HM Coolhunt 5 – new ways to get energy
Over the past few years companies and people have been inventing new ways of generating electricity. Everyone is looking for fossil fuel alternatives. At this moment solar panels are still very expensive but they are becoming cheaper.
A team of developers from the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) invented a small generator that can extract electricity from body temperature. A generator like this is not something new, but KAIST has made a version by which thermo electric substanceswere printed on fibre. Because of this, it is the first generator that is small enough to be incorporated into a smart watch. It’s also possible to bent the prototype. At this moment it’s still a prototype, so not for sale.
Another invention is to use plants as ‘biological solar panels’. Swiss designer Fabienne Felder has worked with University of Cambridge scientist Paolo Bombell to develop a way of using plants as a charger. Most people see moss as weeds.
During the photosynthesis process moss produces many so- called surplus (excess) electrons. Felder’s team captures these excess electrons, and uses them, in this case, to provide a radio from energy. So in this way they make a kind of organic solar panels from moss.
The technique is not ideal yet, the radio can be used only a few minutes at this stage. But the technique is still in it’s early stages.
Another example is Plant-E. It’s a company from Wageningen, Holland. They are also busy with the technology to create energy from plants. In Zaandam, Holland, there will come a charging point for mobile phones, that is fed by a park. The company devised a system whereby plants generate electricity.
‘At this moment you pay 60.000 euro for 100 square meters from their system, but if their technology develops further their energy will also be available for the normal consumer’.
A different way of getting energy from nature is the inflatable wind turbine, the Buoyant Air Turbine. The system generates power at a high altitude (300 meters above the ground) and is therefore cheaper, more flexible and more efficient than existing wind turbines.
Conventional wind turbines are standing on high masts and have an average height of 100 meters. The problem is that the wind speed close to the ground fluctuates very often.
‘The company Altaeros has designed the BAT to generate consistently cheap electricity for rural areas and microgrids including remote communities and islanders, oil en gas industry, mining, agriculture, telecommunication companies, disaster reduction and military bases’, said a spokesman from the company. (aandrijvenenbesturen)
The BAT will, after an 18- month demonstration, be deployed on a site at the south of Fairbanks in Alaska.
Even more ideas were devised for the places where people have nothing and therefore don’t have the money for electricity. The Filipino entrepreneur and activist Illac Diaz has found a wonderful and inexpensive solution to enlighten dark spaces in slums, for example. The residents of these neighbourhoods often use kerosene candles or tapped electricity as a source of lighting with all safety risks of such.
Diaz uses as light source a transparant plastic soft drink bottle that is filled with water. Then the bottle will be affixed as a ceiling lamp, using glue and a roof covering plate. The water breaks the sunlight that shines into the bottle and spreads it in rays of 360 degrees, lighting the complete room. The solar bottle has become known as ‘liter of light’. It costs including maintenance are about one dollar and the lamp distributes a quantity of light similar to a light bulb of 55 wats.
The invention means a hughe saving on electricity, kerosene, candles or other fuel for the residents.
Diaz launched a succesful campaign in 2011 in which inhabitants of urban slums produced and installed the bottles themselves. Hundreds of people have been trained who earn money with installing the bottles. Tens ouf thousands solar bottles have been installed worldwide.
The bottle campaign started in the Philippines and has spread to India, Nepal, South America and Africa. The project ‘liter of light’ is conducted by the My Shelter Foundation.
Why is it cool?
Most of the time sustainability is about the over- use of energy. With the examples above, I was particularly pleased to see that there also are several new opportunities for the bottom layer of the population.
Because they now can see things again the dark, it’s safer for these people in slums in the evening. Also their days have become longer and they can better distribute their work. When energy will become cheaper for the slum dwellers, there can be done more technically and hopeflly also in a sustainable way!
Worldwide there are still hundreds of millions of people living in small structures in slums where they are exposed to risks due to the use of unsafe energy. Trough the new inventions it will be a lot safer there and they can work more efficiently.
Quality of Life
In the ‘category’ material wellbeing it has to do with all the categories (food, possessions, transport, privacy, housing quality, income, security). When the people in slums have more light and electricity they can work more efficient and earn more money, with more money they can eat, can have a roof above their head, have an income, they can have more possessions (although I think that they are already happy with the roof and food) but they also have more chance at more safety. This way of energy is a lot safer than the energy they are using at this moment.
And because of the safety it can also be assigned to ‘personal safety and mobility’. The unsafe use of energy creates accidents and it can cause that this has consequences for people’s health and mobility.
Thanks for reading!!
For more information check out these websites:
– http://www.bright.nl/opladen-met-lichaamswarmte-thermo-generator-smartwatch-elektrisch-oplader
– http://fullinsight.com/blog/2014/3/plant-e-living-plants-generating-electricity
– http://www.dezeen.com/2014/02/10/moss-biological-solar-panels-radio/
– http://freshgadgets.nl/deze-futuristische-machine-haalt-energie-uit-de-lucht
– http://www.aandrijvenenbesturen.nl/nieuws/algemeen/nid6888-opblaasbare-windturbine-zweeft-300-meter-boven-de-grond-video.html?printversie=1
– http://www.summer-foundation.org/nl/Initiatieven/Liter-of-Light
– http://freshgadgets.nl/lightie-een-innovatief-lampje-voor-ontwikkelingslanden
elinesmits 