Lonnie Johnson did danger assessment for the Atlantis blank shuttle . He helped get the B-2 stealth bomber off the terra firma . He gave us the Super Soaker . And now , with his in style excogitation , he might just make solar magnate viable .
Johnson , a “ ego - invented discoverer , ” isprofiledin the November issue of the Atlantic , and while his Super Soaker revolutionized backyard shenanigans , his latest projection , a alone heat railway locomotive called the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Converter or JTEC , could revolutionize the energy industry . And that ’s experience some important people very excited .
Today ’s take to the woods - of - the - mill solar cells convert around 20 % of the solar energy they gather into electricity . The unspoiled solar organisation we have can do about 30 % . The JTEC , which has no prompt part and produces no waste , could double that efficiency , making it private-enterprise with coal . Paul Werbos , director of the National Science Foundation , say “ It has a darn good chance of being the best matter on Earth . ”
So how does the JTEC do what it does ? A very elegant design and the 2d law of themodynamics :
Simply put , the legal philosophy sound out that temperature difference be given to even out - for representative , when a spicy visage of coffee berry disperses its heat into the nerveless air of a room . As the passion levels of the mug and the room arrive into balance , there is a transfer of vitality .
employment can be draw out from that conveyance . The most vernacular way of doing this is with some form of heat railway locomotive …
… Johnson ’s late JTEC image , which looks like a screen background model for a next - propagation moonshine still , features two fuel - cell - like dozens , or chamber , filled with hydrogen gasoline and connected by steel underground with round pressure gauges . Where a steam engine use the heat generated by burning coal to create steam pressure and move mechanical elements , the JTEC uses heat ( from the sun , for instance ) to expand hydrogen atoms in one stack . The elaborate atoms , each made up of a proton and an negatron , split aside , and the freed electron jaunt through an international circuit as electric current , charging a battery or performing some other useful piece of work . Meanwhile the positively charged protons , also known as ion , wedge through a specially designed proton - exchange membrane ( one of the JTEC element borrow from fuel cells ) and combine with the electrons on the other side , reconstituting the hydrogen , which is squeeze and pump back into the hot stack . As long as warmth is supplied , the cycle continue indefinitely .
Johnson ’s presently wading through the swamp of bullshit that surrounds the human action of forge — getting research President Grant , filing patents , trudging through peer review , etc.—but vigour experts intimate with the JTEC match that ’s unquestionably something to get aroused about . show more about the JTEC and the military personnel who invent it atthe Atlantic.[Atlantic ]
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