Living Battery

                This week’s assignment has me looking online for an article related to an environmental science topic. I am quite picky over where I read/watch my news…as many do not include their sources in their articles and some are all hearsay. But for years when I worked a graveyard shift job I would read articles at www.nbcnews.com. Because of my familiarity with the site, I decided to start there. I was not disappointed when I got there, immediately I saw something that caught my eye. The title, “‘Living battery’ generates electricity from sewage and waste water,” immediately catches my eye. The article is located here. Basically the article explains that a team of Stanford scientists are working with naturally occurring microorganisms that feast on plant and animal waste for their own biological fuel. The microorganisms defecate electrons which the scientists then harness. The interesting thing about this is that they in essence become living batteries that can generate electricity that is as efficient as the highest performing solar cells. There are problems with the current method as the materials they are currently using make it too costly to be feasible. The team from Stanford is working on at this time to find alternative methods of harnessing this power in a more cost efficient method.

                The website is ran by the MSNBC news network. This is a major news network which has many TV news channels as well as the website I obtained this article from.  Overall the fact it is a major news network does make it more credible. There is of course a chance no matter the article a chance that the info is off, which is why I like information being cited. The author of this particular article, John Roach, works for MSNBC news and also has a web site which can be found here. On his website he writes on a plethora of topics which include biodiversity, geology, and health. I like the fact this particular writer does focus on science news. The author also started his career at the Environmental News Network and was a lead writer for the 1.0 version of National Geographic news. Being that this article is from a main news network and the writer cites his information to leave a trail to confirm what is in the article, and of course as mentioned focuses on these sort of topics, I believe there is sufficient evidence to support his claims.

                The main claim in the article is that the microorganisms they are working with defecate electrons which are being harnessed by the scientists and that in theory can produce very impressive results comparable to the highest performing solar cells. There is sufficient evidence to support this claim as the author left a URL to their research here, which also lists the scientists working on it. The author also left a link to Craig S. Criddle's page who is an Environmental Engineer Professor also working on the project which is located here. Because there is a trail leading to the actual research and those findings also mirror what was summarized on the article, I would like to think the claim being made is well supported.

                As for my reaction to the article…well…I think it is really interesting. The fact common microorganisms can feed off of certain waste and produce energy is really awesome. There are certain limitations that they are working on to make this project more efficient, such as finding an alternative to using silver oxide electrodes, which if a much less costly alternative could be found it would make it more economically feasible to use in the future on a much larger level. In theory (according to the researchers working on the microbial battery), when all is said and done, it could generate enough energy to treat waste water with current technology. It is not only interesting to me but it makes me a little excited that more and more alternative energy sources are being found. Eventually I hope we find even more replacements to the fast depleting non-renewable energy sources we have today.