What would you say about using "cooked" chicken feathers to store hydrogen very efficiently? How about using chicken feathers as carbon fiber reinforcement in things like wind turbine blades?
The answer to both questions is -- yes you can!
Science Friday: "Hydrogen Storage in Chicken Feathers?"
Link to podcastResearchers say they've come up with a new material for storing hydrogen fuel -- carbonized chicken feathers. Speaking this week at at the 13th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference in College Park, MD, researchers said that carbonized chicken feathers could absorb as much or perhaps more hydrogen than other materials for hydrogen storage, including carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides, at a much lower cost.
Here's another source: Happy News
While I'm on the subject of Science Friday, the second segment in today's show was also very interesting; talking about the enormous potential for wind power to far exceed all our needs.
Here’s a new one on me; the Riversimple open source hydrogen fuel cell car.
Not too many details are available yet: it has a 1kg tank of hydrogen and a whopping 6kW (8HP) fuel cell that give it a range of 240 miles, and a top speed of 50mph. It weighs just 350kg (~771 pounds), owing mostly to the carbon fiber chassis. They are looking to produce 10 next year, and ~50 the year after that, with leases available in 2012, for £200 ($315) per month, including the hydrogen fuel. Key to their design is efficient regenerative braking (50% returned energy) using some ultracapacitors.
It looks like they are using hub motors in each wheel, and carbon fiber for the chassis. It does not appear to be on their web page (yet), but they plan to release their plans so that anybody can build one. I really like this idea of sharing the design information. The aerodynamics seem to be worked out pretty well — the range of the car with just 1kg of hydrogen is proof of this! The one (possible) snag is whether or not the side windows are operable — I guess toll roads can be handled with a wireless unit, though. There is an intake grill, which may be used for ventilating the car.
I have my concerns with hydrogen — you can either get it from processing natural gas (which is obviously not very “green”) — or you need to use renewable energy (electricity from solar/wind/tidal/wave/biomass, etc.) to make the hydrogen. There is no infrastructure for hydrogen, and this is a nontrivial hurdle. But with this Riversimple car, they provide the hydrogen as part of the lease. So this design concept works if you are located close to where they will have service.
What other parts of science do you not believe are true?
Do you believe that the Theory of Gravity is correct? Or, do you believe in Intelligent Falling?
Do you believe in evolution? Or, do you believe in Intelligent Design?
Do you believe in the theory of atomic structure? Or, something else is responsible for how physics and chemistry work?
Do you believe in DNA? Or, do you believe that God chooses what characteristics to give your child?
What about the theory of how the Universe works, and the life cycles of stars and galaxies? Or, do you believe that God created it all in 6 days?
Do you believe that the Earth and the other SEVEN planets are orbiting the Sun? Or, does everything revolve around the Earth?
Are plate tectonics real? Or is there some other explanation for volcanoes and earthquakes?
Is the Earth (approximately) a sphere -- or is it flat?
Do you believe that medical drugs are developed using scientific methods? Or, are they just lucky guesses?
You see, you can't believe in just parts of science -- it all works the same: we explore the unknown, and as we find out more and more, we theorize about how it works. Then, based on the evidence and peer review, the accepted theory emerges; and is continuously tested and debated. Things settle more, as scientist come into closer and closer agreement.
This is how it is for all scientific endeavors -- they are not just making this up! Global Climate Change is real and it is the predominant scientific conclusion that humans have affected an abrupt change in the climate, by burning old carbon fuels; releasing millions of years worth of old carbon in about 150 years.
A few naysayers here and there may be right -- but on the other hand, maybe the large majority of the scientists who study this are right? Which is the bigger risk: that the naysayers are right and we conserve too much fuel and move to renewable energy anyway -- or, we keep on keepin' on and the ocean rises 40 feet in the next 100 years or so, and parts of the world go into an ice age, other parts go into drought, etc. etc. etc. -- who knows what the risks are??
Are you willing to take that risk?
Post Script:
Since Intelligent Design is a renaming of Creationism -- and neither one of them is science, then you can believe in it if you want to. The Theory of Gravity is science, and so it remains true whether you accept it or not. If you choose to take a similar tact to believing in Intelligent Design instead of accepting Evolution as the science that it is, then you might need to try to work out calling gravity Intelligent Falling as well.
