A team of Chinese scientists did an impossible-sounding thing. They created electricity simply by dragging a droplet of saltwater across a layer of graphene. No big fires, no greenhouse gases, no fuss. They created energy with just a miracle material and one of the most plentiful substances on Earth.

The science behind the effect is actually quite simple. When the droplets of saltwater sat static on the graphene, they carried an equal charge on both sides. But, when moved across the surface of the graphene, the electrons in the saltwater were desorbed on one end of the graphene and absorbed on the other, generating a measurable voltage along the way. The faster the water moves, the higher the voltage it generates—although the total voltage was still pretty low, about 30 millivolts. A standard AA battery, by comparison, produces about 1.5 volts. It helps that graphene is insanely conductive.
So that’s not much—not yet—but it’s something. It’s not the voltage that scientists are excited about, though. It’s the scale. Current hydroelectric power solutions can only exist on a very large scale. Think Hoover Dam. However, this method for producing hydroelectric power could support nano-sized generators without any byproducts. They do believe the method will scale up, too. That is, if anybody can afford that much graphene.

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since electricity carries signals, why not comprehend that it simply needs to be there?

The only problem is wear and tear

Fast moving water tends to destroy things

wookiemeister said:

The only problem is wear and tear

Fast moving water tends to destroy things

Has been known to do so, yes.

and yet hydro schemes seem to manage this aspect.

ChrispenEvan said:

and yet hydro schemes seem to manage this aspect.

Yes but they use concrete and still get it wrong in some cases

Cavitation would need to be managed or that expensive graphene would get washed away

The moment you build speed you introduce more cavitation

I still say

Solid state power sources using the sun are the way to go

turbine blades aren’t concrete.

ChrispenEvan said:

turbine blades aren’t concrete.

They get damaged

So you have this water running across graphene

Then a rock and stick come along at high speed and gouge out the graphene – very expensive

Boris, I, for one, am getting sick and tired of the way that you consistently bring well known facts into discussions like these!

:)

Thinking a tad outside the box, this form of technology may be a way to harness wave power, as a standard hydro scheme doesn’t use salt water.

i would imagine they’d have devices that stop rocks and sticks. can’t imagine turbines like they either.

yes, wave powered would appear to suit this. the sloshing to and fro over the graphene.

as a standard hydro scheme doesn’t use salt water.

give it a few years in australia…

Wave power, tidal power, general currents.

It is interesting but ultimately the importance of this finding will depend on how it’s price compares to other means of capturing renewable energy.

sibeen said:

Boris, I, for one, am getting sick and tired of the way that you consistently bring well known facts into discussions like these!

:)

Thinking a tad outside the box, this form of technology may be a way to harness wave power, as a standard hydro scheme doesn’t use salt water.

Then you’d have barnacles covering the stuff

Anything involving moving water, being in water will bring problems of wear and tear and stuff growing in it

Algae , barnacles , stuff growing in it

Nice idea but no practical way to harness the energy

Solar is for the moment the only reliable , motion free, low maintenance, easy way to produce clean energy. If they teamed it up with energy storage they’d be laughing

Considering they want to spend 43 – 90 billion on the NBN, how much energy would we have then if we spent if on solar panels ????

I’m fairly this was the topic of my very first post on the SSSF

That solar panels are the easiest way to make pain free energy

Since then nothing has changed because they are the only way to make cheap easy energy

Except for windpower and hydro, which are so much cheaper than solar and make up most of Australia’s renewables.

wookiemeister said:

I’m fairly this was the topic of my very first post on the SSSF

That solar panels are the easiest way to make pain free energy

WTF they want to muck around with expensive renewable energy escapes me.
Viable 24/7 clean and almost infinite nuclear energy is available right now.

And the tragedy of it all is that while so called environmentalist waste a lot of time and money pursuing their drug fucked fundamentalist environmental nirvana of a puritanical purist renewable caliphate the Indonesian pristine rainforests are being destroyed.

Peak Warming Man said:

wookiemeister said:

I’m fairly this was the topic of my very first post on the SSSF

That solar panels are the easiest way to make pain free energy

WTF they want to muck around with expensive renewable energy escapes me.
Viable 24/7 clean and almost infinite nuclear energy is available right now.

This seems to suggest that onshore wind is competitive with nuclear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source