MIT Creates Virus-Powered Car Battery

Could you ever in your wildest dreams have imagined that one day, viruses – the living kind, not the cyberspace kind – could power batteries? MIT researchers have announced that though it may sound like science fiction, it’s reality. They have successfully engineered viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery.

From Inhabitat:

These virus-built batteries can be created cheaply using an environmentally benign process, tout the same energy capacity as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries, and may one day be used to power everything from personal electronic devices to hybrid vehicles.

This isn’t the plot of the latest ‘B’ movie, although you would be forgiven for thinking so. The research team led by Angela Belcher, were able to create both a cathode and an anode. These are the key components in a battery that allow the movement of electrons across the electrolyte, thus generating power. Before you get worried about turbocharged super-bugs, rest assured that the viruses used will be common bacteriophages, which are harmless to humans (or so one hopes).

Their current prototype is the size of a coin and can only be used around 100 times, but this is MIT – they’ll smooth out the details in no time. They hope to eventually create a full-sized car battery.

We’ve seen some bizarre ideas lately in the field of renewable energy technology – from buses powered by human waste to turning airport travelers’ breath into fuel. How awesome is it to see people thinking outside the box like this? Such innovation really makes it feel like there’s an entire world of clean, green, renewable energy solutions just waiting for us to discover them.

Link [Inhabitat]

Umbra Explains Where to Recycle Batteries

Battery waste is a big problem – there are tons of them in landfills, and that number increases by 18,000 more tons every year. Those batteries then leak heavy metals into the soil and water. So, a good greenie never tosses batteries into the trash – but what do you do with them once you’ve accumulated a bunch?

Grist’s green guru Umbra gives us the details:

Check out more video tips from Umbra at Grist.org!

Link [Grist]

Bumper Cars as an Alternative to Electric Cars?

Imagine taking a really stupid idea, multiplying it by a few million and setting it loose on the streets of America. No, I’m not talking about hybrid SUVs (this time). A website called Low-Tech has decided that, instead of focusing on increasing the battery life of electric cars, we should just get rid of the batteries all together. How? By re-introducing the ‘bumper car’ cable system.

Treehugger has it:

“Batteries are the flaw of electric cars, and not only when considering the environment. Electric cars are not yet a reality because of the limited mileage of their ‘fuel tanks.’ At best, an electric car can drive 100 or 200 miles. After that, the car has to be plugged in for hours.” Their suggested alternative: bumper car technology, where electricity is fed to the vehicle directly from the grid.

Kris De Decker reminds us that in many countries, there are networks of trolley cars and vehicles that use overhead wires for power yet drive on the road like a conventional vehicle. ” Like electric cars, the environmental score of a trolleybus depends on the way the electricity was generated. However, a trolleybus (just like a tram or an electric train) does not face the problem of energy storage. Therefore, the problem with the electric car is not that it’s electric, but that it’s wireless.”

What a mess that would be. Aside from the obvious problems of requiring massive, expensive overhauls of our road system and being unable to pass each other on the highway, a Treehugger commenter named Ross sums up our sentiments on the issue nicely:

So they’re proposing something like one of those newfangled train machines?

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Flickr user brainware3000