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New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall

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Re: New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall

#21

Post by jerf »

saalweachter wrote: post #16
jerf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This appears to be more useful for wearables than as a replacement for solar panels in the winter." That's a degree of bullshit so high that it has me seriously questioning what otherwise sounds at least reasonable. Yeah, I know, every science paper has to connect itself to some fashionable area of research that will excite the grant writers, like renewable energy or climate change, but the idea that it would ever b…

Are there any other planets or moons in the solar system that would be better for this trick?

I'm not sure if you maybe meant this for some other post, but if you did mean this, there aren't that many other atmospheres in the solar system where there is A: a surface that B: any sort of machine can be on (sorry Venus) and C: has a charged massive object moving. (I don't list atmosphere explicitly but C essentially requires it; it's not going to happen in a vacuum.) We're down to Mars and Titan, basically.

Mars is an interesting question; how charged are those sand storms? It might pose the opposite problem of excessive power density!

Titan I just don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised there's some sort of charge flowing around, it's just a question of how much. Charge is pretty fundamental to mass, after all, and when things get moving it's not that hard to end up with static electricity to at least some degree.

Re: New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall

#22

Post by criddell »

ScottFree wrote: post #4

tl;dr: Snow is positively charged and gives up electrons. Silicone is negatively charged. When falling snow contacts the surface of silicone, that produces a charge that the device captures, creating electricity. This appears to be more useful for wearables than as a replacement for solar panels in the winter. I can't imagine the amount of power generated could be that great. It reminds me of one of those stationary…

Does this have the potential to be a lightning rod of any kind?

Re: New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall

#23

Post by fisherwithac »

chabes wrote: post #19
fisherwithac wrote: post #6

Despite my strong skepticism of this technology being used as a replacement or even supplement for solar panels anytime in the near future, I really admire the creative thought process that led them to get even the miniscule results they did. I'm not a chemist or phyhsicist in any regard, so I can't say whether this could be the stepping stone to something more large scale down the line. Could anyone shed light on wh…

> Despite my strong skepticism of this technology being used as a replacement or even supplement for solar panels anytime in the near future I doubt the point is to replace or supplement solar. The point is probably to have a less bulky or expensive way to run remote sensors

My skepticism comes from this particular line in the article:

> The new device could be integrated into solar panels to provide a continuous power supply when it snows, [El-Cady] said.

The abstract of the researh paper itself[0] also reflects this sentiment:

> We envision these devices could potentially be integrated into solar panels to ensure continuous power supply during snowy weather conditions.

Granted, it's more of a pipe dream for the future than an original design goal for the technology, which does work well for said remote sensors

[0] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221128551... (Link may not be accessable to all, feel free to reply with a mirror)

Re: New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall

#24

Post by IshKebab »

novia wrote: post #13

A lot of comments here seem to be missing the point. This isn't supposed to add electricity to the grid. It just makes a self sufficient weather station to measure snowfall. Which is cool. A lot of times you'd want to measure such things away from the grid without having to worry about batteries. Something I'm curious about is whether similar tech could be used to self sufficiently measure pollen.

Nobody is missing the point because solar panels are a thing. A solar powered calculator probably produces more power than this. Not how they didn't say how much power was produced, because it's probably picowatts.

Re: New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall

#25

Post by Animats »

Cute. Remember the fad for "energy generating sidewalks"? That got far enough that there's a startup.[1] It's useless as a power generator, so they figured out how to market it as a hype generator. "Pavegen creates high engagement with citizens by converting their footsteps into energy, data and rewards." They're on Instagram, etc.

[1] http://www.pavegen.com/

Re: New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall

#27

Post by starpilot »

Animats wrote: post #25

Cute. Remember the fad for "energy generating sidewalks"? That got far enough that there's a startup.[1] It's useless as a power generator, so they figured out how to market it as a hype generator. "Pavegen creates high engagement with citizens by converting their footsteps into energy, data and rewards." They're on Instagram, etc. [1] http://www.pavegen.com/

...it still generates energy. It's a small amount for a small application, but it's purposeful energy.

Re: New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall

#29

Post by cogman10 »

jerf wrote: post #11
cogman10 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the paper, the product produces 0.2 mW/m^2 Solar panels produce 175W/m^2 for comparison. If this ever produced 1W/m^2 I'd be shocked.

And that's the production during snowfall. Even here in Michigan, the sun shines a great deal more than we literally have snow falling. And if the snow is falling all day, it's going to be a light snow that probably isn't reaching 0.2mW/m^2. Plus, if I'm seeing the physics here in my head properly based on their description, you can't just stick this out in the snow like a panel and get a consistent 0.2mW/m^2 even un…

I'm pretty skeptical as well that this is useful for really anything. That energy density is so low that I can't think of a single application where either batteries, solar, wind, or some combination of the above wouldn't both work better and be cheaper.

Just to put a little perspective out there, 0.2 mW/m^2 means that 1 square meter of this stuff would take 600 days in ideal production to match the amount of energy stored in one charge of a single rechargeable AA (~3Wh).

1 clear day, plus a tiny solar cell and a AA and you can get 600 operating days of energy really easily.

And here's the thing, if this thing gets buried, it isn't going to generate electricity. So you have to imagine an environment where the snow is constantly melting, you can get a giant sheet of this stuff, and for whatever reason there is no battery chemistry that would work.

You could say "Well, it would make a good snow detector".. but even that it somewhat silly. Because, again, if it gets buried it won't be detecting more snow. So now you need some complex rigging to keep it from collecting snow so it can register that snow is falling. Why not a camera? A weight sensor? etc. Plenty of pretty cheap and low power equipment can do just this without the additional concerns introduced by this piece of tech.

This thing is useless. Maybe interesting to make, definitely not practical for really any application.

Re: New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall

#30

Post by slothtrop »

sctb wrote: post #26
IshKebab wrote: post #3

100% useless but very clever nonetheless.

We've asked you several times to please comment more substantively. Would you mind trying a bit harder? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Nothing in the guidelines about posting substantively. One does stipulate "Please don't post shallow dismissals", but I don't think that qualifies as utter dismissal.

Here's something else the guideline says: Don't feed egregious comments by replying

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