Is This Accidental Discovery The Future Of Energy?
Is This Accidental Discovery The Future Of Energy? Get an exclusive Surfshark deal! Enter promo code UNDECIDED for an extra 3 months free at surfshark.deals/undecided Imagine getting the energy needed to power our phones, light up our homes, or drive our cars, from thin air. And no, we’re not talking about Nikola Tesla’s dream of wireless power a century ago, but a new and accidental discovery along those lines from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Researchers have found a way to turn humidity into electricity. It’s called hygroelectrical power, and believe it or not, a company named CascataChuva is already trying to commercialize a variant of the technology. So, what is it and how does it work?
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It would be cool, but this effect was discovered at least 10 years ago when the house made graphene craze started. There were even plans on how to turn this into power generators in the ocean. It was not feasible. I think Robert Murray Smith had a few videos on that topic. It would surprise me if the researchers didn't know of this phenomenon, which makes me quite certain that this is a publicity scam for their company.
Micheal Faraday discovered the same effect in 1800's. Near the end of his career, Faraday proposed that electromagnetic forces extended into the empty space around the conductor. Much like how a Stubblefield coil works or an air battery. Micro fractal wire works great for Stubblefield coils. Look at those old clocks that need to be covered for the batteries to be kept humid. Stubblefield coils also need to be moist. The effect is not new just not well understood. An ungrounded piece of copper pulls voltage with a meter on a ground lead. Like the warden tower did, but the warden tower also had Stubblefield coils in the ground. Tesla made a static motor to act as a switch for a.c. current between air battery and Stubblefield coils. It works just like an ungrounded antenna hooked to a super capacitor or a fox hole radio. One could argue that its the same force we see attracting protein pairs together but at larger scale. The key to understanding it is what allows it to go only in one direction. Or is it in an alternating form? These forgotten ways of making electric are becoming more useful as devices use smaller amounts. You can already charge 12 volt batteries constantly using Stubblefield coils or run a car radio. Matt you to can have a 12 volt shed ran off Stubblefield coils you can make yourself. With enough coils buried under your foundation they could power a house. Even batter with micro fractal wiring.
Love your content! FYI 10 kw a day relatively small unless you mean constant 10kw? Solar with 10 kw for perhaps 10 hours is instantly producing 10kw every second, making it potentially more powerful during the day. Nonetheless, Ty as this sounds like it may have potential, electrically speaking. :)
This could mean electricity where it's needed, typically the coasts.
I dont think that this is promising. And i would really like it, when you would think more critical about topics like this. If you think one second about conservation of energy it should be clear, that this is in no way practical for electrical energy production. But with communicating topics like this in a way, that it could be possible actually harms the renewable energies, because people will claim, that some science breakthrough will bring us better energy sources in the future so that everything involving wind or solar will be obsolete. Its just not happening. Conversation of energy! Please think about it more often or put a disclaimer in front of your videos. You choose to communicate this science topics. With this choice you also have a responsibility for a scientific communication.
hey matt I think it would be really cool if you made a series where you go back through some of your older videos and show us where the technology is today and how it played out after the time of posting!
I keep wondering which of the many products he’s presented are going to be viable and purchased the most.
Based on my recollection, that would be embarrassing.
@@scottperry9581 why embarrassing? Predicting future tech is hard. Lots fall through not because they won't work, but the funding is not there. So it would be great to see what hasn't made it or is almost here now.
@@colinwiseman I took 2 graduate oeveo c9urses in technology assessment. Part of the course involved predicting the future of different technologies. This was a strong area for me based upon my strengths and education. I don't think any of my predictions panned out nearly the way I envisioned. It is hard.
@@scottperry9581 yup. That's why I said it was hard 👍
If you get elecitricity from humidity, then wouldn't it be from _thick_ air instead of thin air?
Actually humid air is less dense than dry air.
@@paulohlstein2236 so No?
@@paulohlstein2236 Not in the physics I studied. damp air is denser thats why sound travels further on a damp day/night than on a dry one. The fact the air is full of damp molecules makes it denser. Please prove me wrong.
@@wideyxyz2271 just googled it. Humid air is less dense.
@@wideyxyz2271water vapor is lighter than the nitrogen and oxygen it displaces.
Even if the power production from such a thing may be limited, it may be interesting for desiccant applications. Depends on how well it relocates or sequesters the moisture it pulls from the air. Even something as odd as dehumidifier that can run a light or recharge a phone may be handy too, could still be handy in a basement where there's no daylight if the power goes out and it would also keep the mold or mildew in check by taking humidity out of the air.
The material must eventually become saturated and then you'll need to dry it which in theory should take at least as much energy as released when adsorbing water vapour. If it's in a place where the relative humidity varies a lot during the day that might happen by itself, but a cellar is not such a place.
I mean, the water doesn't just go away, so my guess would be that the temperature around it sinks slowly as you draw power from it. It's a strange concept to think about though.
Sponge and wipe lol? Or more seriously just mounting it vertical so gravity drains it no? Or a wick into a catch tank?@@anderslvolljohansen1556
@@anderslvolljohansen1556 More interesting than generative applications might be whether the effect is reversible (i.e. can a humidity gradient be created through electric charge). That would make it eligible for novel-dehumidifer application, like the Peltier effect was for refrigeration.
I'd be interested to see if they can apply older silicon lithography to make these, since 100nm is huge compared to the 10nm process most manufacturers are currently running.
Make contact. Ask them!
I think one use that could be helpful is turning on vent fans. Many people forget (I do) to turn on the vent after a shower. A power source that only works in humidity could turn on the fan when humidity is high and "run out of juice" as it vents the air out. Might take some tricky calibration but once done could have a lasting impact on reducing mold, mildew etc in certain environments.
