21–30 of 104 posts
This is like the ultime HN article. * Born hacker * Issues of race and oppression * Entreprenuer spirit * Issues with patents * Big companies stifling innovation Someone should write "Inventors at Work".
Could someone explain the differences in acquiring funding as an inventor vs an entrepreneur? Reason I ask is that I was recently laid off by a failed startup that had secured and wasted an investment in the amount of 2 million. After that experience I went on to do some contract work with another early stage startup. They had no solid idea or vision for a product and had funding in the amount of 1.5 million. It is c…
Could someone explain the differences in acquiring funding as an inventor vs an entrepreneur? Reason I ask is that I was recently laid off by a failed startup that had secured and wasted an investment in the amount of 2 million. After that experience I went on to do some contract work with another early stage startup. They had no solid idea or vision for a product and had funding in the amount of 1.5 million. It is c…
He should disguise his invention as a social network for the energy industry -- BOOM! instant funding.
A huge unmet need is extraction of heat energy at lower temperature differentials - it could put to use tons of waste energy at industrial plants, your car exhaust, h20 that leaves current steam generators, etc... The JTEC has the potential to make use of all this would-be entropy.
How would this work? Surely sunlight can't create enough heat to ionize a gas (creating plasma?). Why don't the whole hydrogen atoms go through the membrane to the lower pressure area? How does he alternate which side is heated? How does he cool the other side?
The sun delivers on the order of 1000W per sqm during the day, so (eg.) focusing 100 sqm into 1 sqm == 100,000W. 12 hours of daylight will then give you a theoretical production of 1.2MWh per day, but it's usually a lot less, due to the angle of the sun in the morning/evening and inefficiencies in your energy capture.
How would this work? Surely sunlight can't create enough heat to ionize a gas (creating plasma?). Why don't the whole hydrogen atoms go through the membrane to the lower pressure area? How does he alternate which side is heated? How does he cool the other side?
Because that's what the membrane filters do. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_exchange_membrane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_conductor Mainly they work on size - small versus really small.
Again, at a guess, it doesn't need to cool the other side - it's not a temperature gradient, it's a concentration gradient. And since the ions are being reacted back to H2 at a brisk rate, it's not a big problem. The more thermal energy you could maintain in the ions the better, because they wouldn't need as much heating once they'd been recycled.
It has a whiff of perpetual motion machine to it. Maxwell's Demon, I think.
How would this work? Surely sunlight can't create enough heat to ionize a gas (creating plasma?). Why don't the whole hydrogen atoms go through the membrane to the lower pressure area? How does he alternate which side is heated? How does he cool the other side?
He isn't ionizing the gas, he is increasing the gas pressure by heating it. "Only instead of using those pressure gradients to move an axle or a wheel, he’s forcing ions through a membrane." See next for why that is important.
> Why don't the whole hydrogen atoms go through the membrane to the lower pressure area?
He uses a semi-permeable membrane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semipermeable_membrane. They also have use in chemical applications such as batteries and fuel cells.
The membrane blocks the atoms, but allows the ions (protons) through. It does require a substantial amount of pressure for it to work. That is where the heat -> pressure comes into effect, and why the reconstituted hydrogen on the "cold" size has to be compressed and pumped back into the "hot" side.
While this sounds a little like a perpetual motion machine, it isn't because the sun's heat is adding the energy that is being extracted via the electrons.
> How does he alternate which side is heated? How does he cool the other side?
He heats one side and cools one side, no alternating. The heating (and cooling) cause a pressure differential, which drives the reaction via the semi-permeable membrane.
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I suspect there are some pretty substantial challenges remaining before this becomes a sizable / viable energy source.
It sounds like it is related to proton exchange fuel cells, except instead of using the catalyst + oxidant to drive the reaction, it is using pressure.
Refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Proton_exchange_fuel_...
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fu...
This is like the ultime HN article. * Born hacker * Issues of race and oppression * Entreprenuer spirit * Issues with patents * Big companies stifling innovation Someone should write "Inventors at Work".
I don't pretend to have the engineering knowledge to know whether this will work or not, whether it's snake oil or not, but surely, if an electric sports car for the rich can get funded, so can this guy. I'm assuming the guy isn't peddling snake-oil, the circumstances certainly seem to indicate that he's sincere.
Is it that he needs a super-salesman to the money? Godin, Kawasaki, surely one of them would step up for the potential for good and profit that is possible if this technology is feasible.