Most people will agree that sooner or later humanity will have to abandon fossil fuels. It is the main cause of wars and political instability, environmental pollution and global climate change. Fortunately, scientists have been researching alternative energy sources for many years, such as the power of the sun, wind and water. But wind turbines and solar panels are still much more expensive than oil and coal processing, and they are not suitable for all regions.

Therefore, researchers do not stop searching for new solutions, new promising sources of cheap energy, gradually turning their attention to less common methods. Some seem quite unusual, some - downright stupid, unrealistic, and even disgusting.

“I think we need to think outside the box to deal with the impending energy crisis,” says Bobby Sumpter, lead theoretical chemist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

A creative approach in the search for non-traditional energy sources brings us closer to solving the problems of energy security. And it doesn't have to be large-scale national projects. There is nothing wrong with solutions designed for application at a smaller level - for example, in individual villages or settlements in developing countries.

“You can't miss a single idea. We need to encourage out-of-the-box approaches,” argues Diego del Castillo Negrete, lead scientist in the Fusion Energy Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Here are ten of the most amazing sources of energy that go far beyond the ordinary. But who knows: maybe one day your laptop will run on sugar, your car will run on bacteria, and your house will be heated by the energy of dead bodies.

Sugar

Pour sugar into the gas tank of a car is considered an old and not the most harmless joke that can seriously damage the engine. But one day, sugar can turn into an excellent fuel for your car. Specialists in the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute are working on technology to produce hydrogen from sugar, which can be used as a cleaner and cheaper fuel that does not emit toxic substances and even any accompanying odor. Scientists mix sugar, water and thirteen powerful enzymes in a reactor that produces hydrogen from the mixture, and track traces of carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen can be captured and pumped into a fuel cell to produce power. As a result of the process, three times more hydrogen is produced than when using traditional methods, which directly affects the cost of the technology.

Unfortunately, it will be another ten years before consumers can fill their cars with sugar. In the short term, it seems more realistic to design sugar-based batteries for laptops, cell phones, and other electrical applications. Such batteries will work longer and more reliably than modern analogues.

solar winds

Volumes of energy, one hundred billion times greater than the entire humankind together currently consumes, are literally at hand. This is the energy of solar winds - streams of charged ionized particles emitted by the Sun. Brooke Harrop, a physicist at Washington State University in Pullman, and Dirk Schulze-Makuch of the Washington State Institute for Natural Resources and Environmental Research believe they can capture flying particles with a satellite orbiting the Sun in Earth orbit.

According to their design, the satellite, which they call Dyson-Harrop, will contain a long copper wire, charged from a battery located there, to create a magnetic field capable of snatching electrons from the solar wind stream. The energy of the electrons will be transmitted from the satellite to the Earth using an infrared laser, which will not be affected by the Earth's atmosphere.

In the implementation of the project, there are some obstacles that scientists are now trying to cope with. First, it is necessary to resolve the issue of how to protect the satellite from space debris. Secondly, the earth's atmosphere can still absorb some of the energy transmitted from such a huge distance. And the very task of aiming an infrared beam at a precisely chosen place is not at all an easy task.

This development has great prospects in providing energy to spacecraft.

Urine and excrement

Most people believe that feces and urine should be immediately eliminated. However, feces produced by both humans and pets contain methane gas, which is colorless and odorless but can produce energy as well as natural gas.

At least two research groups are passionate about the idea of ​​turning dog excrement into energy - one at the University of Cambridge (Massachusetts), the second, represented by NorcalWaste specialists in San Francisco. Both groups suggest that dog owners use biodegradable bags to clean up their pets while walking their pets. Then the packages are thrown into special containers, the so-called "reactors", where methane will be produced, which can be used, for example, to illuminate city streets.

