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Turbines to Speed
Yet more proof we are living science fiction: laptops powered by miniature jet engines:
By spinning a tiny magnet above a mesh of interleaved coils etched into a wafer, David Arnold and Mark Allen of the Georgia Institute of Technology, US, have built the first silicon-compatible device capable of converting mechanical energy - produced by a rotating microturbine - into usable amounts of electrical energy.
No word on how much, if any, noise the thing produces, but it sounds like the entire contraption is smaller than a penny, so it can't be all that much. It's still definitely a laboratory gizmo at this stage, but it's progressing nicely. At 10 times the power capacity of batteries, the potential (and potential profit) is huge. A-freaking-mazing.
So, in essence, we're potentially trading in batteries for fossil fuel powered devices? I can see it now, "Hello Mr. Kwik-E Mart owner - can I have 3mL of diesel for my cell phone? Here's $0.001659 for your trouble."
Note - values based on standard conversion factors and a diesel price of $2.10/gallon.
Posted by: ron on October 20, 2004 03:35 PMI imagine it'll probably be some sort of ink jet-like cartridge you plug in, run your laptop continuously for a week, sort of thing.
And air pollution is probably minimal as well. Turbines run hot, probably hot enough to burn any NOx outright.
I am a little curious about how they handle heat, and also angular momentum. But then, as small as it is even if there were some sort of gyroscopic effect one would think it would be pretty minimal.
Posted by: scott on October 20, 2004 03:44 PM