This story originally appeared in our February 10, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.
We look at emerging global ideas for clean energy.
By Dipika Prasad
1. Fuel From Wasted Vegetable Oil
Mafuta Sasa Biodiesel Ltd, founded by Michael Mwakilasa in Tanzania in 2008, which collects Wasted Vegetable Oil from restaurants and other food outlets, and processes it into biodiesel. The firm produces about 2000 liters of fuel every week, which is sold at $ 0.83 per liter, a little more than half the price of conventional fuel in Tanzania.
2. Self-powered Car Stereo
Levant Power Corp, founded by Shakeel N. Avadhany and Zackary M. Anderson, has developed a technology called Genshock that recovers energy from a vehicle’s suspension system and utilizes it for fuel economy gains and providing additional on-board electricity. According to Levant Corp, the technology has defense, trucking, consumer, transit and rail and industrial applications.
3. Eco-friendly Air-conditioning
Founded in 1998, HMX systems Pvt Ltd has created an entire range of air conditioning systems for large scale application that are eco-friendly. Its flagship product, the Ambiator, utilizes indirect and direct evaporative cooling technology and offers low cost, low carbon and 100% fresh air circulating temperature control.
4. Tornado Technology
Avetec Energy Corporation, an Ontario based firm, has developed an Atmospheric Vortex Engine which uses a controlled tornado or vortex to produce clean carbon free electricity. The tornado is created by admitting warm or humid air tangentially at the base of a circular wall. A full-scale model would generate more electricity than wind turbines.
5. Electricity from Mud
A number of researchers around the world are working on creating large scale Microbial Fuel Cells that can generate electricity from decomposing organisms in mud. The fuel cells are envisaged to charge off damp ground close to rivers, or the ocean bed. The most commonly used bacterium is Geobacter that feeds on electrons, enabling it to “breathe in” carbon dioxide and “exhale” fuels.
Photo credits: Mafuta Sasa, Levant, HMX Systems, Avetec Energy Corporation, UMass, Geobacter.org
Raul Caicedo Said,
May 15, 2011 @ 11:28 pm
Clean and cheap energy is a necessity throughout the world. There is stagnation in the progress of thermodynamics because the experts in this science have fallen into the worst paradigmatic paralysis of all time. Something is wrong. There is a form of energy unknown to mankind so far. The following message has been sent to president Obama and to other leaders looking for help. I have not received answers. I go to open-minded people like you that wisely help me find to be understood.
Heat and matter are the infinite state of energy. Heat is kinetic energy of the molecules that make up matter and also behaves as a superfluid which is recyclable. Strangely enough, energy can be obtained directly just by recycling the heat. A system able to recycle the heat has been developed and several experiments have shown that when the heat is recycled an additional energy emerges. This is not a theory; it is provable in real and tangible ways. A prototype with the new system have achieved to increase the temperature of 1000 cubic meters of air to 73 Celsius degrees in an environment temperature of 30 Celsius degrees with a consumption of 5.3 Kw. (It is understood that an efficient system could heat the same volume of air from 30 to 50 Celsius degrees with a consumption of 5.3 Kw). A new prototype (Already built 50%) will be able to increase the temperature of 1000 cubic meters of air over 250 Celsius degrees with a consumption lower than 5 Kw.
I have been conducting this research alone in an unaided effort. This will be “The cleanest energy of the future” Since it is non understandable in thermodynamics terms in the process of building the new prototype will be necessary to apply the free inventive (no paradigms, no impossibilities). The new prototype will solve all questions about and it will encourage us to open new researches to fully implement the new system. The benefits to be gained from the new system will be amazing, including the probability of replacing nuclear power plants, and of course, repentance for having polluted our planet unnecessarily.
I want to share my experience without any personal interest. I would be willing to travel to your country if necessary in order to build the new prototype. As a warrantee I undertake to pay all my expenses during my stay in your country if the prototype does not work in the form I am describing to you.
As personal information, I am a Colombian citizen 64 years old.
Thank you for your attention.
Best regards.
Raul Caicedo Astudillo – Cali – Colombia – South America