Dairy farms in Pennsylvania are considering livestock manure as a new source of energy. Six hundred cows produce nearly 70,000 kilograms of manure per day, which - when used as a source of methane - will save the farm about $60,000 a year. Biowaste can be used not only as fertilizer, but also for lighting and heating homes. And the American IT company Hewlett-Packard recently issued a press release explaining how farmers can increase their income by leasing land to ISPs who can use methane energy for their computers.

Human waste is no less effective. In Bristol, Australia, a Volkswagen Beetle powered by methane from a wastewater treatment plant was unveiled. And engineers at the British company WessexWater estimate that biowaste from 70 homes could produce enough methane for a car to drive 16,000 kilometers without stopping.

And don't forget about urine. Researchers from the Department of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland are looking for a way to build the world's first urine-powered fuel cell. This technology can find its application in the space and military industries, making it possible to produce energy on the go. Urea is a readily available and non-toxic organic compound rich in nitrogen. So, yes, in fact, people are the carrier of a chemical compound that can serve as a source of energy.

People: living and dead

The next time you have to ride in a crowded subway car on a hot summer day, try not to get annoyed, but rather think about the fact that the heat generated by your body is enough to heat an entire building, with all its offices, apartments and shops. At least, this opinion is shared in Stockholm and Paris. State-owned property management company Jernhuset is considering a plan to harness the heat generated by passengers on a subway train passing through Stockholm Central Station. The heat will heat the water running through the pipes, which enters the ventilation system of buildings. And the owner of an inexpensive residential complex in Paris plans to heat seventeen apartments near the Pompidou Center with the help of metro passengers.

Surprisingly, no less viable is the project that uses the energy of dead bodies. This method is used by the British crematorium, heated by the "clients" themselves. Gas from burning organic materials has previously been captured by the mercury removal system, but now the heat is passed through pipes to heat the building.

vibrations

Go to a party and help the environment - under this slogan, you can popularize a new strategy. The Watt Club in Rotterdam, Holland uses floor vibrations from people walking and dancing to power a light show. This is achieved by using piezoelectric materials capable of converting vibrations into electrical current under pressure.

The US military is also interested in using piezoelectrics for power generation. They put them in soldiers' boots to power radios and other portable electrical devices. Despite the great potential, this technology is not very widespread. Mainly because of its high cost. For the installation of flooring on 2500 sq.m. The Watt Club spent $257,000 on first-generation piezo materials that never paid off. But in the future, the surface will be improved to increase the amount of energy produced - and dancing will become truly energetic!

Sludge

In California alone, more than 700 thousand tons of sludge are produced annually - insoluble deposits in steam boilers in the form of sludge or solid pieces. However, few people think that this material is enough to produce 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per day. University of Nevada researchers are drying this sludge to make it into fuel for subsequent gasification, which will lead to electricity. Scientists have invented an installation that turns a viscous precipitate into powder using sand that “boils” at a sufficiently low temperature. As a result, we get an inexpensive, but very efficient biofuel.

This technology, which turns waste into fuel, can be placed directly on the production sites, allowing companies to save money on the transportation and disposal of sludge. While research is still ongoing, preliminary estimates suggest that a system running at full capacity could potentially generate 25,000 kilowatt-hours of power per day.

Jellyfish

Deep-sea jellyfish that glow in the dark contain substances that can become new sources of energy. Their glow is due to the green fluorescent protein. A team of researchers from Chalmers University of Technology (Gothenberg, Sweden) placed a protein on aluminum electrodes and irradiated them with ultraviolet rays, and the substance began to emit electrons.

This protein has also been used to create a biological fuel cell capable of producing electricity without an external light source, instead using a mixture of chemicals - magnesium and the luciferase biocatalyst found in fireflies.

Such fuel cells can be used in very small nanodevices used, for example, to diagnose or treat diseases.

"Exploding Lakes"

People are aware of the existence of three "exploding lakes", which got their name from the huge volumes of methane and carbon dioxide that accumulate in its depths due to the difference in temperature and density of water.

