to be the site of the prime reservoir for New York City; the water supply moved upstate and this site because the library.)  The other was the library that used to be open 24-7, the Mid-Manhattan Library.

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A Microbial Battery For Waste Treatment?

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I’ve written beforeabout methods and processes to treat wastewater  (here and here, for starters- you can find more by searching the index to the right for wastewater)- including methods that may be able to provide power to attenuate the costs of such treatment. Now, another concept to employ microbes to generate electricity has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (right now, it’s ahead of print) describing work being done by Dr. Craig Criddle’s group at Stanford.

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Silicon Thins 4 Soldiers (no, it’s not a cigarette!)

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I have written before how the US Armed Forces are concerned about power needs on the battlefield.  Today, I will discuss efforts going on in Australia- using solar technology developed and manufactured by a US firm- Transform Solar (Boise, Idaho)- in concert with Origin Energy, an Australian firm.

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A new kind of energy storage

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Some 40 years ago, while at MIT, I was involved with two energy-related projects.  One involved the development of a conversion from honest-to-goodness-solid waste [HGSW] to methane (natural gas), via microbial means, the one that occupied a major portion of my time.  The other project, working with a different professor, involved screening compounds that would store and release energy reversibly. Why this project? One of the problems we have with energy is that we need it in fits and starts, but that is not an economical method to produce it.  Also, if we want to collect solar energy, it is available during the day- what do we do at night?

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