True hope!!!​!!!!!!

http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/08/urine-powered-generator/

Tears in joy.

Tears?

That's a waste of energy resource, tears, swallow them down and make a deposit!

Haha, I didn't realize what I have wasted.

Color me a sceptic, but isn't piss like 95% water? The remaining substance (urea?) must be some really powerful energy source.

1 hour ago, Bass wrote

Color me a sceptic, but isn't piss like 95% water? The remaining substance (urea?) must be some really powerful energy source.

the headline is an attention grabber ....

it coud also be "water makes electricity"   as reading the story it's saying they are getting the hydrogen -  and that will burn to run an engine....

normally the cost of that has not made it worth while so far but ....

7 hours ago, figuerres wrote

*snip*

the headline is an attention grabber ....

it coud also be "water makes electricity"   as reading the story it's saying they are getting the hydrogen -  and that will burn to run an engine....

normally the cost of that has not made it worth while so far but ....

Why not?  I've always wondered why we couldn't float a solar panel contraption in the sea to harvest (slowly) the O2 and H2 gasses that would come off of it.  It wouldn't have to be that efficient as long as we get more energy from the collected gasses than it takes to produce the contraption to capture them for later.  If it were possible, the all we need to do is repeat the process a few billion times.

@ScanIAm:

A few billion time of manipulating major LIFE resource molecule per hour (or daily)? Even though hydrogen power is such a nice green resource, I dislike the idea of manipulating (not just utilizing) such major resources that all life depends on (cannot think of an exception). I cringe imagining the end of humanity is because our excessive use of such green energy (that's probably happened to Martian).

LOLz, I just contradict my tears of joy. But, just to clarify, it is still tears of joy because they came from teenage girls.

1 hour ago, ScanIAm wrote

Why not?  I've always wondered why we couldn't float a solar panel contraption in the sea to harvest (slowly) the O2 and H2 gasses that would come off of it. 

1) Solar panels are expensive, and frankly not particularly green to produce.

2) Your devices would have a short lifespan because of corrosion from the sea

3) Getting the devices back to harvest the energy is a major running cost of your contraption

4) Given the cost of the building the solar part of the device, rigging it up to a solar power plant probably is cheaper, gives a longer lifespan and generates more collectible energy.

5) And sadly, finally and most importantly, Oil, Coal, Gas and Nuclear are waaaaay cheaper than any unproven technology that doesn't output tons of electricity for nearly free, because Oil, Coal, Gas and Nuclear are cheap, effective and we've already got the infrastructure for it. Hell, even Solar and Wind can't compete with those guys at the moment on cost - and they output lots of direct energy.

So as an scientist, I'm happy to say that your idea might just put out more power than it takes over it's entire lifespan. As an economist and investor, no chance.

3 hours ago, magicalclick wrote

@ScanIAm:

A few billion time of manipulating major LIFE resource molecule per hour (or daily)?

Ehm, what the hell? You know that all life on earth is also carbon-based right, and that's what fossil fuels are? So how is that different?

I don't understand why using an element that happens to also occur in living things is a problem to you.

@evildictaitor: not only cheaper, more manageable as well.

Someone wrote this in the comments over there at Engadget:

" Urea has an enthalpy of formation of -45.9KJ/mol. So it takes +45.9KJ/mol to split it into constitute elements, including 2H2. This hydrogen can be used to form two moles of H2O: 2 x dH(f) H20 = 2 x -241.8kJ/mol = -483.KJThis net process produces -483.KJ/mol + 45.9KJ/mol = -437.7KJ/mol urea

Each litter of Urine contains about 9.3g of urea, and urea weighs 60.06g/mol. So each litter contains 0.155mol of urea. So a litter can theoretically produce 0.155mol/l * 437.7KJ/mol = -67.8 KJ/L

Over 6 hours this is 3.14 watts. And assuming I haven't done anything stupid, if the process is 100% efficient that is the maximum possible energy that can be extracted from the system. In real life the process is probably very inefficient. "

I've heard Italians produce the most energy from urea.

@Sven Groot:

What the hell as you wish.

@evildictaitor: Fine.  Plan b is matrix style people power harvesting. 

Why not just urinate into a telsa turbine generator. After a night on the pop, that first whizz of the morning could power my laptop for a week.