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Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

newscientist.com

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Re: Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

#21

Post by stkdump »

bin_bash wrote: post #16
maccard wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your comparison to there? 10w is a reasonable amount of power and you can do lots with it - my M1 Mac can browse the internet on 10w of power.

It’s a reasonable amount for computing but not much else: heating, cooling, cooking, refrigeration, washing machine. Those all need vastly more electricity. About the only other household application of electricity I can think of that would use around 10w is lighting and even with LEDs it isn’t much. Probably enough for a single room. My point is if mobile phones aren't considered “low power”, then what would be?

A clock maybe

Re: Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

#23

Post by dahart »

bin_bash wrote: post #16
maccard wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your comparison to there? 10w is a reasonable amount of power and you can do lots with it - my M1 Mac can browse the internet on 10w of power.

It’s a reasonable amount for computing but not much else: heating, cooling, cooking, refrigeration, washing machine. Those all need vastly more electricity. About the only other household application of electricity I can think of that would use around 10w is lighting and even with LEDs it isn’t much. Probably enough for a single room. My point is if mobile phones aren't considered “low power”, then what would be?

The context clearly was computing, and not cooking, right? It’s not surprising that the term “low power” is relative and thus overloaded. But if you bring cooking ovens into a conversation about computers, then a beefy desktop with two GPUs burning hot would be considered low power.

I don’t know that there’s a standard definition, but in electronics I think it’s most common for “low power devices” to be referring to sub-watt power levels. There’s regular low power like Arduino, or ultra low power like in this article that consume at most milliwatts or microwatts.

Re: Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

#24

Post by bin_bash »

dahart wrote: post #23
bin_bash wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a reasonable amount for computing but not much else: heating, cooling, cooking, refrigeration, washing machine. Those all need vastly more electricity. About the only other household application of electricity I can think of that would use around 10w is lighting and even with LEDs it isn’t much. Probably enough for a single room. My point is if mobile phones aren't considered “low power”, then what would be?

The context clearly was computing, and not cooking, right? It’s not surprising that the term “low power” is relative and thus overloaded. But if you bring cooking ovens into a conversation about computers, then a beefy desktop with two GPUs burning hot would be considered low power. I don’t know that there’s a standard definition, but in electronics I think it’s most common for “low power devices” to be referring to…

It is about general electricity applications and not limited to computing. The article states:

> “It’s not entirely straightforward,” he says. “So putting one on your roof isn’t going to provide the power supply for your house at this stage. There’s quite a bit more to do on that front. But [it could work] in rural areas of low and middle income countries, for example, in applications where a small amount of power might be very useful, such as environmental sensors or charging a mobile phone.”

Re: Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

#25

Post by sp332 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #8

Cool, but can this tech ever approach the effectiveness of a smiliarly-sized solar panel? Sure, a solar panel does not directly absorb CO2, but at this point wouldnt a panel generate literally a thousand times as much power without all the maintenace issues?

Yeah, but solar panels are expensive and usually require international freight shipping. This kind of thing could be made locally and you only need to ship a small inoculation of the algae.

Re: Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

#26

Post by mbil »

andai wrote: post #14

Since the algae themselves appear to be producing the electricity, does that mean they are electrically charged and could be sorted into groups of more/less efficient algae? ie. using artificial selection to select for electrical output.

Riffing on this idea but with no real understanding of the mechanism: could crispr be used to extract the “produces electricity” gene and then put that into bigger organisms?

Re: Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

#27

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ascar wrote: post #11
elsherbini wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are a bunch of different media people use to grow cyanobacteria: https://www-cyanosite.bio.purdue.edu/media/table/media.html Mostly they need nitrogen, phosphate, and sulfur to make protein and nucleic acids, and trace metals,ions, and some vitamins to use as cofactors for enzymes. In the wild, the limiting nutrient for cyanobacteria is often iron or nitrogen. They don't need an added carbon source in their medi…

> In the wild, the limiting nutrient for cyanobacteria is often iron or nitrogen. How can nitrogen be a limiting factor if ~78% of air is nitrogen? I'm assuming they also take the CO2 out of the air, which just makes up 0.04%.

Nitrogen is often the limiting factor for ALL plant growth, which is why it's the primary component of fertilizer.

Nitrogen in air is not normally available to organisms. The triple bond between the 2 nitrogen atoms is very strong and takes a good deal of energy to break. Some bacteria can do this, and legumes famously have evolved to house bacteria capable of fixing nitrogen in their roots.

The main way we get nitrogen to agricultural plants today is by the industrial production of ammonia, which takes enormous amounts of energy and lots of fossil fuels as presently implemented.

Re: Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

#28

Post by nobodyandproud »

bin_bash wrote: post #24
dahart wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context clearly was computing, and not cooking, right? It’s not surprising that the term “low power” is relative and thus overloaded. But if you bring cooking ovens into a conversation about computers, then a beefy desktop with two GPUs burning hot would be considered low power. I don’t know that there’s a standard definition, but in electronics I think it’s most common for “low power devices” to be referring to…

It is about general electricity applications and not limited to computing. The article states: > “It’s not entirely straightforward,” he says. “So putting one on your roof isn’t going to provide the power supply for your house at this stage. There’s quite a bit more to do on that front. But [it could work] in rural areas of low and middle income countries, for example, in applications where a small amount of power mi…

That’s a disclaimer, scoping out certain applications per the research and qualified by “There’s quite a bit more to do on that front.”

I don’t it’s wrong to think about the general applications but the title and research had a very narrow focus.

Re: Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

#29

Post by mrcartmeneses »

mbil wrote: post #26
andai wrote: post #14

Since the algae themselves appear to be producing the electricity, does that mean they are electrically charged and could be sorted into groups of more/less efficient algae? ie. using artificial selection to select for electrical output.

Riffing on this idea but with no real understanding of the mechanism: could crispr be used to extract the “produces electricity” gene and then put that into bigger organisms?

Only if by “electricity producing gene” you mean “is a photosynthesising algae gene”

Re: Computer powered by colony of blue-green algae has run for six months

#30

Post by bin_bash »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #28
bin_bash wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is about general electricity applications and not limited to computing. The article states: > “It’s not entirely straightforward,” he says. “So putting one on your roof isn’t going to provide the power supply for your house at this stage. There’s quite a bit more to do on that front. But [it could work] in rural areas of low and middle income countries, for example, in applications where a small amount of power mi…

That’s a disclaimer, scoping out certain applications per the research and qualified by “There’s quite a bit more to do on that front.” I don’t it’s wrong to think about the general applications but the title and research had a very narrow focus.

Agreed, nobody thinks you could run a dishwasher on this technology. My point is the only place where the article labeled mobile phones as “low power” was in this disclaimer to contrast it with other household appliances.
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