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Date: April 22, 2022 at 13:53:30
From: kay.so.or, [DNS_Address]
Subject: French Town to Light its Streets With Bacteria Luminescence That Needs |
URL: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/french-town-to-light-its-streets-with-bacteria-luminescence-that-needs-no-electricity/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=22-04-2022 |
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French Town to Light its Streets With Bacteria Luminescence That Needs No Electricity
A French design startup wants to reimagine public lighting by introducing—much like in a fantasy or sci-fi story—bacterial and fungal bioluminescence to street lights.
One of the most fascinating phenomena in nature, all kinds of animals, plants, and fungi utilize enzymes to glow in the dark, whether in an enchanting woodland, the bottom of the sea, or even in the town of Rambouillet, 35 miles outside of Paris.
“Our goal is to change the way in which cities use light,” Sandra Rey, founder of the French startup Glowee, which is behind a public project in Rambouillet, told BBC. “We want to create an ambiance that better respects citizens, the environment and biodiversity—and to impose this new philosophy of light as a real alternative.”
Critics say that bacterial bioluminescence produces less than a quarter of the light from the lowest acceptable public lighting LED bulbs; Rey says they’re missing the point, that glowing green fungi in public flower boxes, or tubes of saltwater filled with the blue glow of billions of tiny organisms offer the chance to reimagine what public lighting could be.
The future of public lighting?
Rambouillet city hall offered €100,000 in grant money to Glowee, who themselves have already been given €12,000 by the Paris Innovation Grand Prix in 2015, to turn their town into a “full-scale bioluminescence experiment.”
Small tubes contain billions of individuals from a marine bacterium collected off the coast of France called aliivibrio fischeri, which glow a gentle blue. A small mix of basic nutrients is added to the football-sized tubes, which give off around 15 lumens of light, and a small mechanism pulls oxygen into the tank which the enzyme in the bacteria’s cells called “luciferase” needs to create light. To turn off the light, one simply stops circulating the oxygen.
The EU has laws for minimum allowable street light illumination, for which Glowee remains 75% off mark. However sustainability opens all doors on the continent, and BBC reports that Glowee has received €1.7 million from the EU to develop its technology, since it is carbon-neutral.
The company has a long way to go. As of now they provide the light for Rambouillet, and event lighting, but nothing else, although a spokesperson said they have 40 city-lighting projects in the works in countries across Europe.
Other firms and scientists are investigating fungi and plants, which also contain versions of luciferase, to see if flower boxes of glowing mushrooms or twinkling tabacum plants are brighter and more effective than bacteria.
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Date: May 11, 2022 at 00:56:48
From: pamela, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: French Town to Light its Streets With Bacteria Luminescence That... |
URL: https://bigthink.com/the-present/air-gen/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3yJAwOD0hNR-Sa3quppT_uSfVNqXYJxbQIxTXkyKW0rOmPs6zQzL1VwKU#Echobox=1652204710-1 |
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((Thats more reasonable than using those dreaded and
eye damaging LED lights. Here's an article I just
found.
It goes along the lines of recognizing Aether as an
element that I believe was already in use some time ago
but got waysided by "modern" technology so they could
charge people for this energy. I think that is what
Tesla the inventor was getting at. But his I believe
was just a rediscovery of this. But to use E coli
bacteria sounds really scary -think it would be better
to just use the Aether energy in another way))
Microbes can produce electricity out of thin air.
Scientists have finally figured out how to harvest it.
A microbial organism pulls electricity from water in
the air.
Hidden in the mud along the banks of Washington D.C.'s
Potomac River may be a profound new source of
electricity. The microbe makes nanowires that produce a
charge from water vapor in ordinary air. Already
capable of powering small electronics, it appears that
larger-scale power generation is within reach.
Robby Berman
Copy a link to the article entitled
http://Microbes%20can%20produce%20electricity%20out%20o
f%20thin%20air.%20Scientists%20have%20finally%20figured
%20out%20how%20to%20harvest%20it.
