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Toyota Mirai – Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Car

Posted on August 12, 2021  Comments (1)

I am curious, even skeptical, about the potential for hydrogen fuel cell versus battery passenger cars. I do respect Toyota and so am wondering if they do indeed see something that most others are missing.

The current production Toyota Mirai has a range of 650 km.

I do think hydrogen fuel cells may provide a better option for larger vehicles (maybe even shipping), but I have done next to no research on this so I may be wrong.

It seem unlikely to me that hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars are going to make it but I would be happy to be wrong. Perhaps the advantages will overcome what seem to me to be challenges that are going to prevent them from being successful. I am confused about how committed to this strategy Toyota is (which makes me question my belief that hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars are not going to be successful).

Related: Toyota Engineering Development Process – Toyota Develops Thought-controlled Wheelchair – How to Develop Products like Toyota (2011) – Innovation at Toyota – Electric Cars (post on our blog in 2007) – Toyota Scion iQ: 37 MPG (2011) – Toyota Engineers a New Plant: the Living Kind (2005)

Creating Low-cost Construction Materials Using Recycled Plastic Waste

Posted on February 12, 2021  Comments (1)

Nzambi Matee is a materials engineer and head of Gjenge Makers (in Kenya), which produces sustainable low-cost construction materials made of recycled plastic waste and sand. For her work, Nzambi Matee was recently named a Young Champions of the Earth by the United Nations Environment Programme.

Building blocks for a greener Nairobi

Through trial and error, she and her team learned that some plastics bind together better than others. Her project was given a boost when Matee won a scholarship to attend a social entrepreneurship training programme in the United States of America. With her paver samples packed in her luggage, she used the material labs in the University of Colorado Boulder to further test and refine the ratios of sand to plastic.

It is wonderful to see young people using an understanding of engineering to find ways to improve the world. Taking waste plastic and creating usable products will help reduce pollution and create a better world. We need quite a bit of effort to deal with plastic waste, so I look forward to learning about many more ideas turned into practical solutions in the real world.

Related: Cleaning Up the Plastic Pollution in Our Oceans – Pedal Powered Washing Machine – Protecting Cows with Lion Lights – Drone Deliveries to Hospitals in Rwanda

Growing Citrus in the Snow

Posted on May 27, 2018  Comments (3)

The system uses the constant ground temperature 2.5 meters (8 feet) below ground to heat a greenhouse. The underground-temperature on his farm is 11 degrees (52 degrees Fahrenheit). Other nearby areas range from 9 to 17 degrees (17 is near a hot spring).

Just circulating air through 64 meters (210 feet) of tubing buried 2.5 meters underground is enough to allow citrus and other plants to thrive. Selling at local farmer’s markets brings in a very high profit for farmers that can grow and sell locally.

Using the power of the sun to grow and the constant ground temperature to keep the air warm enough creates an opportunity to grow all year round. The same principles can be used to cool down indoor temperatures in very hot locations near the equator.

Due to the controlled environment growing organically is easy so that further increases the payoff for this type of farming.

The cost of the system can be as low as $25,000 if you have access to a backhoe to dig the trenches for the air pipes and can do much of the labor yourself. That is the cost of just the heating systems for a conventional greenhouse.

I really like this type of intersection of engineering and business (as well as environment and health benefits – providing healthy local food) that creates value to society by using our knowledge effectively.

Learn more at Citrus in the Snow. The Nebraska farmer (seen in the video) has been growing Citrus in Nebraska this way since 1992.

Related: Sustainable Ocean Farming – Beehive Fence Protects Farms from Elephants – For Many Crops Ants Can Provide Pest Protection Superior or Equal to Chemicals at a Much Lower Cost – Small Farm Robots

Large Scale Redox Flow Battery (700 megawatt hours)

Posted on July 16, 2017  Comments (1)

Scientists and engineers in Germany have created the largest battery in the world with redox flow technology.

Redox flow batteries are liquid batteries. The Friedrich Schiller University of Jena has developed a new and forward-looking salt-free (brine) based metal-free redox flow battery. This new development will use salt caverns as energy storage.

schematic for salt-free (brine) based metal-free redox flow battery

Schematic for salt-free (brine) based metal-free redox flow battery by Ewe Gasspeicher. Two caverns each have a volume of 100,000 cubic meters.

