Advanced Invention

Who knew that providing energy and water for all could be a matter of foot cranks and dirt power?

A garden hose, a tin can, duct tape, metal piping, kitchen cleaner, and gasoline: That is all television icon MacGyver needed to make a flame-thrower to ward off a swarm of killer ants. In the real world, technologies that are affordable and practical are not so simple to create, but they can make a huge impact on people’s lives. Instead of calling on complex solutions (reliant on engines and imported resources) for low-tech problems (such as cooking and lighting), some researchers are now developing what they call "confluent" technologies—ones that are effective, affordable, and sustainable for use in the developing world. Here’s a look at the latest breakthroughs:

1  Energy in a Bucket of Dirt
Who needs nickel cadmium batteries or coal plants for electricity when you have soil? A Harvard team of faculty and African students have tapped into soil-dwelling microbes in order to provide electricity for families in Tanzania. When the microbes found in the soil digest organic materials, they naturally produce a small current, which can be harnessed with a simple device consisting of two electrodes and a small circuit board. One trash-barrel-sized unit filled with soil can produce enough electricity to light two bedrooms for a decade or more, says Harvard biology professor Peter Girguis. While each unit currently costs about $50, the team is testing new materials that would drive the price down to $7.

2  Micro-Hydroelectric Power
Hilly land streaked with small streams makes an ideal spot for micro-hydroelectric power generators, each of which requires a meager water flow of just three gallons per second to turn. (To put this in perspective, the Mississippi’s average flow at New Orleans is about 4.4 million gallons per second.) The Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) has helped to build three systems in Guatemala, and more communities are now saving up money for local installations.

Plans are afoot to reuse spent reactor fuel in the U.S. But the advantages of the scheme pale in comparison with its dangers

• Spent nuclear fuel contains plutonium, which can be extracted and used in new fuel.
• To reduce the amount of long-lived radioactive waste, the U.S. Department of Energy has proposed reprocessing spent fuel in this way and then “burning” the plutonium in special reactors.
• But reprocessing is very expensive. Also, spent fuel emits lethal radiation, whereas separated plutonium can be handled easily. So reprocessing invites the possibility that terrorists might steal plutonium and construct an atom bomb.
• The author argues against reprocessing and for storing the waste in casks until an underground repository is ready.

A new energy concept called a solar tower could generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes. Looking like a giant smokestack, it would release no noxious fumes — just sun-heated air.

Demonstrated more than 20 years ago, the basic design calls for solar collectors to warm the air near Earth’s surface and then channel it up the tall central tower. Turbines placed at the bottom make electricity from the updraft.

“It’s a combination chimney, windmill, greenhouse,” said Kim Forté of EnviroMission Limited in South Melbourne, Australia.

EnviroMission has designed a kilometer-high solar tower (0.62 miles) and is now looking at possible sites in the southwestern United States.

Solar-stack
The solar tower is an updated version of a solar chimney — a centuries-old technique for providing ventilation to a home by creating a natural updraft from sun-heated air.

A massive neutrino observatory deep underground near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Some have been heralded as the largest undertakings since the building of the pyramids.

Others have been likened to a new set of wonders of the world.

From a science perspective at least, here are our picks for the largest projects on Earth: running, under construction, and on the drawing-board…

1. Large Hadron collider at CERN

Billed as the world’s largest science project, the LHC was unveiled to unearth the so-called “God particle”. Early blogs and articles surmised that the device wielded so much energy that it might create a black hole (though scientifically inaccurate, it hinted at the awesome energy waiting to be unleashed.)

Here’s how it works: Two beams of subatomic particles called ‘hadrons’ (protons or lead ions) travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, picking up more and more energy with every lap. Physicists from around the world will then use the LHC to recreate the conditions found just after the Big Bang by smashing the two beams head-on at very high energy and they analysing the collisions. (more…)
Are you the next IRON SCIENCE teacher? Contest open now

2. Next-stop, cold fusion?: The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)

This first-ever demo-level fusion reactor will be built in southern France and promises to deliver the world’s first sustained fusion reactions; In layman’s terms: more bang for your buck. And at a projected cost of CDN $14.4 billion, it better.

When the eight-year construction project is complete (scheduled for late 2015), ITER will generate 500 MW of fusion power for extended periods of time.

For those not in the physics know-how, fusion is exceptionally difficult to achieve - and is the subjects of many controversial experiments. That fusion reproduces our sun’s energy, without the greenhouse gas emissions and radioactive waste of other methods.

3. The finished International Space Station, circa 2011

When completed in 2010 (though that will likely slip to 2011) the International Space Station will be the largest multinational engineering project of all time.

With an estimated final pricetag of a tenth of a trillion dollars, the finished structure - with its outstretched solar arrays - will be the size of a football field. A far cry from the Mir space station, which had interior space comparable to the space shuttle.

Though pundits have cast doubts in recent years over the ISS’s ability to perform useful science experiments, the addition of the outpost’s second major lab (the Japanese Kibo module, along with the U.S. Destiny lab) will allow a crew of 3-6 people to conduct experiments only possible from orbit that will benefit life on Earth, as well as serving as a jumping-off point for missions to the Moon and, eventually, Mars.

4. A 3,000-foot-tall “Solar tower” in the Australian outback

Dubbed the “Solar Mission Project”, this scientific feat takes solar energy to new heights.

Solar tower technology employs the sun’s radiation to heat a large body of air, which is then forced by laws of physics (hot air rises) to move in the form of a hot wind through large turbines to generate electricity.

When complete in the far western New South Wales region of the Australian outback, it will stand a full-kilometre (3,280 feet).

When fully-functioning, will generate up to 200 MW of clean emission-free electricity - enough to power about 200,000 homes.