Posted on 10/13/2013 4:49:24 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog
“My guess is that most of these ideas are completely impractical or unworkable when scaled up.”
But, you have to give the Chinese guy some credit for understanding energy inputs and outputs - unlike the idiots in the government pushing ethanol...
“LOL! Why not? They’ll come up with any bogus notion to tax.”
We already pay a tax here for schools every time we take a crap, a school tax - it’s for the children of course...
Yep, you nailed on several important points. First, solids are going to be produced and disposed of as with current technology. Wouldn’t surprise me if if this used an old fashioned stabilization pond type bioreactor, which takes a lot of area and very likely to require tertiary treatment that would tilt the economics the wrong direction.
It’s perfectly scaled for cat boxes!!
“Doe Doe bird”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
That’s a new one on me, is the male of the species called a Buck Buck bird?
Either a PEC or MFC device can be used alone to produce hydrogen gas. Both, however, require a small additional voltage (an "external bias") to overcome the thermodynamic energy barrier for proton reduction into hydrogen gas. The need to incorporate an additional electric power element adds significantly to the cost and complication of these types of energy conversion devices, especially at large scales. In comparison, Li's hybrid solar-microbial device is self-driven and self-sustained, because the combined energy from the organic matter (harvested by the MFC) and sunlight (captured by the PEC) is sufficient to drive electrolysis of water.Ludicrous.
LOL. Could be. I wasn’t sure how to spell it. It’s a very old expression. Dodo Bird? Sort of like Snipes.
At this point, there is no data to decide one way or the other. If it turns out NOT to generate solids, IMO, this would be a major plus.
"Wouldn’t surprise me if if this used an old fashioned stabilization pond type bioreactor, which takes a lot of area and very likely to require tertiary treatment that would tilt the economics the wrong direction."
For this test reactor, they used two beakers. A wee bit early to talk about ponds and such.
Which part?? I kind of thought that the idea of combining the two approaches to overcome a disadvantage each has as a stand-alone technology was good innovative thinking.
The DoDo bird "was" quite real. A not-very-bright flightless bird native to a small island (Mauritius) in the Indian Ocean. They had no fear of humans, and were killed off by hungry sailors.
Rather than using the photovoltaics to directly generate electricity for the grid (via DC to AC conversion of course), they’re using it to make the digestion process “self-sustaining” — then turn methane into electricity in a fuel cell in order to produce hydrogen. Pelion on Ossa.
Thank you for the Natn’l Geographic presentation. I knew that......of course I knew that....didn’t I? LOL
It isn't methane they're converting, but the larger and more obdurate molecules (note the statement "dark wastewater becomes clearer"). Methane isn't "dark".
So they're using energy from the photovoltaics and energy from the hydrocarbons to get more total energy than either can get when run as a standalone process, while simultaneously cleaning the water. This still sounds like a "good thing" to me.
As to "why hydrogen" instead of direct electricity?? I dunno. I kind of wondered that myself. It may have to do with what their "electrogenic bacteria" are capable of.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.