If the temperature changes, the gases will erupt to the surface as if from a soda bottle, killing all living things within their reach. A similar tragedy occurred on August 15, 1984, when Lake Nyos in Cameroon released a huge cloud of concentrated carbon dioxide that caused hundreds of people and animals to die from asphyxiation.

There is such a lake in Rwanda - Lake Kivu. But the local government decided to use the deadly gas for good and built a power plant that pumps harmful gases from the lake and uses them to power three large generators producing 3.6 MW of electricity. The government hopes that the plant will soon be able to generate enough power to meet the needs of a third of the country.

bacteria

There are billions of bacteria in nature, and like any living thing, they have their own survival strategy in case of a lack of nutrients. For example, the E. coli bacteria have a fatty acid store similar in composition to polyester. The same fatty acids are used in the production of biodiesel. Seeing great promise in this feature of bacteria, scientists are looking for a way to genetically modify them to produce more acids.

First, the researchers removed the enzymes from the microorganisms, then dehydrated the fatty acids to get rid of the oxygen. As a result of this process, they turned the bacteria into a kind of diesel fuel. That is, the same bacteria that makes us sick can help us save money by being a great fuel for our cars.

Carbon nanotubes

As the name suggests, carbon nanotubes are hollow tubes formed by carbon atoms. The scope of their application is very wide: from armored materials to the creation of "elevators" capable of transporting cargo to the moon. And not so long ago, a group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found a way to use nanotubes to collect solar energy, and their efficiency is a hundred times higher than that of any photovoltaic cells known today. This is achieved because the nanotubes can function as an antenna to capture sunlight and redirect it to solar panels, which convert it into sunlight. Thus, instead of covering the entire roof of his house with solar panels, a person who wants to use the energy of the Sun can use carbon nanotubes, which take up much less space.

DiscoveryNews, translation from English - Natalia Konoshenko

"Sunshine windows" The sun is an obvious and reliable source of energy, but solar panels require extremely expensive materials. SolarWindow technology uses transparent plastic panes that double as solar panels. They can be installed as ordinary windows, and the production price is quite acceptable.

Tides. We started looking at tides as sources of energy quite recently. The most promising wave generator - Oyster - was developed only in 2009. The name translates as "oyster", since it is it that he outwardly resembles. Two installations launched in Scotland are enough to provide energy for 80 residential buildings.

The microwave generator is an ambitious project by British engineer Robert Shoer, which proposes to completely abandon the usual spacecraft fuel. Resonant microwaves are supposed to create powerful jet thrust, while simultaneously refuting Newton's third law. Whether the system works or is quackery is still unclear.

Viruses. Scientists from the National Laboratory. Lawrence at Berkeley discovered a virus a couple of years ago that could create electricity by deforming modified materials. Such properties were shown by harmless bacteriophage viruses M13. Now this technology is used to power the screens of laptops and smartphones.

One of the most famous and widespread alternative energy sources is geothermal. It is taken from the heat of the Earth itself and therefore does not waste its resources. One thermal power plant, "sitting" on a volcano, provides current to about 11,500 residential buildings.

There is another new type of solar battery, however, focusing not on cheapness, but on efficiency. Betaray is a sphere filled with a special fluid, covered with heat-trapping panels. The device generates four times more energy than conventional solar panels.

Biofuels are a very promising source of energy, literally grown in the fields. It is extracted from vegetable oils such as soy or corn. But the most promising are ... algae, giving a hundred times more resources than land plants. And even waste from them can be used as fertilizer.

Radioactive thorium is very similar to uranium, but gives off 90 times more energy! True, scientists have to sweat a lot for this, and basically thorium plays a secondary role in nuclear reactors. Its reserves in the earth's crust exceed those of uranium by 3–4 times, so that thorium is potentially capable of providing humanity with energy for hundreds of years.

The inflatable turbine is essentially the next level of development of wind farms. The turbine filled with helium rises to a height of up to 600 meters, where the wind blows constantly and with great force. In addition to the energy payback, the device is also very weather resistant and cheap.