The mad rush is on for discovering clean and renewable
forms of energy before it’s too late. Turns out,
researchers may have unknowingly had it in hand for
decades. It’s a sediment organism first found along the
muddy shores of the Potomac River and reported in a
letter to the journal Nature in 1987. It turns out the
microbe produces electricity out of thin air, one
resource we’re unlikely to run out of. University of
Massachusetts Amherst scientists have just revealed
their development of a device for harvesting this
electricity in Nature.
Image source: Anna Klimes and Ernie Carbone, UMass
Amherst/Wikipedia
THE AMAZING MICROBE
The rod-shaped microbe, Geobacter sulfurreducens is, as
its name implies, a member of the Geobacter genus, a
group referred to as “electrigens” for their known
ability to generate an electrical charge. It was UMass
Amherst microbiologist Derek Lovley who found and wrote
about the microbe in the late 80s.
It was also Lovlley’s lab that discovered the microbe
has a talent for producing electrically conductive
protein nanowires, and his lab recently developed a new
Geobacter strain that could produce them more rapidly
and inexpensively. “We turned E. coli into a protein
nanowire factory,” Lovley says. What this means, he
says, is that “With this new scalable process, protein
nanowire supply will no longer be a bottleneck to
developing these applications.”
Enter electrical engineer Jun Yao, also of UMass
Amherst. His specialty had been engineering electronic
devices using silicon nanowires. The two decided to
work together to see if they could turn Geobacter’s
protein nanowires into something useful.
Artisit’s conception of the duo’s Air-gen, with
Geobacter’s charge-producing nanowires imagined beneath
the device.
Image source: UMass Amherst/Yao and Lovley labs
AIR-GEN
The fruit of their collaboration is a device they call
“Air-gen.” It employs a thin film of Geobacter
nanowires less than 10 microns thick resting on an
electrode. Another, smaller electrode sits on top of
the film. The film collects, or adsorbs, water vapor,
and its surface chemistry and conductivity produce a
charge that passes between the two electrodes through
the fine gaps between individual nanowires.
Yao’s doctoral student Xiaomeng Liu recalls, “I saw
that when the nanowires were contacted with electrodes
in a specific way the devices generated a current. I
found that that exposure to atmospheric humidity was
essential and that protein nanowires adsorbed water,
producing a voltage gradient across the device.”
Says Yao, “We are literally making electricity out of
thin air.” The Air-gen generates clean energy 24/7.
“It’s the most amazing and exciting application of
protein nanowires yet.” The two see their new
technology as being non-polluting, renewable, and low
cost- with distinct advantages over other developing
energy sources such as solar and wind for at least one
big reason, “it even works indoors” notes Lovley.
Air-gen producing electrical current
Image source: UMass Amherst/Yao and Lovley labs
SOMETHING IN THE AIR
At this point, Air-gen generates “a sustained voltage
of around 0.5 volts across a 7-micrometre-thick film,
with a current density of around 17 microamperes per
square centimeter,” enough power to run small
electronics. Chaining together several Air-gen units
produces even more voltage. The device marks an obvious
advance beyond other existing moisture-based energy-
harvesting devices that are capable only of
intermittent bursts of electricity that last less than
50 seconds.
Lovley and Yao plan Air-gen modifications that will
allow Air-gen to replace the batteries used in
electronic wearables — smart watches and other health
and fitness devices — providing self-renewing energy.
They also expect it to soon provide power for mobile
phones the user will no longer need to recharge.
“The ultimate goal,” says Yao, “is to make large-scale
systems. For example, the technology might be
incorporated into wall paint that could help power your
home. Or, we may develop stand-alone air-powered
generators that supply electricity off the grid. Once
we get to an industrial scale for wire production, I
fully expect that we can make large systems that will
make a major contribution to sustainable energy
production.”
Clearly excited by the work so far, Yao says, “This is
just the beginning of new era of protein-based
electronic devices.”
Tags
discovery
Electricity
energy
invention
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