Iron Trees with Synthetic Leaves?
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this is an incredible company... they make Synthetic Trees... fantastic works of art really.
this is a new technology whereby scientists have created a synthetic leaf.
if you combine these two technologies... you have beautiful massive batteries in your yard.
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@unknownuser said:
Oxygen and hydrogen molecules are then sent to a fuel cell that can produce electricity. If the device is placed in a one-gallon bucket of water in bright sunlight, it can reportedly produce enough electricity to power a house in a developing nation.
It's very captivating isn't it? In an "Oxfam" sort of way?
But why not just let developing countries have their major power stations, allowing them proper industrialisation? The rhetoric says that it is fine for us in the west to have such industrialisation, but developing countries still must use a "bucket in a well"? How belittling is that? Of course there will be a cost to the environment, but so what? That cost won't be forever, and it will stop further wars, as nations worldwide become richer, and the people of those nations can be fed, as well as receive proper education.
On the other hand, this technology could be used to convert CO2 back into hydrogen with a byproduct of oxygen, then we could drive cars again without all the moralising!
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Some power is better than no power, even if it is just a bucket. Plus, once the bucket is paid for or donated, there is no further cost or billing to the owner. No, it's not a glamorous hydroelectric plant or even a coal fired plant, but it works. They can have industrial power when they can and a bucket when they can't.
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I'd love to see you walk right up to an official, and repeat that to his face!
This is simply another sticky-plaster idea. I'm not saying that the technology is a bad idea, I'm just saying the immediate application ideas are wrong.
And what happens when the lights go out? Or clouds block out the sun? What then? Does you kidney dialysis machine stop working there and then? Or does the milk simply turn sour?
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One thing that did occur to me, is in many 'developing' nations drought is a real prospect.
So how do you convince someone to save a bucket of water to power the lights in his home when he could use the water to feed his family or water his crops.
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@tobobo said:
So how do you convince someone to save a bucket of water to power the lights in his home when he could use the water to feed his family or water his crops.
Yes. Very good point too!
If you also get to the nitty-gritty, this invention doesn't actually create any electricity as such, it just splits water into its two main elements. So the bucket of water thing is a nonsense anyway!
Toby, where in Birmingham are you??
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I work in the centre next to the mailbox. I live on the kings heath/Stirchley boarder.
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Literally, just up the road from here!
It's a small world!
You don't have a brother or relative called David? I know a David Joyce who lives in Moseley. I don't know how popular the name Joyce is in Birmingham.
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Another thought on this leaf thing, once you've split you components down into their elements, you need, if you are going to make them into stored energy for electric motors or whatever, to compress them into a liquid again, using immense pressure. And how are you going to do that? With a bicycle pump?
There's no such thing as 'wonder technology' (even though the concept is interesting). You have to ask yourselves, if this really is such a 'wonder product', why aren't we already implementing the technology? Why aren't people falling over themselves to get at it, or to licence it?
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@tfdesign said:
There's no such thing as 'wonder technology'
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of
science, 1949."I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943."I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked
with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is
a fad that won't last out the year."
- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957."But what ... is it good for?"
- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM,
1968, commenting on the microchip." There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of
Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
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