A redox flow battery consists of two storage tanks and an electrochemical cell in which the reactions take place. Storage for solar and wind sources of power is an important challenge being explored in many ways today. Efforts such as this one provide a path to continue the rapid adoption of more solar and wind power.

In the electrochemical cell the two storage liquids – catholyte and anolyte – are separated from one another by a membrane. This prevents the large storage liquids from mixing with one another. The ions, however, can pass unimpeded through the membrane from one electrolyte solution into the other.

When charging the battery, the charging current ensures that electrons are deposited on the polymers of the anolyte. At the same time, the catholyte releases its electrons.

The charged catholyte and anolyte molecules are pumped from the cell into storage containers and replaced by uncharged ones. When the battery is discharged, the reaction is reversed. The anolyte molecules emit their electrons, which are available as electrical current.

Both charged electrolytes can be stored for several months. The maximum storage capacity of this redox-flow battery is limited only by the size of the storage containers for the electrolyte liquids.

The project is being ramped up now, going through a test phase before bringing the full system online; they are aiming to achieve this in 6 years. The electrical capacity of 700 megawatt hours will be enough to supply over 75,000 households with electricity for one day.

Related: Molten Salt Solar Reactor Approved by California (2010) – Battery Breakthrough Using Organic Storage (2014) – Chart of Global Wind Energy Capacity by Country from 2005 to 2015

Small Farm Robots

Posted on June 17, 2017  Comments (3)

The IdaBot was created by researchers at Northwest Nazarene University (Idaho, USA).

Using robots in farming is limited today but the future could see a huge growth in that use. Benefits of introducing more robots to farming include reducing the use of pesticides and chemicals to control weeds.

Reducing labor costs is also a potential benefit but at current market prices (due to high costs of robotics and available cheap labor) that is more something for the future than today. However that can change fairly quickly – as for example the collapse in solar panel costs have made solar energy economically very attractive. In areas with high labor costs (Japan etc.) or areas where there are active efforts to reduce the supply of labor (in the USA where a significant portion of labor does not have proper visa to work in the USA and the current administration is seeking to reduce that labor availability) robots become more attractive economically.

Robot farmers are coming to a field near you

In Japan, using robots to harvest strawberries is roughly cost-equivalent to human labor if the ‘bots are shared between multiple farms, Lux Research said.

“With strawberry-picking being slow and labor-intensive, and labor scarce and expensive — the average agricultural worker in Japan is over 70 years old – the robot is quickly likely to become the cheaper option,” it said.

Lux Research also forecast European lettuce-growing — a major industry on the continent — would become automated by 2028.

“Automated lettuce weeding is already competitive with human labor in Europe, thanks to regulatory limitations on agrochemicals. Lettuce thinning is still accomplished manually at lower cost, but robots are likely to reach breakeven with human labor in 2028,”
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The global market for agricultural robots will explode to $73.9 billion by 2024, up from $3.0 billion 2015

Related: For Many Crops Ants Can Provide Pest Protection Superior or Equal to Chemicals at a Much Lower Cost – Sustainable Ocean Farming – Cool Robot Locomotion: Transforms from Wheeled to Walking For Stairs and Rough Terrain (2012) – Lean Science: Using Cheap Robots to Aid Research – Moth Controlled Robot (2009)

WindTree – Harnessing Breezes for Electricity

Posted on January 22, 2017  Comments (3)

This style of wind power looks cool. The WindTree turns small breezes into electricity. Its production varies with the wind speed and its average output ranges between 1,500 kWh and 2,000 kWh. Peak power is 3,500 kWh.

But I don’t see how it can be effective given the large cost. The WindTree is being offered for installation late in 2017 in the USA and Canada at $67,500 – excluding delivery, installation and taxes (they estimate almost $100,000 total). It really seems to me the prices would have to come down by more than 75% to make any real impact in the market.

An average household in the USA uses 901 kWh per month.

The tree is 36 feet tall and 26 feet in width. The first trees were installed in France in 2015, the company is based in France.

It is good to see us investigating numerous ways to generate clean energy. But unless the price of this drastically reduces over time it doesn’t seem likely to contribute much to our energy needs.