That is terrific!!!
You can buy an extrtractor fan with a humidity sensor in it that does this. Order one, and enjoy your reduced mold and mildew worries : )
Thats a bit genius
I wonder if their is some kind of cooling solution possible.
Great Idea!
The main concern I have whenever I see things based on microstructure-based surfaces is how viable can it really be in daily use? Wouldn't those structures quickly be contaminated by dust and debris? Could they be cleaned without damaging the structures? Can they be handled without the structures being crushed? Longevity seems like a real issue here.
That’s what I thought as well. Being in the open air would quickly clog up the nano pores. So it would need a very fine filter. To get enough air through the filter it would need to run a fan. Big chunk of energy lost already.
@@McPebbsterWell Water vapor is about as small as things come so you could in theory make a filter that keeps anything that would clog it out, and then of course you need a way to replace/clean that filter. Not that those aren't issue but I imagine scaling up production something like this might be a big problem as well.
Yeah I had same question. Particulate matter suspended in air could easily clog up the nanocrevices. And what happened to all the collected humidity? Will it get condensed into water? It's hard to beat photovoltaic these days: no moving parts, very durable (except with big hail pellets) and cheap. Solar panels are under 500€/kWp in Italy.
Not to mention that whenever someone chooses to give you levelized cost of electricity as an answer to how much will it cost, they are misleading you. This is especially true of solar and wind. Because it only counts electricity the panels/mills produce. That might seem like an odd objection, but is very real. Because if you need X watts from a solar array, you actually need X times about 6-10. If you need a MW continuously, you need a lot of solar panels (6 to 10MW) and batteries.
It would have to be a sealed environment. This may build up to something more substantial over time. More dense batteries etc.
My dad had an indoor swimming pool and he has to do a ton of work (opening the doors and windows, adjusting the settings, it may not seem like much but it's a good 15-30 min a day) to keep the dehumidifier from working overtime cause it's a 4000W device. He even went as far as buying a secondary dehumidifier to use when it's not hot enough to open the doors all day and not humid enough to activate the monster. If a device like this would even generate only a single Watt but dehumidify well, he would still bulk buy it and replace our current dehumidifiers with this. This could have tons of applications in spaces where you need to remove humidity.
It will be interesting to see how they keep the device from clogging, fouling, and reacting with various airborne non-H2O molecules found in ambient air
Don't worry, corporate America will figure out a way to make it with a "needed" pre-filter. Of course, this filter will be a proprietary filter only available through a monthly subscription service along with the software that will check to make sure you are subscribed and disable the unit if you aren't.
The real question is "where is the energy actually coming from?". It could be that you are eroding the device in some way so that the energy ultimately came from the energy that went into making the device. At some point the thing stops working.
Water cycle. The energy comes from the sun that heats up water and turns into moisture
@@crazyblazeX what kind off energy is stored in moist air?
What’s effectively happening is that the H2O molecules are hitting the sides and converting into either H3O or OH by either gaining or losing a proton respectively. The concentrations of these ions are one if the ways we define acids and bases, so you can think of it like the tubes are creating their own acids and bases. I would have predicted that the tubes would create both types of ions equally for a net zero charge, but for some reason it is favoring one over the other. But eventually the water gets used up and all gets converted to these ions, that’s when the device stops working until you give it new water.
This. Getting close to unsubbing because of these clickbait hoaxes. I like the channel generally, but selling your soul to the dollar itches me wrong..
@@crazyblazeX You explained this in a way that suggests you understand how it works, but without actually explaining anything about the mechanism or limitations of the technology.
From a purely thermodynamic perspective, it feels hard to believe that any amount of energy can be generated from moisture. This feels suspiciously close to some perpetual motion/ eergy schemes
There are evaporative cooling devices used as cheap ACs. When you evaporate water it cools down the air, which implies the humid air holds some of the energy that was heat in a different form. So it makes sense (in theory at least) that you could potentially extract that energy back out of the humid air. I'm more skeptical about what happens to these water molecules after going in the tubes. If there is current, where exactly are the electrons going? Individual H20 molecules are really dropping them off, and then picking them up again?
I expect the energy is not generated from 'humidity' but from a humidity gradient. So you need both a wet and a dry space next to each other, and that difference gets consumed over time.
It reminds me of the concept between fuel cells
@@FriendlyFireYT it sounds like the goal was to keep water vapour out, creating a delta to exploit, Brownian motion energy extraction?
@@jurgenhissen thats what i'm thinking, but this suggests that it wouldnt scale well. Again, thermodynamics is pretty strict here and making electricity generates heat, which will impact the specific humidity. If this can be scaled without centralizing production and creating heat, it could be a benefit.
If it's condensing water vapor while extracting latent heat, it can be used as as self-sustaining dehumidifier. Some of the generated power can be used for powering a fan to mix the air in the room. Of course, this also means that it requires a filter to prevent clogs. So, it needs a built-in air purifier. If it condenses air, this also means that it is a water generator. Can be used for some water needs, like cleaning.
lol, I didn't see your comment and basically suggested the same thing.
