TOP 5 ATERNATIVE ENERGY INVENSION

Environmentally friendly or “green” energy sources are a hot topic these days, as global warming is higher than ever and many of the worlds natural resources are drying up.

Scientists and inventors have been busy devising new ways in which to create and use energy for humankind’s daily activities in a way that spares Mother Earth from excessive pollution.

We have compiled a list of some of the latest and most promising discoveries and inventions that can reduce our carbon footprint and help save the environment.

5. Artificial trees

As mad as this may seem, there is a company called Solar Botanic Energy Systems that builds artificial trees and sells them. Their trees gather both wind energy from the rustling of the leaves and of course solar energy.

You’d expect Solar Botanic’s to be some kind of lame plastic trees with solar panels and little dynamos in them, but they’re not. They are normal trees, injected with piezoelectric crystals that that turn solar energy and the leaves’ natural movements into electric currents and send them to the stem, to which, believe it or not, is attached a wire. If you understand piezoelectrics bit and want a challenge, check out the “simplifying” illustration below.

Solar Botanic’s trees can produce between 2.000 to 12.000 kWh per year, or around $1000 in electricity.You would hope the tree lasts long, because if they ever get to the production stage, I bet they would cost more than that. It would still be a great thing to have in your garden to prove your friendliness to the environment.

4. Piezoelectric highway

Like the artificial trees mentioned above, this road, developed by Britain’s Environmental Transport Association, uses piezoelectric crystals to generate electricity from cars driving over it. There have been many experimental piezoelectric power generating inventions, including a dancefloor in a UK night club, piezoelectric floors in Japanese railway stations and a billboard that smudges itself when it’s raining.

The highway probably has the most potential, as it has heavy vehicles driving over it 24/7 and a single kilometer of roadway could generate 400-kilowatts of energy, or enough to power around eight small cars. Of course, building and maintaining the road would have its own expenses, but definitely a great source of alternate energy.

3. Waste converter

Researchers at The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University have developed an amazing new technology that turns waste into fuel, without causing any pollution. The Startech converter takes in basically any types of waste and using an electric beam in plasma, melts the waste down. The molten waste comes out of the converter as material that, depending on the waste used, can be used in many industries as building material. The PCG gases that are created in the process can be separated into Hydrogen and used as fuel.

This machine could singlehandedly solve two of the world’s problems - the need for energy, and the excessive waste.

Here’s a (very) promotional video of the Startech converter:

2. Hydrogen vehicles

Hydrogen cars have huge potential and they will surely be in use in the future. When reacted with oxygen, a fuel cell hydrogen car produces clean water and electricity, the latter of which is used to power the car. The only waste the car leaves behind is clean water that can either be collected in an onboard tank, evaporated, or turned into hydrogen again using electrolysis.

Many automobile companies such as Ford, GM and BMW are already experimenting with hydrogen cars and with luck, we should see the first commercial ones soon.

1. Algae Biofuels

As our cars are one of the largest sources that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, development of bio-fuels has been very active.

There are several possible ways to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels and to extract ethanol and other fuels from plants such as corn and switchgrass, but a recent development has left all the others behind. As it turns out, algae could very well be a major fuel source in the future.

But why is algae so much better than the other sources of bio-fuel? Well, the answer is simple. Growing corn or switchgrass to extract ethanol from it is a very time-consuming process that takes over a year. But algae can be grown in just two days, according to Fred Tennant, the owner of an “algae farm” in Felismere, California.

In a simple process, the algae can be separated into animal feed and crude oil. The oil could also be used for cars, but Tennant plans to build algae farms next to power plants, sot that the oil would fuel the plant, and the carbon dioxide from the plant could, in turn, feed the algae.

Watch the video below for details.

This list is meant to contain the latest and not-yet-so-known technologies, so we left out wind farms and wave power. The world would be a cleaner place if all of these inventions were used.