My intent is to point out that science is a process where based on the facts, we humans work to understand and name the best -- and most consistent theories possible to make all the facts that we know to fit together. Scientists are constantly testing all the theories, and exploring the unknown. When they find something that they cannot explain -- they DO NOT just attribute it to some unknown cause; like we all do in our faiths all the time! This is the different between science and faith. Science looks to either find out more about the unknown, until either the new thing fits into the accepted theory, or they have to change the theory to fit with everything that has come before AND with the new thing. Faith simply accepts the unknown thing without question.
I apologize for this sentence in particular: "Or, do you believe that God created it all?". Later on I edited this to say "Or, do you believe that God created it all in 6 days?". There is a BIG difference there, because it means something very different -- so again I apologize.
The difference is that one could believe that a God created the world as a matter of faith AND the creation process is what science is working to explain and understand. But believing that God created the universe, the world, and all living things in a literal 6 days is a matter of faith which is conflict with science. I hope that I have made the difference a little clearer.
Again, it was not my intent to debate the difference between faith and science; though this is obviously part of the discussion. My main point was to try to point out the need for consistency in the understanding of science: if the scientific process has produced strong theories (which are very different from hypothesis') for things like gravity, atomic theory, plate tectonics, evolution, electricity, astronomy -- all of these things and much more -- are *inseparable* from the way we live and the way we understand all things in science. To be intellectually consistent, all of these and more -- including global climate change must be accepted as a whole! If you reject one part, then you must reject all the others, too -- because they are part of the whole.
This certainly does not mean that one cannot question any or all of these things -- this is what scientists do ALL THE TIME! This is EXACTLY what scientists DO all the time. But to throw out the theory of evolution say, on the basis of a few examples, is frankly throwing out the baby with the bath water. If one is to pronounce that any part of accepted science as bunk, then one had better be ready to show that they have a fully working alternative theory -- and to defend it scientifically, through accepted scientific process.
I urge all of you who are interested in this to watch a NOVA video online, or the next time it is broadcast on your local PBS station:
Watch show online
Sincerely, Neil
Hello,
I have installed my own video mirrors on my Scion xA, and it has reduced my frontal area by ~62 sq. in., and I will be doing another coast down test to see how much it may have helped lower my Cd. I did one set of coast down tests and I got ~0.267 (down from 0.31 of the stock car); though this is based on an estimated rolling resistance of 0.011 for my 44PSI Yokohama Avid tires.
Here's my post about the installation on EcoModder:
Installation post on EcoModder.com
Now that I've driven with the video mirrors for a few days now, and I'm close to being used to their location. I drove in the heavy rain yesterday -- and they work much better than optical mirrors! The lower resolution "misses" much of the mist (kicked up from the tires) and their aperture adjustment makes the images on the screens quite bright. Ditto for dusk operation. I have not driven at night except once, and I think I now have the windshield reflection issue solved...(see the picture below for the current set up, that eliminates the reflection)
If I were to design this from scratch, I would say that a slightly less wide angle of view would be plenty (90-100 degrees instead of the ~110 degrees these cameras provide). The wide angle is great and I love being able to see a bit of the side of my car in both screens, but frankly, it takes getting used to. And that leads me to my next improvement:
I would want the lens optics to compensate for the barrel distortion (and maybe overcompensate?) so the cars behind in the adjacent lanes were shown larger and appeared to be closer. I am still looking over my shoulder to confirm that I have room (which is probably wise in any situation!), because they look pretty small when they are ~100' behind me.
Large (semi) trucks behind me show up in all three mirrors! And the way they work in the rain is quite impressive -- the lens get a few drops when the car is parked, which show up as soft-focus distortions on part of the screen, but if you wipe these off, then they stay dry when you are driving. It doesn't matter if your windows get fogged up, either!
I averaged (just) above 50mpg on a tank, for the first time! The passenger side was put on about 1/3 through the tank, and the driver side about 2/3 through -- not too bad, if I say so myself.
Here's some pictures of what the video mirrors look like at dusk and near dark -- it's a little tricky getting an exposure that shows it close to what I can actually see!
These are getting progressively darker top to bottom -- the middle one especially makes it look darker outside than it actually is, and the cameras really seem to open up their apertures in this light, and they sometimes are slightly overexposed on one or the other, depending on the direction of the sun. The last one is sitting in my driveway, and there is very little ambient light -- you can kinda make out the light thrown by my taillights in the right screen...the light ahead is my porch light.
