green energy

Genetically Modified Algae Could Be Key to Tomorrow’s Bio Solar Cells

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IN BRIEF

BPVs are fuel cells that use the power of photosynthesis in microscopic organisms to create electricity. One new design that uses genetically modified algae is more powerful than previous attempts, and even allows for storage.

ALGAE FUEL

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a new fuel cell that is powered by algae, and that is five times more efficient than existing models that use microscopic plants and algae. This new design is not only more efficient, it is also more cost-effective and practical to use than previous attempts.

These algae-powered fuel cells, described in the journal Nature Energy, are a type of biophotovoltaic (BPV) device, also known as bio solar cells. BPVs harvest solar energy and convert it into electric current using the photosynthetic abilities of microorganisms like algae. This is both an environmentally-friendly and cost-effective alternative energy source.

The green algae Glaucocystis sp., similar to that used by researchers in developing these bio solar cells
The algae Glaucocystis sp. 

The Cambridge team’s version utilized genetically modified algae that works more efficiently than normal, minimizing the amount of electricity that is dissipated without use during photosynthesis.

Additionally, in prior versions of BPVs, charging (light harvesting and electron generation) and energy delivery (transfer to the electrical circuit) have been located within the same compartment. In systems where this is true, electrons generate current right where they’ve been secreted. In this new approach, the researchers developed a two-compartment system where the processes of charging and delivery are separated.

GREEN ENERGY

“Charging and power delivery often have conflicting requirements,” explained Kadi Liis Saar, of the University of Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry, in a press release. “For example, the charging unit needs to be exposed to sunlight to allow efficient charging, whereas the power delivery part does not require exposure to light but should be effective at converting the electrons to current with minimal losses.”

Renewable Energy Sources Of The Future [Infographic]

This design enhances performance and allows for storage, so that energy created during the day could be saved and used at night or on cloudy days. Cells that lack such storage capacity would not be as practical for widespread, commercial use.

At the present, these bio solar cells are not yet powerful enough for significant use; though their energy density of 0.5 Watts per square meter quintuples other algal cells, it’s still only a tenth of that found in conventional solar fuel cells.

As such, these algae-powered cells probably won’t be powering large grids anytime soon. Yet the authors emphasized that they could be well-suited for small applications in sunny but underdeveloped places like Africa, as well as contributing storage power to the driving movement to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers, seems to have 1 million times the energy density of gasoline

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Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat — the device that purports to use cold fusion to generate massive amounts of cheap, green energy – has been verified by third-party researchers, according to a new 54-page report. The researchers observed a small E-Cat over 32 days, where it produced net energy of 1.5 megawatt-hours, or “far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume.” The researchers were also allowed to analyze the fuel before and after the 32-day run, noting that the isotopes in the spent fuel could only have been obtained by “nuclear reactions” — a conclusion that boggles the researchers: “… It is of course very hard to comprehend how these fusion processes can take place in the fuel compound at low energies.”

This new report [PDF] on the E-Cat was carried out by six (reputable) researchers from Italy and Sweden. While the new E-Cat looks very different from previous iterations, the researchers say that it uses the same “hydrogen-loaded nickel” and additives (most notably lithium) as a fuel. The device’s inventor, Andrea Rossi, claims that the E-Cat uses cold fusion — low-energy nuclear reactions, LENR — to fuse nickel and hydrogen atoms into copper, releasing oodles of energy. The researchers, analyzing the fuel before and after the 32-day burn, note that there is an isotope shift from a “natural” mix of Nickel-58/Nickel-60 to almost entirely Nickel-62 — a reaction that, the researchers say, cannot occur without nuclear reactions (i.e. fusion). The researchers say there is just 1 gram of fuel inside the E-Cat. For more info about the science/chemistry behind LENR, read our previous story about Rossi’s E-Cat.

New style E-Cat device being weighed

The E-Cat test setup

The researchers are very careful about not actually saying that cold fusion/LENR is the source of the E-Cat’s energy, instead merely saying that an “unknown reaction” is at work. In serious scientific circles, LENR is still a bit of a joke/taboo topic. The paper is actually somewhat comical in this regard: The researchers really try to work out how the E-Cat produces so much darn energy — and they conclude that fusion is the only answer — but then they reel it all back in by adding: “The reaction speculation above should only be considered as an example of reasoning and not a serious conjecture.”

Anyway, now that we’ve got the necessary cynicism/scrutiny out of the way, let’s get down to what everyone’s really interested in: The utterly insane amounts of energy produced by the E-Cat. In the table below you can see some figures from the 32-day test. The most important figures are on the right hand side: a COP (coefficient of performance) of up to 3.74, and net power production of 2,373 watts. Remember that this is a small device that produced these kinds of figures for 32 days straight. Total energy obtained over 32 days was 1.5 MWh.

To put this into perspective, the E-Cat tested by the researchers has an energy density of 1.6×109 Wh/kg and power density of 2.1×106W/kg. This is orders (plural) of magnitude higher than anything else ever tested — somewhere in the region of 100 times more power than the best supercapacitors, and maybe a million times more energy than gasoline. In the words of the researchers, “These values place the E-Cat beyond any other known conventional source of energy.”

Read: NASA’s cold fusion tech could put a nuclear reactor in every home, car, and plane

This is what a commercialized E-Cat will apparently look like, when Rossi finally gets around to changing the world.

Obviously, if these third-party findings are to be believed — if the E-Cat really is performing cold fusion — then this is rather exciting. We are talking about an extremely cheap, green, and dense power source that could quite literally change the world.

Before the world can be changed, however, there will now be a very extensive period of scrutiny from the scientific community at large. The previous third-party analysis of the E-Cat device, published in March 2013, was attacked and debunked very rapidly. It seems this new report has been intentionally designed so that there are fewer plot holes and logical leaps. The research paper has reportedly been submitted to the Arxiv pre-print server, with the hope of eventually being published in the Journal of Nuclear Physics.

The next few weeks could be very interesting indeed. According to one report at Sifferkoll, a big bank downloaded the new E-Cat report just minutes after it was made available online — and “oil futures have stayed volatile since.” And of course this morning Glasgow University announced that it would be selling its fossil fuel investments.