They don't have a way to take the water out. Imagine the nano-pore material starts off completely dry. As water lands near the outside areas, a voltage is generated. The parts where the water lands, gets more and more damp. But it does not get to dripping wet. Because as the "dampness" increases, the voltage starts to drop off. A balance is reached long before saturation. Think about it. For the water to start dripping, you basically need so much water there is a film around the material. Then add more water, and only a while after that, does the dripping start. But long before that, the nano pores are already completely covered by the film, so no more power generation. I imagine the device, when it comes out of the factory, will work for a while, and then it stops working. It is like a very inefficient battery. Once the reaction reach the limit, no more power. If there was some way to drive off all the water, then you may be able to get the battery to work again. So you have a rechargeable battery. If the process does not destroy the nano-pores significantly, then you can reuse the device for a while. This is why Cascatachuva can demonstrate a small prototype. It generate a small amount of electricity for a short time. This is going to be Elizabeth Holmes all over again. I suspect there is an immovable wall they will run up against. The underlying concept may not be workable at all. The Russian Portuguese guys have nothing. Whether it becomes another Theranos depends on how far they choose to "fake it until you make it" and at what point they realize they will never make it. It could eat up a lot of investor cash if they are stubborn fanatics like Tesla, sticking to an idea that cannot work and refusing to give up. We now know (mostly) how to those electricity towers work. True believers can be crazy fanatics. It's only after they realized the futility of their cause, but continue to collect funds, that it turns into a scam and a crime. Some people will never get to that point. Our civilization's progress depends on people like this beating their heads against the wall. But we live in a universe with physical laws that can never be broken. Some of them are doomed to fail because of the bit of wall they selected is completely unbreakable.
@@danielch6662 Thank you for the explanation. I got it 😊 I forgot how nano pores are very attractive for water. Even in our macro world, micro details on surfaces cause water retention (glasses with hydrophobic coating hold more water drops if they get micro scratches, or if they get dirtied by something). Nano details must be almost being glued with water drops.
@@danielch6662 Elizabeth Holmes didn't have anything close to a working prototype of what she was talking about
If you brought one of these things to Florida, I'd be worried about internal arcing. There are so many water molecules "moshing around" in the air here that I'm sometimes unsure if I'm actually breathing air or just exceptionally well-oxygenated fresh water.
The prospect of being able to use biological materials is pretty intriguing. Imagine being able to grow the battery films in a bioreactor. Solarpunk writers, take note!
Since everything living uses carbon, the conversation can shift from unnaturally seeing carbon as a waste material to carbon being an growable energy source, which is how the biosphere naturally works, anyway!
Breaking Bad has become Growing Good
I didn't know Solarpunk was a genre! Thanks!
Nanoionic wood
This reminds me of the water powered digital watch I had when I was a kid - you'd run it under the sink to fill up the little tubes with water, and it would run and evaporate the water over the course of a day or two. I don't know the mechanism these used, just a cool gadget.
Technically the "Wave" watch just used the water to complete a wet cell that powered the watch. The water acted as a transport to allow an electrolyte between 2 different metals - it wasn't powered by the water per se nor did the evaporation have anything to do with powering the watch.
Murray had a cousin device like it when water flow pass electrodes without touching. It could create sparks. Like static. His electrodes was coated I believe. Don't know if it was like yours.
Hi Matt, first i would like to let you know how i appreciate your channel. Love your videos, topics and the good amount of information you bring. I was thinking about this topic and i would think that if this research is going to be a success, the issue with lifespan could be handled by using materials that can be reused, perhaps plastic could be a good conductor? Some types of plastic i easy to reuse in a cheap way. Just a thought. hope to hear more about this topic. Again thank you for this great channel.
Matt, I am rather confused. Is it a generator or battery - or both? As an electronics Engineer (retired) I am finding it difficult wrap my head around this concept. Methinks a storage mechanism is needed in addition to the generation mechanism to work effectively. Or am I wrong? Would love to know. We do NOT use resistor dropping to convert from one voltage to another, and have not for many years unless the discarded power is minimal and irrelevant to any design. Instead we use Switch-Mode-Power-Convertors to step up or down. Typical efficiencies now normally exceed over 93% for such inverters. Will do some browsing to see what turns up to hopefully answer my own question/s above.
Good point. I think it's a generator because the humidity generates electricity and doesn't actually store it for later use.
If a small unit could power a LED - it could be made into self powering LED bulbs. You need just a few W for efficient ones with enough light output. Homes, sheds, greenhouses or streetlights.
And you know what you can make with easy to power led bulbs? Advertisment! Advertisment on places where it is harder to get electricity! Hurrah (or something... but at least the possibility will drive the technology..
But you now that there are laws of physics such as thermodynamics?
@@EnchantingCat8365 And? It doesn't violate any laws if it uses the energy trapped in the moisture from the environment to generate power.
@MauroTamm protenation cause a permanent change. To be able to use it again, it would have to be de-protenated, which isn't hard. It can even be done passively, but the energy has to come from somewhere. The only way it works is a cyclical heating like a day/night cycle. But being able to power a single LED for a few minutes per day... is terribly inefficient. Considering a small solar panel and battery could of the same size can power a flashlight for a dozen hours... it just doesn't make sense... maybe some niche applications, but even then, it is pretty bad.
The device in the video only generated 1 miocrowatt (0.000001 watts), or 1 millionth of a single watt. So for an LED that uses "a few watts", you would need millions of such devices to power a single LED. This tech ain't going anywhere...
I'd love to see this actually working and becoming a viable alternative. Does it removes the humidity of the air? How does it keep the humidity gradient between electrodes outside through the outside of nanostructure? What would be the minimum operational humidity? I used to live in a city where the yearly average hovered around 30%, I guess that is too low to be useful? So many questions 😅
I was wondering pretty much all the same things, in addition to: what happens if you just straight-up submerge it? The fact that so little seems to be said about how it behaves leads me to believe this is no more useful than a potato battery.
From the description, it sounds like it generates electricity from an increase (or possibly just a change) in humidity within the structure. That's the only possible way it can work. Which means it would rely on natural humidity cycles which I think really reduces the usefulness. Perhaps if an energy dense enough material could be found it could be used in conjunction with solar cells? I can imagine solar cell waste heat being used to drive moisture out this material and then as the sun goes down the material starts to absorb atmospheric humidity and generating a little extra juice until saturated. Then rinse and repeat the next day.
