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Japanese researchers tapping microbes' potential for power generation

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Good on them for developing these type of low cost localized strategies.

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Why produce electricity from microbs when it is so easy, cheap and efficient to produce electricity from the sun's radiation?

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Interesting. I would suggest experimenting with an array of ultra-light, small turbines - the size of a child's handheld seaside windmill, that would all be spun rapidly by the lightest breeze, feeding into a power cell.

Some microbial behaviour generates a lot of heat, which can be turned into electricity. Brewing, composting and sewage types of microbial activity might all yield some power. We may need a global standard for interfacing remote power generation to any cell to accept ad hoc power from any source.

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GBR48, this makes no technological sense. How do you propose to convert the heat generated by microbial behaviour into electricity?

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oil microbes for use in fuel cells amid expectations that they could serve as a clean, long-lasting, and affordable power source.

That is good news if using them can in any way reduce the amount of fossil fuels burnt. It's long, long passed time to stop burning fossil fuels in huge amounts and also fighting wars over their control.

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Why produce electricity from microbs when it is so easy, cheap and efficient to produce electricity from the sun's radiation?

Because it is possible that microbes may become also an easy, cheap and efficient source of electricity and it may help fill the gaps other sources have.

Still, this research seems like the first of many steps necessary to reach that level, so it may be difficult to feel optimistic about it.

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it is possible that microbes may become also an easy, cheap and efficient source of electricity

Generating electricity from microbes is just one, particularly bizarre, out of several abortive suggestions to create or distribute "green" energy. These fairy tale suggestions have no technological sense or plausibility whatsoever. They are made for one purpose only: To find excuses to evade from applying solar energy, which arrives to our surface in huge plenty and we know how to exploit it easily. The situation is similar to the following: I tell you that there is a big gold bullion next to your feet, and all you have to do is pick it up, and you tell me "no I want to dig deep in the ground, perhaps I will find one milligram of Aluminum there".

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NBToday  01:53 am JST

Why produce electricity from microbs when it is so easy, cheap and efficient to produce electricity from the sun's radiation?

Maybe they found out solar cells generate little electricity at night

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Maybe they found out solar cells generate little electricity at night

Technologies do exist for storing the energy for the night. Even without such technologies, the energy produced during the day is so immense and significant. In addition, solar energy can be backed by nuclear energy, which is also a mature and real technology.

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NB

Today 08:40 pm JST

Maybe they found out solar cells generate little electricity at night

> Technologies do exist for storing the energy for the night. Even without such technologies, the energy produced during the day is so immense and significant. In addition, solar energy can be backed by nuclear energy, which is also a mature and real technology.

What I said was energy generation

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Why produce electricity from microbs when it is so easy, cheap and efficient to produce electricity from the sun's radiation?

Solar power someplace like Norway or Finland for example or Alaska is not so reliable all year long. And there are places that are cloudy much of the year like Seattle where solar power is not so effective.

I could see something like this powering an electronic sprinkler controller in our yard.

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I could see something like this powering an electronic sprinkler controller in our yard.

The amount of energy that our planet receives from the sun is gargantuan: In most places, every square meter receives more than 1,000 Watts during the day. It is easy to exploit the energy that arrives as visible light using photovoltaic panels, and the energy that arrives as heat (infrared) using thermo-solar power plants.

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The amount of energy that our planet receives from the sun is gargantuan: In most places, every square meter receives more than 1,000 Watts during the day. 

Lol. You have never lived in the Pacific Northwest where it rains every day for months at a time and you only have what passes for sunlight from about 8:00 am or later to 3:30 pm in the winter. I was shocked my first winter up there coming from southern California. Go running at 6:00 am in the rain, still dark, lo. Go inside,shower change and get ready to drive to work by 8:00 am and it's still dark out. Andy by 3:30 it was almost dark again. Of course it rained the entire time. For weeks. My cousin in Lake Oswego went one year where it rained every day for 365 consecutive days. Every day. Solar power is useless in those conditions.

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Yes, of course, and the production of those many boxes, transporting of them into rural areas and bringing them under soil as well as the commuting of the needed staff, that all costs no energy, no fossile fuels and is a free present from god, right? lol

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