International experimental thermonuclear reactor. Despite all the dangers associated with nuclear power plants, they still remain the most powerful sources of energy invented by man. ITER is an international fusion reactor project involving: EU countries, Russia, USA, China, Korea, Japan and Kazakhstan. The end of construction of the reactor is scheduled for 2020.

Basic sources of energy, such as coal or oil, tend to run out and pollute the environment. They are opposed to renewable resources such as geothermal energy or solar radiation. Consider ten alternative energy sources that have already shown themselves in action.

The most unexpected sources of energy

Sooner or later, oil wells and coal mines will show the bottom, and then people will have to urgently look for a replacement. The growing consumption of energy is forcing scientists to look for a coveted alternative to finite sources, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

genetically modified plants

Many plants contain starch, the basis for biofuels. Therefore, scientists tirelessly consider suitable candidates for the role of human energy saviors.

Tobacco has come to the attention of science because of the ease with which it lends itself to artificial selection. Recently, researchers were able to change the genes of tobacco so that the starch in it became 7 times higher than normal.

The jatropha kurkas plant can also be a source of environmentally friendly fuel. Its seeds are rich in oil and it thrives in dry, rocky soils. There is little left: to slightly modify the genes responsible for endurance, since jatropha seeds have low yields.

Another controversial source of energy from the world of flora is millet. With the help of genetic engineering with it, you can do the same operation as with tobacco, that is, increase the percentage of starch content. True, then another problem will arise: millet is an invasive plant, displacing all other vegetation from the places where it managed to appear. So scientists will also have to break their heads over limiting the unbridled reproduction of millet.

Yeast will help

Yeast, again genetically modified, will contribute to the transformation of plant materials into an energy source. Chinese scientists have discovered that specially modified yeast breaks down xylose (a poisonous, tough part of plants) into compounds that can serve as biofuels. This means that already in the near future, a person, quite possibly, will satisfy his need for cheap energy at the expense of super yeast and any waste of plant origin.

artificial version of photosynthesis

American scientists are exploring the possibility of artificially recreating the process that plants use, turning light and water into energy. The result is a device that looks like a solar battery in a plastic case. If you pass water through it, while irradiating it with light, the output will be liquid hydrocarbons that can be stored and used in infrastructure.

Sweet batteries

Toxic metals, without which it is now impossible to create conventional batteries, are difficult to mine and dispose of, and they usually do not last long. But if you replace them with regular sugar, such problems can be avoided. The sample, which the scientists called an "enzymatic fuel cell," mimics the action of the representatives of the plant world, converting sugar into energy, and surpassing conventional lithium batteries in its output.

Perpetual batteries

Redox reactions occurring in redox batteries have already found application as an alternative to oil derivatives in the transport sector. Thanks to the electrolyte solution, in which energy is stored, batteries can be used as long as you like, only occasionally changing the solution itself.

Rescue from the toilet

Natural waste of human (and not only) life can be easily used as a free source of energy. The easiest way is to heat the feces, the gas released in this case is the desired biofuel. But South Korean scientists went further. Experimentally, they found that if biowaste is properly heated by adding methanol and carbon dioxide, then as a result, fecal lipids are converted into a kind of biodiesel fuel.

One of the options for alternative energy, also from the toilet, is to feed human urine to microorganisms, which will turn it into energy in the course of their life.

"Toilet" options are almost fully developed, to get the result, it remains only to re-equip the sewers.

Waste recycling

Hydrocoal (a mixture of garbage with high-temperature water under high pressure) is the object of one of the already existing projects of four EU countries. It was launched to study the properties of wet garbage and determine the potential for its use in everyday life.

Solar power plants in Earth's orbit

Very soon, thousands of satellites equipped with solar batteries will fly into space and begin to deliver tons of energy to hungry humanity ... We have little left: just to live to see this bright day.

crocodile fat

Chemists in the US state of Louisiana suggest alligator fat as a fuel source. It is not in demand anywhere else, it contains a lot of lipids that easily give out biodiesel - another ideal solution to the energy of the future!

