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Teenagers in Africa Create Electricity Generator That Runs on Urine
By JG Vibes
intellihub.com
November 9, 2012
Believe it or not, electricity is one of the most abundant resources on the planet, the only thing that is difficult is finding ways to tap into this energy safely.
Many inventors and scientists since Nikola Tesla have discovered ways to solve this problem effectively, but due to the radical change that this would bring to the social structure, these technologies have always been suppressed.
In Africa where central power grids are few and far in between, generators are an everyday part of life.
Just recently 4 teenage girls created one of the most cost effective generators that you could possibility think of in terms of fuel, because it’s fuel source, human urine, is widely abundant.
The urine powered generator made its debut at Maker Faire Africa in Lagos, Nigeria, this week. According to the Maker Faire Africa website, this is how the generator works:
• Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen.
• The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, and then into a gas cylinder, which looks similar to the kind used for outdoor barbecue grills.
• The gas cylinder pushes the filtered hydrogen into another cylinder that contains liquid borax, in order to remove moisture from the gas. Borax is a natural mineral, commonly used in laundry detergent.
• The hydrogen is pushed into a power generator in the final step of the process.
The only serious disadvantage to using a hydrogen based fuel source is that it causes and increased risk of explosion.
However, the girls have even considered a safety mechanism to prevent this from happening.
An article at Cnet.com explains how this was achieved:
“Hydrogen, of course, carries explosive risks, so the girls used one-way valves as a security measure (whether that is safety precaution enough is unclear). But don’t start saving your bladder output just yet.
The blog doesn’t mention where the energy needed to power the electrolytic cell comes from, or whether the electrolytic cell uses more power than the machine generates.”
If plans for how to build such a device were widely distributed this could be an extremely useful tool for people who are left without power for long periods of time, like what we are seeing now on the east coast in the aftermath of hurricane sandy.
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Read more articles by this author HERE.
J.G. Vibes is the author of an 87 chapter counter-culture textbook called Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance, a staff writer and reporter for The Intellihub and host of a show called Voluntary Hippie Radio.
You can keep up with his work, which includes free podcasts, free e-books & free audiobooks at his website www.aotmr.com
10 Responses to Teenagers in Africa Create Electricity Generator That Runs on Urine
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Hydrogen poses Explosive risk.
Gasoline/ Petron Poses an Explosive Risk.
Well on the bright side you still need plenty of water to drink to get the urine or your dead in three days nice try
electrolysis of urine need more energy than producing by power generator so question is that what is benefit of that type of generator?
There is a plus side to this story. At least they found some way not to be pissing in their water supply.
This process was developed in the United States and given to underdeveloped countries. This process has been around for about 10 years now. I for one have experimented with a similar process here in the USA. This story is misleading and not correct in any aspect.
I would be interested in knowing how this misleading story came to be printed and posted to the internet. Technically this story is without any merit.
D.R. (Florida Research Company)
true, probably, but misleading. tanstafl, not in life, not in chemistry, and not in power generation. that said, there’s a nifty fusion reactor sited about 96,000,000 miles overhead – and the bit that lands on earth provides about 4.3 megawatts per acre. all paid for. works nice. tried and true. 4.3 million watts per acre. free.
Yep….the Suns power is the true answer!
So many want to poo poo peepee. I think is is time we consider the fact that huge monopolies can get away with all kinds of ways to extract and exploit filthy fossil fuel => fracking, drilling, pumping, piping, transporting, refining, tanking, spilling, polluting land, air and water, and all the rest of us sit around and act like this is natural, acceptable or wise. IT IS NOT.
It is past time we use our intellect and knowledge. Bacteria can produce hydrogen. We are talking single celled brainless life forms. We can do. Of course Hydrogen is explosive. Why do you think it’s energy is useful? Do not any and all hydrocarbons explode? The value of hydrogen is that in an accident it’s light weight quickly carries it high above the victims. Furthermore, we can learn ways to make it less prone to explode. Hydrogen powered buses carry the supply on the roof. We have learned ways to store hydrogen without compressing it using widely abundant chicken feathers. Things we do with hydrocarbons would have been thought extremely bizarre and impractical too a little over a century ago. Don’t let the naysayers and filthy fossil fuel monopolizers monopolize energy research and development. We got to the moon partly because of hydrogen. We can do this people. Where there is a will there is a way. Clean, widely available, abundant. Did I say clean?
We got to the Moon? I don’t think so.
interesting!! keep up the
good work.