I would be concerned it would dry the air and effect our rain fall if done on a large scale. Nothing is free!!!
@@Toastmaster_5000water vapor is smaller then a water molecule. Gortex rain jackets stop the water but let's water vapor out
@@Littrell1966sun light is free so is wind
I think it's a similar story to arm processors, they forgot to plug it in and the chip was still operating, or something like that, same as penicillin and I think pasteurisation all discovered by happy accidents. I guess its a kind of thinking outside of the box by accident. Great video Matt, perfectly under hyped to still leave room for expected emotions.
Yes that is called serendipity.
ARM processors are just reduced instruction set processors. I don't think they were created by accident, you have to determine the instruction set you want prior to producing the chip.
@@offensivearch The processor creation was not an accident but the fact that it ran with no power source was an accidental discovery.
The engineer forgot to connect the cpu to system power either on the die or the circuit board, ARM drew enough power from the I/O pins to run. Which was freakishly amazing low power consumption for a cpu at the time:o)
@@ebb2421 Even RGB LED strips do this if "+" pin is not connected, but the 1st LED chip will burn out if it powers more than a couple of LEDs at the same time.
Thanks for covering the air-gen effect. It needs more attention! 😊 It would be so cool to just use a phone instead of charge'n use a phone.
This would be great paired with solar power since the overcast days that block the sun are faily humid.
I wonder if during winter with low humidity they're producing much.
@@makatron That is a concern, but winter will have fewer overcast days, so solar will compensate.
True, although if you are installing solar you are going to get enough panels to handle cloudy days or there is really no point in the investment.
@@Jokerwolf666 Also a valid concern, but a hybrid approach is always more flexible. Some people may not have the necessary area available for an ideal solar setup. This would be especially true for apartment blocks. A humidity based generator could be integrated into the tower's ventalation output.
@@stevenkies802 Oh 100%, like he says I don't think it's just a one answer solution because it's never really been that to begin with.
Whenever this channel covers a " breakthrough, " you know you're in for a treat of world-class vaporware
He always put disclaimer tho...
Everything is vaporware until it's not! Tesla's was vaporware but now the model Y is the best-selling car in the world 🌎.
I didn't hear him say this was a "breakthrough". He kept saying there is a lot to understand about how this works. But, this is how Science works. Breakthroughs come in unexpected ways. And it usually takes decades for discoveries to turn into everyday products.
Big Coal?
Ya. That’s why his channel is called consensus not Undecided or something similar. Some people just hate learning about new ideas.
That device will do very well in north Georgia. The place is ALWAYS humid. We had relatives come over from Houston and complain about OUR humidity! Nice reporting.
As someone who lives in the pacific northwest this would be an amazing addition to solar. We use a lot of electricity and having another little bump to aid us would be big. Nice video!
I was wondering about the current abilities of this hydro batteries. You can technically get a voltage difference by building a really long electrode and placing it in the atmosphere and another spiked into your ground. It can create a significant voltage but the current capabilities are awful. Can't power more than a single led. I'm glad you lightly touched on the fact that might be the case but I'd be interested to hear what comes of the technology
Yes. A novel effect but it is not going to be a major energy source.
You are correct in that the current capacity is terrible. But you have to remember you ~100 V for every meter in elevation you go up from the ground with an isolated probe. But you have to remember that power transmitted is not determined by the amperage but rater the P = V*I and that both the current and the voltage at you raise the altitude of your current collector. At 80 feet you will only get ~2.5 KV at a few micro-amps, at 1000 feet you will get ~30 KV at a ~50-100 microamps. There was an old research document on this I read last year.... But you end up depleting so many ions that you have to space the ballon anchor points an acre away from each other because there are only so many ions to collect. But, based on that research, there's about 1.5 KW/hr of electricity available at that elevation per acre in the summer and, due to change in atmospheric conditions, ~3KW/hr available in winter. Thunder storms are a different story all together, you have to pull everything in when a storm rolls in because, lightning or not, you get 100x-1000x power spikes.
There is no such unit as kw/hr. What do you mean?@@chaorrottai
A lot of electric companies measure power usage in KW/hr, aka kiloWatts per hour@@rogerphelps9939
Reminds me of an atmospheric electricity nanotube antenna from a couple of years ago - nanotubes grown on a metal plate, and placed on a pole a couple of hundred feet in the air. It worked on the voltage differential between it and the ground. They said it was generating tens of watts from a panel the half the size of a smartphone.
Only issue is getting it up there but yeah. Its good if you don’t have solar but u will likely have wind. But maybe u don’t have a dyno
Extremely unlikely.
I ran across a similar effect using a porous ceramic tube doped with silver. Blowing air through the tube generated an electric charge. The wind worked great. Never followed up on it.
Nice, balanced reporting on this! Thank you for creating this!
Every time I watch a new video of yours, I feel like our generation is standing on the edge of a new qualitative technological leap. It may not be sudden. It may not be big. But it definitely is happening, one step at a time. I love renewable energy because it is helping 3rd world countries like mine the most. Where we aren't doing it to protect the environment, but to just live better. Thank you for the continued efforts into these videos Matt!
But we are still fighting for land,, no value to people's life living outside their border, who may have same culture, same language.
@@navinkumar9126 umm... i did not quite understand your comment. Can you please explain what do you mean/ what are you talking about?
so selfish not to think of the environment - shame on you.