Alternative energy sources are gradually coming to the fore, and some countries have even announced that they plan to switch their infrastructure exclusively to them in the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, in addition to solar panels, windmills and hydroelectric power plants, there are many more interesting options, which we will discuss in this review.

Scotch whiskey power plant
Helius Energy has built the world's first power plant that runs on by-products from the distillation of Scotch whiskey. After all, this process leaves a huge amount of carbohydrate and protein masses, which can be converted into energy by burning. The conglomerate of producers Rothes Whiskey acted as a partner in this project.

Soccer ball
Socket Inc. created a soccer ball, which is also a small power plant that generates energy in those moments when the players kick the object with their feet. A few hours of play, and the work of the LED lamp for the whole evening is guaranteed! Ideal for rural outback in developing countries in Africa and Asia.

OTEC power plant off the coast of China
For decades, there has been technology to generate energy based on the difference between the temperature of the water at the surface of the ocean and in its depths. And in a few years, the world's largest power plant using this technology (OTEC) will appear off the southern coast of China. It will be created by the world famous company Lockheed Martin.

Turbine in blood vessels
Scientists from the University of Bern in Switzerland have developed miniature turbines that, when placed in a person's blood vessels, will provide energy to operate his electrical pacemaker.

VolcanElectric Mask - a skyscraper powered by a volcano
As part of the eVolo 2013 competition, a group of Chinese architects presented a project for the Volcan Electric Mask skyscraper, which should be located on the slope of a volcano. Yes, and the energy for the functioning of this building will receive from the red-hot magma approaching the surface of the Earth.

Geneco's VW Bio-Bug is a car powered by feces
The British company Geneco has developed a technology that allows you to get methane from human feces, and equipped it with a VW Beetle, giving it a new name - VW Bio-Bug.

Energy from turnstiles in public transport
The Japanese company East Japan Railway Company, one of the leaders in passenger transportation in the Land of the Rising Sun, decided to equip each of its turnstiles with an electricity generator. So passengers passing through them, without realizing it, will generate electricity.

BioWawe - the energy of underwater currents
Specialists from the Australian company BioPower Systems decided to pay attention to the many undercurrents encircling Australia. As a result, they created the BioWawe power plant project, which will use these water flows to generate electricity.

Giraffe Street Lamp - a swing that feeds the lantern with energy
Giraffe Street Lamp is a swing, riding on which, each person can make the world a little brighter and lighter. The fact is that these swings are at the same time a generator of electricity for the street lamp with which they are combined. However, it also has a third-party source of energy that powers the lamps at a time when the object is at rest.

BIQ house - the world's first algae-powered building
In Hamburg, a few weeks ago, opened the world's first building, which receives energy from the microscopic green algae that are in the walls and windows of this architectural structure. And each of its windows is a small bio-reactor that produces electricity through photosynthesis.

The modern world is gradually and steadily coming to a wider and more active use of alternative energy sources. Mankind is well aware that oil and gas will run out sooner or later, nuclear energy, with all its development, still cannot be 100% safe, coal harms the environment and also belongs to non-renewable natural resources. That is why today an increasing number of scientists and researchers are working in the field of increasing the efficiency and reducing the cost of generating electricity from alternative sources. And if solar, wind, thermal, combined and even offshore power plants today are already difficult to surprise anyone, then is it so in the world around us and beyond that there are still little-studied but perhaps promising sources of clean energy?

We have studied the information available today and have collected for you 10 of the most unusual and exotic alternative energy sources, which may not be tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow may well begin to be actively used by mankind.

1. Potential thermal energy of the oceans, which, as you know, covers most of our planet, may well be used by man in the future to generate electricity. The "thermal ocean" power plant will generate energy due to the temperature difference between the warm surface and cold bottom waters.