Related: Chart of Wind Power Generation Capacity Globally 2005-2012 – Capture Wind Energy with a Tethered Turbine (2007) – Engineering Floating Wind Farms (2010) – Sails for Modern Cargo Ships (2008)

Sustainable Ocean Farming

Posted on April 3, 2016  Comments (5)

Farming the Sea: why eating kelp is good for you and good for the environment

There are serious problems with our ability to grow healthy food for the number of people we have today (and will have in the future). Innovations have allowed us to feed ourselves. But the damage done to topsoil and other damage including pollution of our rivers is huge. Overfishing and factory farms are keeping us going today but are doing immense damage and are not sustainable.

Seed companies abusing the corrupt government patent systems creates even more damage. We need better solutions. We have many people doing great things but we need to do much more. Ocean farming is one of many areas we should expand. And we should greatly reduce the use of factory farms, antibiotics for livestock, overfishing and the overuse of pesticides.

How an Army of Ocean Farmers are Starting an Economic Revolution

So we all went on a search for sustainability. I ended up in Northern Canada on an aquaculture farm. At that point aquaculture was supposed to be the great solution to overfishing, but when I got there I found more of the same, only using new technologies to pollute local waterways with pesticides and pumping fish full of antibiotics.
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I never thought climate change had anything to do with my life. But it does. From my vantage point, climate change is not an environmental issue at all”Š—”Šit’s an economic issue.
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As ocean farmers, we reject aquaculture’s obsession with monoculture, an obsession similar to that of modern land farming. Our goal is diversity. It’s a sea-basket approach:We grow two types of seaweeds, four kinds of shellfish, and we harvest salt. But with over 10,000 edible plants in the ocean, we’ve barely scratched the surface.
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Instead of repeating history we’re building infrastructure from seed-to-harvest-to-market. We’re starting nonprofit hatcheries so that our farmers can access low-cost seed. We’re creating ocean seed banks so that the Monsantos of the world can’t privatize the source of our food and livelihoods.

Related: SelFISHing – The State of the Oceans (2011) – Rethinking the Food Production System (2008)

In Many Crops Ants Can Provide Pest Protection Superior or Equal to Chemicals at a Much Lower Cost

Posted on September 1, 2015  Comments (1)

Ants are as Effective as pesticides

The review [of over 70 studies] was conducted by Aarhus University’s Dr Joachim Offenberg, an ecologist who has studied ants for almost 20 years. It includes studies of more than 50 pest species on nine crops across eight countries in Africa, South-East Asia and Australia.

Most of the studies in Offenberg’s review are on weaver ants (Oecophylla), a tropical species which lives in trees and weaves ball-shaped nests from leaves. Because weaver ants live in their host trees’ canopy, near the flowers and fruit that need protection from pests, they are good pest controllers in tropical orchards.

All farmers need to do is collect ant nests from the wild, hang them in plastic bags among their tree crops and feed them a sugar solution while they build their new nests. Once a colony is established, farmers then connect the trees that are part of the colony with aerial ‘ant walkways’ made from string or lianas.

After that, the ants need little, except for some water in the dry season (which can be provided by hanging old plastic bottles among the trees), pruning trees that belong to different colonies so that the ants do not fight, and avoiding insecticide sprays.

The review shows that crops such as cashew and mango can be exceptionally well protected from pests by weaver ants.

One three-year study in Australia recorded cashew yields 49% higher in plots patrolled by ants compared with those protected by chemicals. Nut quality was higher too, so net income was 71% higher with ants than with chemicals.

Similar studies in Australian mango crops found that ants could produce the same yield as chemical control, but because the ants were cheaper, and fruit quality better, net income from mangoes produced with ant protection was 73% higher.

Those crops are special cases in which the ants are vastly superior. But in many other cases ants are as effective and much cheaper than chemical options. Different species of ants are suited to protecting different types of drops. Weaver ants require a canopy, other ants can protect crops without a canopy.

I hope more farmers adopt ants to help protect their crop yields.