@@ruzziasht349So selfish of YOU not to think about their situation where their own survival has higher priority than the environment. Shame on YOU. Get off your high horse, what legitimacy do YOU have to talk down to them like that from a moral highground?
@@fuzzy-02 The greedy people of the USA supposedly victimizing the rest of the world for their own profit, no doubt!
This reminds me of the behavior of mineral distillation out of fluids and the differentiation boundaries along the vessel walls due to changes in the surface tension as the liquids interfaces with the inner wall a vessel , but with a more porous surface and there being less fluid.
I have no idea what you said friend, but keep up the good work.
Isn't that just Osmosis
@@gmuzic4lyfe Yes, it is related. I would call this phenomenon micro capillary effect charge transfer.
@@myperspective5091 well stated , the gaps or holes in this membrane does look like synthetic capillaries.
I think that we have used the vapor as a "room temperature super conductor", & have tapped into the zero point energy field. With that being said we should look into amplifying that current.
1) This functions on the same process as lightning, 2) that means the output can be increased if they decide to engineer the lattice with that in mind rather the current accidental structure. I decided not to leave at that in case someone decided to ask so I'll just specify: overlaying filaments in layers to channel the water vapor in such a way to intentionally increase both the volume of vapor and it's potential charge. That's the next step of this technology, you increase the amount of vapor flowing through it and increase the charge produced by deliberately forming channels, to purpose, by overlaying the filaments in a precise way. Probably also want to use a material which A, is conductive and B, doesn't bond with oxygen. Also - the above described, made from current super conductor materials would be a huge break through for power generation: because the current materials - have to be kept extremely cold. If water vapor (humidity) can cause a charge: so can particulates of nitrogen as they evaporate into gaseous form. We could create power plants using these purpose built generators - placing them in otherwise contained chambers designed to recapture the gaseous nitrogen, for conversion back into liquid to be reused. ...and now I'm done, gonna screw off back into the ether, have a nice day.
I really like this tech and if it can be proven to scale and be as reliable as solar and wind and other green devices I say it's an absolute win for all of us and the planet. I would absolutely consider a device like this because I already run a humidifier while I sleep to help my sinus problems and it wouldn't be a big deal to get another one to help a device like this if needed. Those things barely use any power at all. Furthermore I think if a device like this came with proper dust filters I could see these devices lasting a long time considering there's no moving pieces to break and particles at that scale surely wouldn't wear down the device like a solar panel getting absolutely wailed on by the sun day after day would be. PLEASE keep us updated on this tech it seems like a perfect solution for my house to cleaner energy!
I would take that kw/h promice with a massive hunk of salt. Usually early tech predictions are either not possible or are decades out on the timeline. But nonetheless, I am hopeful for the tech to get cheaper and more powerful.
If I have learned anything from this channel it's that most of what he talks about goes no where.
Matt, Great video. The 15k to 19k figure you have for their potential washing machine size product is the capex, not the LCOE. Assuming it really makes 10kwh/day, this goes for 20 years without any O/M. I did the following calculation 10 kwh/day * 365 days/year * 20 years * 1mwh/1000kwh = 73mwh $15k/73mwh = $205/mwh, which is about 14% above nuclear at $180/mwh (Lazards figures at 2023), not too shabby. Assuming you can DRAMATICALLY REDUCE THE COST, this can actually be competitive.
I noticed this effect about 41 years ago in a humid environment in Wales, UK. The Voltage was about 1.2V - so potentially useful and the current was in the order of mA - so not huge but again maybe useful. The solid state aspect is certainly appealing. At the time I was convinced it was an electrode effect, thus involving weak acids and airborn moisture. I shall watch this space.
As usual, the answer is no, but I always enjoy the research and thought that you put into your videos. Well done.
Just to add to the questions about impacting the humidity that is driving it, does it produce water or gases? Can it run in a closed system?
That had me interested as well. If it actually takes water out of the air, it producing a negligible amount of energy still places it ahead of any other system which requires energy to do so.
Fourth phase of water, Prof Gerald Pollack explains this phenomenon. Layers of exclusion zone water form next to lipophilic surfaces and is built by sunlight/radiant energy. This is also how our cells function as capacitors to concentrate energy and why there are no ion channels or pumps needed in cells. It’s a passive process that emerges from the special properties of water, a fourth phase (H3O2) that has liquid crystal-like properties, forming hexagonal sheets. The angles are everything in EZ water. I think this phenomenon is leveraging the fact that the light hitting the top of the channels builds EZ water layers, vs more tendency to protonated (bulk water) below.
Sounds very interesting. I wonder if it's a version of the Kelvin generator spark gap. Many might remember the experiment where the drops of water fall through ring electrodes into metal cups and create a current to power a light bulb, for instance. Given the research is looking into humidity as the water droplet source, this would give an extra power source in areas that might want to use that power for peak shaving in times of heavy air conditioning demand. Hopefully this turns out to be something real and scalable.
It is interesting technology. Lifespan and how well it behaves with contaminants definitely is a concern. I think it may be longer before this becomes commercially viable than predicted, but as you have said, any tools we have help in our overall goal.
This would be a no brainer in South America/ Southern US/ pretty much anywhere in Asia. I imagine it'd have an air conditioning effect as well in really humid climates.
It doesn't seem to have any method of pulling humidity in though, just passively landing in.
I did some math, lets say this device liquifies water in the air like an air humidifier but turns the energy released by condensing gaseous water into liquid (2260J/g) into electricity instead of heat. then a 400watt version of this device (10kwh/day) would generate 15kg of liquid water per day if 100% efficient(it wont be). air has less than 30grams of water in it per cubic meter, lets go with 15g to be safe. then 15kg/day is 1000cubic meters of air per day that this machine would need to remove most of the humidity from. this equates to a reasonable .7 cubic meters per minute of airflow through the machine. The other way this machine could work is with a humidity gradient across the membrane, which is less useful.