2. You may not know, but nature has long figured out how to get electricity due to water evaporation. Having spied on plants, modern scientists have already developed a similar system that works due to the difference in the electrical properties of water and air, the bubbles of which are pumped into the leaf, like a vegetable one. As a result, an electric current is generated. At the same time, scientists are quite optimistic about the possible prospects of using such a technology, including due to the possibility of these systems working not only as generators, but also as batteries to generate electrical energy.

3. Osmosis- a natural process that has long been used by scientists for their needs. Everyone knows reverse osmosis filters, but not everyone knows that today engineers are developing a fundamentally new scheme for generating electricity from the salt water of the seas and oceans. Moreover, this principle is also built on osmosis.

The uniqueness of this process is the possibility in the future not only to independently provide the necessary volumes of energy for desalination processes, which today require huge energy costs, but also to generate electricity “for sale”. The principle of operation of "osmosis power plants" will be built on the reverse desalination process. Scientists know that when salty sea water is added to fresh water, a process called “reverse electrodialysis” begins, thanks to which electricity is generated. In the same case, if the studies carried out today show their economic viability, such power plants can be installed in the mouths of the rivers, where there is a natural mixing of sea and fresh water.

4. Joule Biotechnologies engineers have developed a completely innovative energy source technology called glioculture. Engineers propose to use a mixture of hydrocarbons, nutrients, water and photosynthetic microorganisms, which will use sunlight as an energy source. As a result of the vital activity of microorganisms, we will be able to immediately obtain hydrocarbons or alcohol that do not require purification.

5. Use of helium-3. This non-radioactive isotope has a very high potential for generating electricity from fusion, but it is very rare on Earth, but abundant on the Moon. It is estimated that the development of the Moon can be a very promising direction, and today scientists have created several projects, the implementation of which may begin in the near future. In particular, calling helium-3 the energy source of the future, the Russian corporation Energia plans to begin its industrial development on a satellite of our planet no later than 2020.

6. Piezoelectricity- This method of obtaining energy has long been used by man. However, rather on a miniature than on an industrial scale. Meanwhile, scientists do not exclude that the use of kinetic energy from human movement in the future may well become a fairly promising process.

Considering that piezoelectricity is generated by certain materials in response to mechanical impact, it is enough to simply create a paving surface from such materials, place it in places where people move most of the time, and we will get a new free source of energy. At the same time, a similar principle can be implemented in a huge variety of options, for example, electricity can be generated by the sole of a shoe.

7. solar energy has been successfully “utilized” on Earth for a long time, but due to the presence of the atmosphere, a huge proportion of it simply dissipates, not reaching directly to the surface of our planet. If solar panels are placed in space, their efficiency will increase tenfold. By the way, such photocells have long been used on satellites launched from the Earth.

8. Excrement- they are already more than successfully used by humans today, including for the production of biogas. In the future, scientists do not exclude that human sewage will also find quite active use as alternative energy sources. For example, already today in Sweden they are trying to launch a technology for powering city bus engines, built on the principle of using microbial fuel cells, which generate electric current in the course of their life, and use excrement for power.

9. Vortex power plants- Prototypes of such systems have already been created today. The principle of operation of these systems is based on the possibility of obtaining energy from slow water currents that can create whirlpools. And it is them, whirlpools, that scientists propose to use for energy production.

Whirlpools form an unstable water environment in which an object placed moves up or down, or moves in a horizontal plane. The mechanical energy created in this way can be easily converted into electrical energy, since there are a lot of such systems and technologies today.

10. mountain energy. A new type of geothermal energy was obtained through experiments on pumping salt water deep into rocks, the temperature of which is very high due to the decay of radioactive elements in the planet's crust and the hottest mantle of the Earth. Further, the process is simple and learned. When heated, water turns into steam, which is fed into a turbine that generates electricity. At the same time, the power of such a power plant can be easily regulated by controlling the supply of cold salt water.