[HN Gopher] Algae powers computer for a year using only light an...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Algae powers computer for a year using only light and water
        
       Author : geox
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2023-07-08 18:45 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.anthropocenemagazine.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.anthropocenemagazine.org)
        
       | berbec wrote:
       | currently hugged.
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20220624095811/https://www.anthr...
        
         | westurner wrote:
         | From the (archived) article:
         | 
         | > _In the new work published in Energy & Environmental Science,
         | researchers at Cambridge University harnessed algae's ability
         | to produce electricity during photosynthesis. They put blue-
         | green algae, also called cyanobacteria, into a see-through case
         | made of plastic and aluminum. Then they placed it on a
         | windowsill and connected it to the microprocessor, which they
         | had programmed to run for cycles of 45 minutes followed by 15
         | minutes of rest._
         | 
         | "Powering a microprocessor by photosynthesis" (2022)
         | https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/ee/d2ee0...
         | :
         | 
         | > Abstract: _Sustainable, affordable and decentralised sources
         | of electrical energy are required to power the network of
         | electronic devices known as the Internet of Things. Power
         | consumption for a single Internet of Things device is modest,
         | ranging from mW to mW, but the number of Internet of Things
         | devices has already reached many billions and is expected to
         | grow to one trillion by 2035, requiring a vast number of
         | portable energy sources (e.g., a battery or an energy
         | harvester). Batteries rely largely on expensive and
         | unsustainable materials (e.g., rare earth elements) and their
         | charge eventually runs out. Existing energy harvesters (e.g.,
         | solar, temperature, vibration) are longer lasting but may have
         | adverse effects on the environment (e.g., hazardous materials
         | are used in the production of photovoltaics). Here, we describe
         | a bio-photovoltaic energy harvester system using photosynthetic
         | microorganisms on an aluminium anode that can power an Arm
         | Cortex M0+, a microprocessor widely used in Internet of Things
         | applications. The proposed energy harvester has operated the
         | Arm Cortex M0+ for over six months in a domestic environment
         | under ambient light. It is comparable in size to an AA battery,
         | and is built using common, durable, inexpensive and largely
         | recyclable materials._
         | 
         | How many wh/kg/cm3?
        
         | extrememacaroni wrote:
         | what _should_ a website do to not get hugged?
        
           | MobiusHorizons wrote:
           | Be less interesting? Seriously though, for static content
           | like an article, caching and cdn's can handle fairly large
           | traffic.
        
           | thephyber wrote:
           | Hugged is an euphemism that describes when demand is higher
           | than supply for server/bandwidth resources.
           | 
           | Solution: increase supply and/or reduce demand.
           | 
           | Reducing the dynamic content (reduce the number of HTTP
           | requests and the time taken for the server to respond to each
           | request) goes a long way, but CDNs are good for increasing
           | supply if that is ultimately necessary.
        
       | aaron695 wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | seeknotfind wrote:
       | How much actual energy does it produce?
        
         | causality0 wrote:
         | A third of a microwatt.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-07-08 23:00 UTC)