Great tell and great visuals. Thank you for creating content is not boring and efficient.
Lets hope it can be scaled up, seems like a really cool idea. I'm all for any new green energy ideas.
My guess is that this fails to be a home power source outside niche climate zones and applications. I can see them being useful in rural maine but grid based electricity will likely always be the cheapest option in urban environments. That said, this might mean bluetooth tech need never be charged, you just make sure it goes in bathroom during a steamy shower.
If I'm understanding the paper correctly it's most likely harvesting the atom's movement as heat into energy from the impacts so having it in a bathroom while you are showering would work pretty well. Sadly it looks like the material can clog / wear down from other materials in the air so it might not be practical in environments with pollen... Here's hoping that they figure that out.
This is great. Here is the thing, Carbon is not the number one gas in terms of raising global temperature, water vapor is. It is conveniently left out. It would be interesting if there was some way to use the humidity to produce energy in hot humid climate.
First two questions, right off the bat. - If they've been working on the tech for a decade (hope I understood that right) then people must know by know how the voltage behaves over time. Does it slowly drop? Does the battery 'fill up' with moisture after a while? - If so, how would they recharge it? If warming in the sun would be sufficient, then there is also warmth of the battery's discharge reaction itself to reckon with. Anyway, like you said, lots of unknowns. But I still wanted to point this out because the narrative in the video makes it sound like you just plop one of these somewhere and it will generate power in the (relatively) long term like a solar panel does.
Could this be similar to an atmospheric motor or corona motor, but on a nano scale? Those motors work best with higher humidity as well. Thank you so much, this was awesome.
Remember the cold fusion craze from the 1980's? Where palladium somehow generated fusion in tap water? I remember a water battery that generated power through deionization by an electron passing through the circuit. I think that's what's happening here, both this and cold fusion, is fueled by ionized water going through a catalyst deionization process that generates an electric current.
Time for you to write a paper
Regarding particulate fouling, old spinning disk hard drives have had their read heads drift closer to the platter than dust and smoke particles since the 90s at least, a speck of dust could literally jam under the head and scratch the surface. IIRC They didn't just solve the problem by sealing the disk because of pressure issues. There is just a cheap enough way to filter that out of the required inlets to be viable. They throw a tiny silica packet in too because humidity will pass through still. Seems like, on its face, the particulate and humidity interchange issues aren't unresolvable, probably just performance limiting.
Lot of unanswered questions, but it sounds to me as if this is extracting energy from the heat in the moisture. The collisions slow the water molecules, thus making them cooler and the lost energy knocks electrons free and their flow to redistribute is usable for electrical generation. I wonder if it scales up if the humid air is hotter, say with good old fashioned steam. If this could be used to directly extract energy from steam without moving parts, that would be HUGE. But we would need to know if it would work well enough to efficiently get all the energy out of a reasonable sized run of piping lined with this stuff, also it would need to be sturdy and not degrade away after a few hours or days of use. Being able to do direct extraction without turbines would be awesome, but this stuff needs a lot more study and an understanding of how it is working. Use cases for this are endless if it can do this for steam and at a good rate. Imagine you have a spacecraft and you want to use a nuclear generator (NOT a RTG) for power. Instead of a heavy turbine you would just run the steam through a maze of piping lined with this stuff to generate power. Any heat left over would be used to keep the interior and crew warm. Same goes for terrestrial craft such as large ships, they could run on an SMR and this piping and no need for a turbine hall, making a lot more room for cargo and a VERY compact power plant.
Thanks for sharing, sounds like an interesting technology with possibly world changing impacts. Hopefully it works better than the radioactive diamond batteries that produce power for 40k years. Only problem is they make so little electricity that you would have to wait around 40k years to have enough to do anything. 😂
If this works at the washing machine scale, would solve a majority of our energy concerns. Could be for 12v car batteries, even placed accordingly with batteries on site to level out the duck curve. It would be a consistent 416 watts over a 24 hour period in humid areas. I would love to see where this goes for 10k usd.
Problem, in the North, the cold air in winter holds waaaay less moisture/humidity. So another invention that works, just not everywhere.
@@carlthor91 well correct but it depends on your climate zone. Nothing is constant but ground temperature( at a depth),death, and taxes.
Have to wonder where the energy is coming from. Like a cubic meter of 50% humidity air might hold 10 Watt hours, once you use up that energy where is more energy coming from?
@@AORD72 well like most things probably airflow. This with being next to a evaporator coil for air conditioning would be ideal (working with) the way the water cascades in the video. Assumes it acts as a dehumidifier like property. (I could be wrong)
@@AORD72 Where all the energy comes from, the sun heating the Earth.
Wonderful! It does remind me of the Twilight Zine episode where the doll talks without batteries..
This is one of the best videos I’ve ever watched on your platform! Not for content but presentation! You tend to speak very fast, which makes me challenged to keep up with the content! This is excellent! Thank you!
This is vaporware, pun intended. 😄
I truly wish I could get solar on my home, but the cost is simply too high. I'm getting quotes of $75-92K for just the solar. Adding on batteries is another $40-60K. I absolutely would love to get on the solar train, but the cost is just obsence.
There's a relatively new company in the UK called Ripple and they build wind & solar farms for joint ownership. You invest in & own part of the facility, i.e. enough to produce your monthly consumption at a fraction of the cost of owning your own solar panels. In return, you get a substantial discount i.e. 25% - 30% on your energy bill for 40 years, which is the economical life of the site. Estimated pay-back it app 17 years on their website but looking at the live data coming from the sites went live, this appears to be quite conservative and pay-back time may be shorter. The advantage is that it's much cheaper than owning solar panels, and you invest what you can afford. It also doesn't matter if you sell your house or live in a flat. The discount comes of your bill regardless where you live. You may want to investigate if similar opportunities exist in your country.