Related: Pigs Instead of Pesticides – Why Don’t All Ant Species Replace Queens in the Colony, Since Some Do – How To Make Your Own Pesticide with Ingredients from Your Kitchen – Another Bee Study Finds CCD is Likely Due to Combination of Factors Including Pesticides (2013)

Data Furnaces: Free Heating, for Those with Fiber Internet

Posted on May 29, 2015  Comments (2)

Data furnaces have arrived in the Netherlands offering free heating for those with fiber internet connections. Those running data centers spend a lot of money cooling them off or thinking of ways to keep cooling costs down Google Uses Only Outside Air to Cool Data Center in Belgium (weather should provide free cooling for all but about 7 days a year).

Nerdalize is offering an interesting engineering solution to this issue. Even better than eliminating cooling costs this idea will use the excess heat to warm people’s houses.

By placing high performance servers in homes Nerdalize creates highly distributed compute cloud without the overhead cost of conventional cloud and co-location solutions. This creates a triple-win where sustainable computing power becomes an affordable commodity, homes are heated for free and emissions are drastically reduced!

This structural cost advantage allows us to offer computing power that is up to 55% more affordable than major cloud-providers or co-location solutions whilst giving incredible performance.

The Nerdalize heater contains high-performance servers in the form of a radiator and allows for them to be placed in your home safely and secure. As Nerdalize covers the cost of electricity, the heat generated by computations, such as medical research, heat your home for free.

image of the Eneco eRadiator

The Eneco eRadiator

The installation of a server heater, the Eneco eRadiator, in the living rooms of five families at different locations in the Netherlands this month starts a field test of the units. The purpose of the test is to collect information on customer experience and to identify possible areas of improvement of the eRadiator.

Sign up on their website if you want free heating (Netherlands is likely the best bet but they may expand around Europe also, or even further).

Related: Google Lets Servers Stay Hot, Saving Air Conditioning Costs – Data Center Energy Needs

Car Powered by Compressed Air

Posted on May 12, 2015  Comments (3)

I wrote about cars powered by compressed air back in 2008. Turning such innovative prototypes into products of sustainable businesses is quite difficult.

This new attempt to produce cars powered by compressed air has an innovative design with a joystick instead of a drivers wheel. The AirPod is being developed in France. Compressed air has been used to power trams in France since the 19th century.

The AirPod has a range of 150 to 200 km and a top speed for 80 km per hour. The cost will be about US$10,000.

They claim the cost per mile is about 1/3rd of that for electric vehicles. It is nice that we have engineers around the globe continually working on new uses of technology to provide us better options for living.

I hope such cars can be a success. It does seem to me electric cars seem the more likely large scale success but it is good to have people seeking out innovative solutions.

Related: Compressed Air Powered Car Webcast (2008) – Self Driving Cars Have Huge Potential for Benefit to Society – Engineers Save a Life, With Safe Car Design – Toyota Scion iQ (2011) – Car Style Mass Transit Mag Lev System (2009)

Biomass Fueled Power Generator from All Power Labs

Posted on February 14, 2015  Comments (0)

All Power Labs produces biomass fueled power generators. They have grown from a open science and engineering foundation to their current position. I really like how they are focused on promoting understanding and encouraging collaboration.

They reject the copyright cartel closed science mindset; which is something I like. Their product takes waste biomass; for example walnut shells, coconut shells, hardwood chips (Oak, Beech), softwood chips (Douglas Fir, Pine). It also takes corn cobs, palm kernel shells and others but there are additional challenges to operation.

Their products use gasification which is most simply thought of as choked combustion or incomplete combustion. It is burning solid fuels like wood or coal without enough air to complete combustion, so the output gas still has combustion potential. The unburned gas is then piped away to burn elsewhere as needed.

The Power Pallet is a complete biomass power generation solution that converts woody biomass into electricity. It costs $29,995 which translates to a cost of $1-$2/watt which is more cost effective that alternatives. They have significant sales in developing markets where power is often problematic. It is specifically not suited to some fuel – wastepaper (could maybe work in pelletized form), municipal waste, coconut husk…

This webcast is the start of a presentation on the history and current state of their efforts (continue to view other clips for the whole presentation):

Related: Ethanol: Science Based Solution or Special Interest Welfare – Do It Yourself Solar Furnace for Home Heating – Kudzu Biofuel Potential Chart of Wind Power Generation Capacity Globally from 2005 to 2012 – Turning Trash into Electricity (2006)