CWL

archiemcphee:

This surprisingly lovely little orange is being illuminated from the inside by a lightbulb powered by the orange itself. That’s right, it’s an orange battery:

“The electricity powering the lightbulb inside the orange is generated through a chemical reaction between citric acid and the zinc nails inserted into each wedge.”

The beautiful orange battery was built by photographer Caleb Charland (previously posted here) as part of an ongoing project using pieces of produce and other objects as light sources for his long-exposure photography. Pretty awesome stuff. 

“…but before you start work on a bunch of orange lights to keep on the nightstand, the light generated was so dim this particular photograph required a 14 hour exposure.”

Visit Caleb Charland’s website to view of his wonderful photographic work.

[via Colossal]

positive-press-daily:

Sony extracts power from cardboard

At an exhibit in Tokyo, the company showed how cardboard can provide enough energy to power a fan.

Corrugated cardboard was used as a source for cellulose, whose glucose chain was broken up with enzymes to produce hydrogen ions and electrons. The electrons delivered electricity while the hydrogen ions reacted with oxygen, which resulted in water.

Don’t get excited about a novel way to reuse old cardboard just yet: Sony notes that the power output is very low and a commercialization should not be expected anytime soon. Apparently the method is good enough to power digital music players, but it cannot recharge or replace common batteries.

laboratoryequipment:

U.S. Electric Grid Could Handle New Technologies

Over the next two decades, the U.S. electric grid will face unprecedented technological challenges stemming from the growth of distributed and intermittent new energy sources such as solar and wind power, as well as an expected influx of electric and hybrid vehicles that require frequent recharging. But a new MIT study concludes that—as long as some specific policy changes are made—the grid is most likely up to the challenge.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-US-Electric-Grid-Could-Handle-New-Technologies-120611.aspx

Time to Upgrade our Grid: Recent Blackout Highlights Nation’s Aging Electricity Grid

It looks like the environment from scifi hit Tron weren’t the only ones in need of a technological reinvent.

Experts say the cascading blackout that put millions of Westerners in the dark last week was no surprise: Major power outages have more than doubled in the last decade.

“This is just evidence that we need a smarter, better, more secure system,” said Massoud Amin, director of the Technological Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, who has analyzed federal data on the reliability of the nation’s electric grid.

Blackouts disrupt power to at least a third of U.S. homes each year, and studies show the number of outages is rising.

The grid’s shortcomings have been well-documented, but efforts to modernize it haven’t kept up with demand. Many electrical transmission lines are outdated, and parts of the grid date back to the time of Thomas Edison.

The chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees the nation’s grid, acknowledged increasing problems with the system.

In a July interview with ProPublica, FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff said that while the electric grid is reliable, it is degrading. “It’s not getting better,” he said. “It’s getting worse.”

Read On

scinerd:

Time to Upgrade our Grid: Recent Blackout Highlights Nation’s Aging Electricity Grid

It looks like the environment from scifi hit Tron weren’t the only ones in need of a technological reinvent.

Experts say the cascading blackout that put millions of Westerners in the dark last week was no surprise: Major power outages have more than doubled in the last decade.

“This is just evidence that we need a smarter, better, more secure system,” said Massoud Amin, director of the Technological Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, who has analyzed federal data on the reliability of the nation’s electric grid.

Blackouts disrupt power to at least a third of U.S. homes each year, and studies show the number of outages is rising.

The grid’s shortcomings have been well-documented, but efforts to modernize it haven’t kept up with demand. Many electrical transmission lines are outdated, and parts of the grid date back to the time of Thomas Edison.

The chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees the nation’s grid, acknowledged increasing problems with the system.

In a July interview with ProPublica, FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff said that while the electric grid is reliable, it is degrading. “It’s not getting better,” he said. “It’s getting worse.”

Read On

8bitfuture:

New reactor gets closer to reality, would use nuclear waste as fuel.

The reactor, built by Terrapower, is proposed as a possible alternative to fusion reactors, which will also have the ability to produce power from the almost unlimited fuel source of nuclear waste. The company expects to begin construction of a prototype plant in 2016, to start producing 500-megawatts from 2020.

As opposed to conventional nuclear reactors which need large amounts of the rare element uranium 235, the Terrapower reactor only needs a small amount of uranium 235 to start a reaction. The neutrons it produces are then able to convert uranium 238 to the far more abundant plutonium 239, which is able to generate the heat needed to make electricity. Uranium 238 is a readily available material because it is a waste product of the enrichment process used to create traditional nuclear fuel. In the future it may also be affordable to extract uranium 238 from seawater.

Terrapower says this technique would be able to supply the world with electricity for a million years, even if everyone were to use as much power as people in the United States do.

 

kateoplis:

More confirmations on the previous report: here, here, here and here.

Also, just in from NBC Nightly News: “Electric Power Co. is reporting that they have lost control of the pressure in their No. 1 & 2 nuclear reactors with temps rising.”

Breaking