Are you trying to power a fleet of vehicles? You can get a small set up for under $1,000. Try starting with a budget and seeing what you can get for $10,000. Maybe skip the battery and use the grid instead and then add a battery later when prices are lower and the tech is sorted out. Installing a system that is built to expand without having to replace what you put in now is another way to get started. Maybe even just try ebay to get a feeling for the cost of the hardware.
That price does not make sense. In Europe I can get 10kW solar power station including panels, inverters, cabling, installation and commissioning, for 10,000$. (that is before incentives, you can get probably 30-40% off that price with incentives.) For 75K$ you could get 100kW solar power station with inverters and everything. Wallmount batteries (LiFePO4) are around 3000$ per 10kWh (also before incentives)
@@Sasoon2006 I agree. But, where I am, the mark ups are crazy. I've been saving for 7 years to try and afford the down payment on a solar setup, but each year the amount goes up.
I could see this being good for lamps, lanterns, Flashlights, emergency lights. And all sorts of stuff like that.
Nice!! Finally we are going to get wind farms from Dune!!
Tropical countries are going to be swimming in electricity
Assam from India is gonna be one of them
This stuff would be useful 24/7/365 in the UK, cover the whole bloody country in it and we could power the planet!
Any coastal area would immediately see beneficial scenarios
I've been interested in the possibility of Moist-Diffusion generators recently, with holes in material as energy carriers. There is also the Soret effect that deals with moving ions, instead of electrons, through thermoelectric material. Humidity powered generators and batteries could be realized very soon!
We are from Portugal and we did not know about CascataChuva until now
My wife calls this the question mark channel.
Ha! I should rename it to just "?"
Thank you, Matt. As always you find interesting cutting-edge subjects to explain. Hope your new construction fares well this winter ... however it plays out this year.
Much appreciated!
This reminded me a research done with a bacteria which shrinks in non humid environments. Researches coated this bacteria to various materials to generate a sort of artificial muscle which changes shape according to the humidity. This allows hem to create motion just from naturally evaporating water, which can be turn into electricity.
Isn't this more just absorption chilling but it can generate a charge? In a sense, it's a static charge generator. When it dries off, it generates some voltage. Seems like a thermoelectric effect, somewhat reversible, but mostly inefficient. Thermoelectric can produce cooling when direct current is applied, but can also produce power if heat is applied. Thermacoustic cooling isn't terribly efficient, but was used for cooling the IR module for the JWST down to around 10 Kelvin above absolute 0.
It's crazy that every renewable source of energy doesn't work where energy is in the highest demand, cold climates. Guess what cold climates don't have? Humidity.
This is just plain false. In the nordic coutries over 90% of the electricity is produced with renewable sources, and most of the time there is a surplus we can sell to our neighbours. We don't need this technology to go green. Edit. the figure includes also some nuclear power which is techically not renewable although it's zero emissions.
Wood is renewable. You can burn wood. For energy just in case you didn't know that.
@@EdwardM919 wood is not renewable. It takes 50 years to grow a day of firewood
@@SinisterSlay1 Grow
@SinisterSlay1 and no size of home is using more than a cord of wood a day. And you get way more than a cord of wood out of one tree 50 years old. But you seem like someone just talking out of their ass rather than knowing anything.
for decades i have found my vinyl record collection would appear to be high in static charge during very dry atmospheric conditions , i discovered that humidification of my listening room would solve the issue , i assumed the moisture collected the unwanted static charge , makes sense that the energy could then be harvested .
No electronic device uses resistors to divide the voltage. Not since trolley cars in the 1930s. Instead you use a buck convertor or a boost convertor, to very efficiently change battery voltage into needed voltage. And most devices are designed to use as close to the battery voltage as possible. Lithium ion batteries output from 3.7V to about 4.1V. There's a standard for microchips that run on 3.3V. So that's really convenient just to start with.
If it's just thin air our dude Matt could produce enough energy humanity ever needed by tapping in his head
That sounds like a good path to explore. I've seen panels that can pull drinkable water out of the air powered by solar. If you think about it isn't that what a hvac does in the summer dry the air to make it more comfortable. Global warm is making the planet hotter and we are going to need cooling devices in many areas.
Step 1 - Water molecules gets close to the surface. Step 2 - Charges are moving towards the water molecule. Step 3 - Opposite charge potential is created inside the material. Step 4 - Electric current is equalizing the charge difference. Step 5 - ??? What is removing the attached water molecules again ??? Step 6 - Charge difference created by step 4 remains and repels further water molecules ?!? Beats me... maybe there is some organising effect that organizes the vapor a bit and converts vapor to liquid and this creates small water islands with more charge than the diffused molecules in the vapor and it's just knocking electrons to higher charge levels to cool down enough to stay liquid... or...
There is a documentary called "UNACKNOWLEDGED" with Steven Greer. In that docu he talks about reverse engineering UFO's, at one point he was talking about a plexiglass looking piece that they took some time to figure out what it was used for, and it was found to be the way they got power out of thin air.
I am all for alternative forms of energy, but the problem is with subsidies. The simplest way to know if you are saving energy is if you are saving money. The energy costs to build anything is a major factor in the price of anything, so essentially if you are not saving money, you are not saving energy. A lot of people think that it is worth it to spend more if they are "saving energy", but they make the mistake of thinking they are saving energy when they may not be. When people find out they will save money, they will jump on things like solar panels and this new technology. Also the companies that produce them will have more of an incentive to reduce the price, and therefore the energy involved. Getting subsidies makes it easier, and I hate to say it, lazier.
