[HN Gopher] Algae-Powered Computing
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Algae-Powered Computing
Author : tosh
Score : 66 points
Date : 2022-05-13 14:02 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cam.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cam.ac.uk)
| gallerdude wrote:
| The odds we're about to live in a biopunk world just increased.
| DOsinga wrote:
| It's a bit suspicious that the article doesn't actually mention
| how much power the system uses. The processor it powers doesn't
| need very much at all, so it makes one wonder
| stingraycharles wrote:
| From what I can find [0] it uses 11 uW per MHz. If I'm not
| mistaken, that means it could run 100 cores at 1GHz and still
| only use about 1 watt, which sounds almost as impressive as
| powering it with algae!
|
| https://www.silabs.com/mcu/32-bit-microcontrollers/arm-corte...
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| Kindof gives new meaning to the term "mining pool"
| slowkow wrote:
| The article is not easily available yet:
|
| "Information: This item is under embargo. To send a request for
| access to the author or person responsible for this item, please
| enter the following information. If your request is either
| approved or declined, you will receive a response to inform you
| of the outcome. If the request is ignored, you will not receive a
| response at all, in which case you will not be able to access the
| item."
|
| https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/336039
|
| Citation:
|
| Howe, C., Bombelli, P., Savanth, A., Scarampi, A., Rowden, S.,
| Green, D., Erbe, A., et al. Powering a Microprocessor by
| Photosynthesis. Energy and Environmental Science
| https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.83468
| gilleain wrote:
| True, but following the ORCID link from the main author brings
| me to:
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm5091
|
| which has the glorious title of 'Synthetic biology and
| bioelectrochemical tools for electrogenetic system engineering'
| [deleted]
| benfarahmand wrote:
| The linked paper summary says "...we describe a bio-photovoltaic
| energy harvester system using photosynthetic microorganisms on an
| aluminium anode..."
|
| How do they prevent the aluminum from oxidizing? Oxidized
| aluminum is an insulator, which should be a problem for a long
| lived battery?
|
| I don't have access to the whole paper since it's behind a
| paywall.
| ncmncm wrote:
| sci-hub comes up empty.
| teejmya wrote:
| "The Internet of Things is a vast and growing network of
| electronic devices - each using only a small amount of power -
| that collect and share real-time data via the internet. Using
| low-cost computer chips and wireless networks, many billions of
| devices are part of this network - from smartwatches to
| temperature sensors in power stations. This figure is expected to
| grow to one trillion devices by 2035, requiring a vast number of
| portable energy sources."
|
| Imagine reading this in 1999. It's amazing to consider what we
| can achieve with technology today.
| freemint wrote:
| The internet of things is just a rehash of ubiquitous computing
| an idea that was around in 198X already.
| anfractuosity wrote:
| I thought the algae themselves might have been performing the
| computation
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| with Plankton from Spongebob as the slave driver
| layer8 wrote:
| They should be able to execute any algaerithm.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| I have seen a field studying this and it was insane
| flax wrote:
| Can't wait for my scumputer
| dmos62 wrote:
| Size of AA battery and powering the most efficient ARM processor
| for months with nothing but ambient light? I wonder how this
| scales.
| teknopaul wrote:
| Surly it has to outperform a normal solar panels in some way
| before this has uses? Or am I missing something?
| thinkcontext wrote:
| From a solar efficiency standard its definitely not. Algae is
| something like 2% efficient vs ~20% for PV cells. However, it
| doesn't need a battery like it would with a solar panel.
|
| Not convinced it will be useful but maybe there are
| applications out there for it.
| dekhn wrote:
| you're not missing anything. they don't outperform normal
| solar panels. The difference is that this might be easier to
| set up and maintain in an area with limited technological
| development.
|
| One of the most extraordinary things today is that solar
| panels are now so efficient that you can collect light across
| the whole solar spectrum, then feed that to LEDs that emit in
| exactly the spectrum that plants want, so you can actually
| grow more plant yield with less light than they would outside
| in direct sunlight.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| Cant we build a positive feedback loop with algae and
| solar, like stimulated emission in lasers?
| dmos62 wrote:
| What is stimulated emission in lasers, and how might that
| concept transfer to algae and solar? I googled the
| definition, but it was way over my head.
| dekhn wrote:
| The way lasers work is to have a material (called the
| "gain material") and put a bunch of energy into it. The
| energy, in the form of light, bounces around in the
| material and interacts with it, causing it to line up in
| very specific ways. Eventually, that light is spit out of
| the material, typically in a straight line, with all the
| wavelengths kind of lined up, in phase. An important
| detail related to the term "stimulated emission" is that
| when you pump energy into the gain medium, the normal
| histogram of energy populations (IE, how many molecules
| are in each energy bucket) is swapped- more counts in the
| higher energy buckets- and then they release that extra
| energy in the form of light.
|
| Trying to interpret that comment, I assume they're saying
| that you could use algae as a gain medium, solar as the
| light-energy input, and the algae would eventually
| somehow "lase". i don't see how this could happen as
| algae would make a terrible gain medium, and
| concentrating the solar that much would progbably cause
| them to overheat and die. That said, "solar
| concentrators" do exist for algae photosynthesis: https:/
| /link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10811-008-9324-6
| basically, lenses to provide more light to algae to make
| it grow faster.
| changoplatanero wrote:
| How many days can a AA battery power that processor for?
| ulimn wrote:
| Can't wait for water cooling to have algae in the water tanks. :)
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