Scientific American Topic - Fuel Cells

The Top 10 Science Stories of 2011

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:00:00 EST

Inevitably, year-end lists invite plenty of debate and criticism, and Scientific American 's is no exception. Certainly, we could have included the discovery of new worlds beyond our solar system, including Kepler 22 b, an exoplanet in the "Goldilocks" zone of habitability, as well as the first known Earth-size exoplanets . Or noted the accumulating evidence suggesting that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to retrieve natural gas is likely to contaminate water supplies. (Final New York State regulations, expected in mid-2012, could determine the future of fracking in the U.S.)

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Next-Generation Flex-Fuel Cells Ready to Hit the Market

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:00:00 EST

A fuel-cell power unit that can use natural gas, propane or diesel may in a couple of years provide on-site electricity to factories, computer-server farms and even your home. The solid oxide fuel cell , or SOFC, is also set to go mobile, with new systems providing auxiliary or "hotel" power to long-haul trucks. They may also keep a solar-powered surveillance drone in the sky for what could be years at a time. The latter's "two-way" fuel cell system could in addition electrolyze water to store backup energy as hydrogen to supplement intermittent solar and wind power. In time, say researchers, SOFCs might show up as range extenders--power units that augment batteries to extend distance driven electrically--in hybrid vehicles.

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Can Algae Feed the World and Fuel the Planet? A Q&A with Craig Venter

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:01:00 EST

Microbes will be the (human) food- and fuel-makers of the future, if J. Craig Venter has his way. The man responsible for one of the original sequences of the human genome as well as the team that brought you the first living cell running on human-made DNA now hopes to harness algae to make everything humanity needs. All it takes is a little genomic engineering.

"Nothing new has to be invented. We just have to combine [genes] in a way that nature has not done before. We're speeding up evolution by billions of years," Venter told an energy conference on October 18 at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. "It's hard to imagine a part of humanity not substantially impacted."

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10 Unsolved Mysteries in Chemistry (preview)

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 07:05:00 EST

1 How Did Life Begin? The moment when the first living beings arose from inanimate matter almost four billion years ago is still shrouded in mystery. How did relatively simple molecules in the primordial broth give rise to more and more complex compounds? And how did some of those compounds begin to process energy and replicate (two of the defining characteristics of life)? At the molecular level, all of those steps are, of course, chemical reactions, which makes the question of how life began one of chemistry.

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The False Promise of Biofuels (preview)

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EST

Range fuels was a risky but tantalizing bet. The high-tech start-up, begun by former Apple executive Mitch Mandich, attracted millions of dollars in private money plus commitments for up to $156 million in grants and loans from the U.S. government. The plan was to build a large biofuels plant in Soperton, Ga. Each day the facility would convert 1,000 tons of wood chips and waste from Georgia’s vast pulp and paper industry into 274,000 gallons of ethanol. “We selected Range Fuels as one of our partners in this effort,” said Samuel Bodman, then secretary of energy, at the groundbreaking ceremony in November 2007, “because we really believe that they are the cream of the crop.”

That crop has spoiled in the ground. Earlier this year Range Fuels closed its newly built biorefinery without selling a drop of ethanol. Turning biomass into a commercially viable, combustible liquid is tougher than anticipated, the company has found. As expensive equipment sits idle, the firm is searching for more funding to try to solve the problem.

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Nobel Laureates Speak in Scientific American

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:00:00 EST

The 61st Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany, is taking place from June 26 to July 1. At the event, about 20 past laureates in physiology or medicine will mingle with more than 550 young scientists. In honor of the meeting Scientific American has collected articles that Nobel Prize winners have published in the magazine recently as well as more than 60 years ago. You can find a number of excerpts from those articles in the June issue and enjoy others here. For ease of reading, we have not indicated deletions within these excerpts, some of which have been condensed considerably.

Compiled by Ferris Jabr

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7 Radical Energy Solutions (preview)

Mon, 16 May 2011 06:02:00 EST

Many people are working to harness renewable energy sources more effectively and to enhance energy efficiency. All good. Most of the efforts will probably result in welcomed but incremental improvements, however. Radical innovations are needed to drastically change the energy game.

For years scientists and engineers have touted some fantastic schemes: satellites that beam solar power to receivers on land; wind machines that hover in the atmosphere, generating electricity. Down on earth, however, researchers have recently received substantial government or private funding for a remarkable variety of long-shot technologies in a few key areas. The projects we profile here are leading examples of the payoffs that are possible--if, of course, the inventors manage to overcome daunting hurdles to bringing practical, mass-produced and affordable technologies to fruition. [More]

Plants versus Photovoltaics: Which Are Better to Capture Solar Energy?

Thu, 12 May 2011 14:01:00 EST

For capturing the sun's copious energy, there are basically two available engineering models: photovoltaic (PV) cells that turn it into flowing electrons or photosynthetic plant cells that turn it into plant food. So which does the job better? After all, such a judgment might help inform policymakers on whether to pursue biofuels or solar electricity. [More]

Sex and the Single Cell: Biologists Take a Fresh Look at "Asexual" Amoebas

Tue, 10 May 2011 19:01:00 EST

Much of what we know about sex, or think we know, stems from the animal kingdom. No surprise there--we're animals and the nuances of the genetic tango are easier to study in organisms larger than infinitesimal blobs.

Trouble is, animal sex is specialized to the point of distraction. Most researchers have learned to avoid seeking universal sexual truths by examining animals' twig on the tree of life, but some still rely heavily on single animal models whereas others hawk dated taxonomic ideas without realizing it, says protistologist Frederick Spiegel of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. [More]