It almost sounds like the beginning of John Galt's 'dynamic atmospheric static power generator' from 'Atlas Shrugged'.
Its not "Free" energy as a few comments put it - but doesnt sound like it would scale well either. Energy comes in different forms, but mainly from the sun being the real input. So really, its like a solar panel that doesnt take it directly from the sun it self - but from water. More or less - if this does work, it could be a cheaper solar panel. As you would only need glass, water, and maybe a pump. The glass would store water that sits on top of your roof heating up by the sun turning into steam -> the steam flows over the power generator making power -> the water cools down turning back into water that flows back into the glass panels.
Matt what do you think of solar panel trellis designs? I find them interesting when paired with gardening and outdoor covered spaces. I love your shows.
great video, new tech and discovery explained, in concise format and time
One part that is not mentioned in all the reports about this tech is where is the energy actually taken from? Energy can't come from nothing, so molecules bumping into the material does that mean it is taken from the movement of the molecules and it slows them down. So to get the energy it condenses moisture into water? Which would mean you need to control humidity in a room with that device. Well can be done easily but is something that needs to be considered then.
PMMG4 Hybrid uses atmospheric moisture in the graphite plates that are paired with the SiCarbide plates which stimulate the needed RF for the H2O deprotonation-protonation cycle (SiC in contact with graphite causes extremely strong material vibrations, and these materials have a piezo effect.) This tech has been done alrerady.
One great application would be a dehumidifier that powers itself. And of course, if it really generates electricity from humidity, the battery wouldn't have to be recharged because it would be constantly sourcing energy like a hydroelectric generator.
*Regarding the mechanism getting "blocked" up.* Since it runs on humidity, why not put the entire thing in a stainless steal sealed container (which contains X% purified water).
They will not be able to stack so many unit close together in washer machine size style. Think about it. The units need moisture. If y The outter layer takes up all the moisture before it gets to the center you might have drastically lowered efficiency if the humidity can even get close to the center of the unit unless they got some kind of circulation for the humidity.
I completely agree with you 3 point provision. Nice one. Is this creating a miniture lighting storm that we can harness and store? Im just creatively guesing.
The humidity battery in line with 1. A HEPA filtration system 2. Air humidifier 3. Air battery 4. Air conditioning H/C 5. Circilation fans Image a pool system😳
Fascinating! Has anyone looked at the air afterwards? Personally, I was getting worried about potential free radicals and/or potentially toxic gases like ozone (at least I think it's unhealthy...)
I'm not jumping on the hype train yet but I think it's an effect worth looking at. I read through parts of the paper One thing they checked for is water consumption and saturation. They had a 110h continuous test after which the current was the same as at the start. Therefore saturation doesn't seem to occur. They also did weight measurements and tested relative humidity in a closed chamber and didn't see any changes there either. The explanation (as far as I understand it) they have came up with so far, is that the physical motion and bumping of molekules into the walls transfers charges and leading to a charge difference. Since we have the laws of thermodynamics, the energy has to come from somewhere. Since we are talking about motion of molekules, I'd assume that it's more or less a thermal generator. Unfortunately they didn't seem to have tested for any corrolation between temperature and output parameters or temperature of the device in an insulated chamber over time Overall it could also be a fluke in measurements. But I haven't looked for any followup papers yet
First law of thermodynamics. That's what's she said. You can't just get energy from nothing. And you either should lose water locked in there, either has to evaporate it with outter energy or it will lose it's power source in some time as a simple chemestry based battery does (so it is not a renewable energy source but a battery, and it could be the energy needed to make a thing is much more than the energy you get).
It looks like the easy water zone differential charges cause by surface tension charges against hydrophilic surfaces. I bet the system improves voltage when introduced to infrared light.
like lightning storms only on a micro scale where particles in the humidity (or clouds) rub against each other creating electrical charges
They are taking advantage of the 4th state of water, liquid crystal, which has electrical properties.. Another application of this is moisture and paper battery concept. Although the fibers of the paper are not nano sized, they do basically the same thing. The polarity of the 100nanometer layer of liquid crystal water that forms on hydroscopic materials is opposite to the water/moisture further out setting up potential for energy flow. Energy is not electrons. Any moving electrons only set up electromagnetic field where the energy can flow. In the paper moisture battery the flow from moist to dry side of the paper sets up that flow. As size rather than material of the pores in this situation is important, this will possibly set up the liquid crystal layer as an entire combined block making the whole sponge like material one polarity different to that outside of the porous material, setting up the field to allow energy flow. The energy to cause the crystal water layer is from the ambience, due to differing atomic weights of the oxygen and hydrogen atoms.
Similarly there are thermocouples which produce electricity out of thin air, but not practical as an energy source. They are used as sensors for more than a century.
This makes me think about a very old question about a plastic comb and a cat in winter. If you comb the cat in winter, there is a lot of static. But if you put a few drops of water on the comb, the static disappear. Where does the static go ?
That energy has got to come from somewhere. My guess is those structures will freeze or something as soon as you start extracting energy. I'm skeptical about it.
Wow, very impressive, very interesting, and very well done. Thank you for sharing.
I'm still trying to work out where the energy is coming from. Energy doesn't come from "thin air" - to use a phrase that might just be appropriate here (or not, depending). If something goes in, and energy comes out, what is changed? What comes out? I really hope this works. It would be great for me, where solar sees me through the times that tend to be drier, but falls short when it's overcast and damp. But I am sceptical.
Shmutz? Very creative! thanks Matt!