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Grist- Environmental News and Commentary  EcoGeek monitors and explores the current explosion in technology designed to mitigate our impact on the environment. We report tirelessly on clean tech., but we also dig deeper, providing analysis and criticisms as well as reportage. We've got to move forward to get out of this mess. If you agree with us, we hope you'll become an EcoGeek yourself. www.ecogeek.org
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Generating Energy from Heat with a Chip |
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Friday, 24 November 2006 |
We've talked about
passive energy generation (http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/248/) before, but those devices pulled minuscule
amounts of power from heat or vibration. Eneco, a company I've never
heard of before, has created a solid-state (no moving parts) device
that converts heat to electricity with 30% efficiency. The device
consists (very basically) of two pieces of metal sandwiching some kind
of mystery semiconductor. The trick is that one piece of metal is specially designed to
lose electrons when heated, and the other is designed to accept them at
a lower temperature. If electricity is applied to the chip, the bottom
piece of metal becomes extremely cold, if heat is applied to the bottom
piece of metal, electricity comes out.
The first applications are obvious ones. Off-grid electricity
for pipeline monitoring (pipelines are usually quite hot to keep the
oil flowing well.) But the possibilities for
the automotive and consumer electronics industries...
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Friday, 24 November 2006 |
These Japanese buses are definitely hybrids, but it has nothing to do
with their power. These things are bus-train hybrids. The vehicles are
designed to run on the roads in less dense areas (where there are
no train lines, but also not much traffic) and then easily pull onto a
train line, pop down it's metal wheels and speed down the rails during
rush-hour traffic in high-density areas.
The design allows for economical and speedy mass transit in a country that sorely needs it. The Bus-Train will be hitting the rails in 2007, servicing a tourist route. But the JR Hokkaido hopes to use them mainly to bring mass-transit into rural areas.
Via TreeHugger
(http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/dual_mode_train_1.php)
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