Tesla speculated electricity from thin air was possible – now the question is whether it will be possible to harness it on the scale needed to power our homes
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The Lyubchyks estimate that the levelised cost of energy – the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime – from these devices will indeed be high at first, but by moving into mass production…
So next to the fact that these nanotubes will clog with bacteria/particles from the air, and that they’d likely solve it with another device that completely purifies and pushes the air, I’m not hopeful.
According to the Lyubchyks, one of these devices can generate a relatively modest 1.5 volts and 10 milliamps. However, 20,000 of them stacked into a washing machine-sized cube, they say, could generate 10 kilowatt hours of energy a day – roughly the consumption of an average UK household. Even more impressive: they plan to have a prototype ready for demonstration in 2024.
That’d be cool if it worked, even if it does it will be cost prohibitive for quite some time.
10mA @1.5 volts is plenty for all sorts of things! Just two of those things and you’ve got 10mA @3V which is more than enough to power a Bluetooth Low Energy microcontroller and some occasionally-lit LEDs, displays, sensors, buttons, etc.
Simple, real-world example: Nest sells these remote temperature sensors that you can place around your home to use any given location (e.g. your living room) as the place where you want the thermostat temperature setting to apply. They take a 3V CR123A battery that needs to be replaced about every 3 years.
A CR123A battery only holds about ~2.4 watt-hours of power. That’s 2500 milliwatt-hours or 250 hours of 10mW @3V. That means the Nest temperature sensor uses about 0.0095mA of current (@3V). In reality it uses a lot more than that; it just stays in a sleep state nearly all of the time and only powers up every few minutes when it needs to take a temperature reading and send it to the thermostat.
TL;DR: Just one or two of these energy harvesting devices could power a Nest temperature sensor forever (assuming they don’t wear out or lose much efficiency over time).
There’s zillions of low-power devices that today use batteries (that often corrode and need to replaced every few years even if they might not run out of power) that could be powered by these humidity power harvesting devices. It could change low-power engineering forever!
It sounds interesting, but I don’t quite get where the energy comes from - it sounds like they are harvesting the kinetic energy from the water molecules? So what is the net effect when scaled up? Does the device get very cold? an ELI5 would be appreciated
It doesn’t matter how complex we get, it always breaks down to moving water in a varied state of matter.
I just want us to dehumidify the whole South
I don’t know how humid this air has to be, but summer in Georgia hits 100% humidity fairly regularly so it’ll definitely work
It’s always a matter of how much electricity and how efficient is it.
10 kWh per day from a washing machine sized cube is nothing to sneeze at. Whether the humidity to keep it powered consistently is achievable and the maintenance to keep it running is sensible and the cost of building up enough of this stuff to output that level of energy can be commercially viable - that’s the big question.
Down here in Miami I feel like I’ve been drinking the air instead of breathing it the last month or so! I definitely think there will be climates very well suited for this technology
10 kWh per day
This gave me a chuckle. 10 kilojoules per second for an hour per day.
Sorry to hear the scientist commited sudoku tomorrow with 2 gunshots to the back of his head. /s
I’m going to assume you got auto corrected from seppuku to sudoku. Because that is hilarious.
Feel like there is still room for error, so this needs to be investigated further. Would be a great substitution.
Dam. I really hope this turns into a thing. Something like this that works and is cheap to produce will be so beneficial.
The issue is the amount of energy produced (minuscule) and the requirement for very humid air. It’s also likely that the device needs to be colder than ambient temperature if I’ve got my thermodynamics right, so removing heat might be necessary, obliterating any gains and turning it into a dehumidifier that produces a small amount of waste electricity.
It might be another option in the pile of ‘energy harvesting’ solutions, where you need microwatts to miliwatts to power devices like remote temperature sensors, to avoid fitting ten-year lithium batteries. It doesn’t seem likely to go beyond that.
Singaporean: Take my money!
Farts have to be pretty humid, right? I look forward to being able to charge my cellular telephone by simply expelling gas from my rear using specially made underwear.
Self recharging vibrator
So if this gets scaled up for global use won’t it cause issues by drying out the air?
Yes, just like using wind turbines slows down the wind
It doesn’t say how humid the air needs to be. Will it still work if humidity is low?
There’s always some humidity, so I guess in the end it depends entirely on how efficient they can make this technology. It’s probably a bit too early to say.
That said, if you live in a tent in the Sahara you probably shouldn’t postpone investing in solar panels over this.
