Non conventional power

Ben Harder explores a fascinating new world of piezo-electrics and finds a wealth of possibilities to solve our energy problems. Read on...

" Wind, water, solar . . . Who needs the tired, old elements? Each of those energy sources has had its proverbial day in the sun. It's time to move aside, ye olde renewables, and make way for a truly abundant and unceasing power source: our limbs, our clothes, our cars.

The world is a frenetic, kinetic kaleidoscope that hums with the constant motion of 6 billion people and their accouterments. Take a good look at the crushing multitudes on K Street at rush hour or at the vehicles rumbling around the Beltway. There's energy in them thar commuters. All that motion might well hold a key to much-sought energy independence. We just need to bottle some of that juice.

Certain materials produce an electrical current whenever they're flexed, bent or otherwise deformed. This occurs because these so-called piezoelectric materials -- which are as diverse as quartz crystals, leaded ceramics and bone -- contain pockets of positive and negative charge. When the material is flexed, those charges shift around, creating the potential for electrical current. Thanks to this piezoelectric effect, such materials can be used to convert the motion that distorts them into electricity.

A few piezoelectric-based devices have been around for years, including pedal-powered bicycle lights and hand-held and flintless gas-grill lighters. The science behind them dates back to 1880, when 21-year-old Pierre Curie, who would later share a Nobel Prize in physics with his wife, Marie, co-discovered the piezoelectric effect with the help of his older brother.

But engineers are only now beginning to see piezoelectricity as a source of abundant energy. They're using novel materials and techniques to harvest the "free" (i.e., untapped) energy that people generate when they move. Think of it as a giant energy recycling program. And it literally uses flex fuel.

A journey of a million kilowatt-hours begins with simple footsteps. Engineering teams worldwide are embedding piezoelectric materials in flooring and paving materials so the ground can absorb the energy from our moving feet. One company claims that five hours of busy pedestrian traffic over a portion of sidewalk could power a dim streetlight all night.

Some engineers have designed backpacks, shoes and other wearables that draw energy from the wearer's motions. Two years ago, in the journal Science, Canadian researchers described a modified knee brace that produced five watts when worn walking. That's enough to power several cellphones. Before long, though, phones may effectively charge themselves.

This year, Nokia filed a patent for a piezoelectric device that could let a phone battery draw a small charge each time it gets jostled in your pocket. If your phone still somehow conks out? In theory, just shake it and dial.

Engineers are also weaving piezoelectric fibers into clothing and other textiles. Some are experimenting with microscopic piezoelectric wires of zinc oxide. When flexed, these wires generate currents that could charge a battery or power portable electronics connected to the garment. Other researchers have embedded piezoelectric materials in silicone rubber that can be stretched, say, across someone's chest to draw power from the rise-and-fall motion of his lungs.

You don't have to get all out of breath about it, either. Even couch potatotes like me produce free energy. It's called body heat. Thermoelectric materials, which are akin to piezoelectric ones, can produce electricity in response to temperature changes within the material rather than from shape changes. That means the radiant warmth of my skin is a potential source of power.

Perpetua Power Source Technologies, for instance, is working to create garments that use such heat to support a "wireless body area network" capable of, for example, monitoring a sick person's vital signs. By the time I develop hypertension from sitting around too much, my clothing may be capable of alerting me to my high blood pressure.

Of course, my body heat is nothing compared with the furnace that is a car's engine. That's one place where thermoelectric power could really come into its own. Some experts estimate that only a quarter of the fuel a typical car consumes is utilized to power the vehicle. (Hybrids do a bit better in this department, thanks to their electrodynamic regenerative braking, which produces energy when vehicles slow down, a form of energy harvesting.) Researchers are testing systems that could salvage some of that heat emitted by the engine and convert it back into usable energy.

A particularly interesting breakthrough was reported last month when Zhong Lin Wang and his colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology published a study of two tiny piezoelectric generators that they had created. Each is about the size of a paper clip. When squeezed, one produces roughly the same voltage as an AA battery. The other does the same when it's bent. Together, these devices are the first that engineers have been able to create that can pack so much voltage in such a small package. Such generators could be used to operate small sensors powered by sources as simple, Wang said, as sound waves, vibrations or even the flutter of a flag.

In other words, there's free energy in the brave wave of the Star-Spangled Banner. When it comes to energy independence, you can't get more patriotic than that."

Is Marriage good for your health?

In 1858, a British epidemiologist named William Farr set out to study what he called the “conjugal condition” of the people of France. He divided the adult population into three distinct categories: the “married,” consisting of husbands and wives; the “celibate,” defined as the bachelors and spinsters who had never married; and finally the “widowed,” those who had experienced the death of a spouse. Farr found that married people weathered diseases far better than their unmarried counterparts but the worst affected were the widowed partners.

We have always known this intuitively but this new research reassures us that these observations were no “old wives tales”. In the 150 years since Farr’s work, scientists have continued to document the “marriage advantage”: the fact that married people, on average, appear to be healthier and live longer than unmarried people. Contemporary studies, for instance, have shown that married people are less likely to get pneumonia, have surgery, develop cancer or have heart attacks. A group of Swedish researchers has found that being married or cohabiting at midlife is associated with a lower risk for dementia.

But before many of you rush off to get married in order to live longer, pay need to new research that says that a stressful marriage can be as bad for the heart as a regular smoking habit! The “drip, drip” of negativity can erode not only a marriage itself but also a couple’s physical health. A number of epidemiological studies suggest that unhappily married couples are at higher risk for heart attacks and cardiovascular disease than happily married couples. The women who were at highest risk for signs of heart disease were those whose marital battles lacked any signs of warmth, not even a stray term of endearment during a hostile discussion (“Honey, you’re driving me crazy!”) or a minor pat on the back or squeeze of the hand, all of which can signal affection in the midst of anger.

Last year, The Journal of Health and Social Behavior published a study tracking the marital history and health of nearly 9,000 men and women in their 50s and 60 which found that when the married people became single again — either by divorce or because of the death of a spouse — they suffered a decline in physical health from which they never fully recovered. These men and women had 20 percent more chronic health issues, like heart disease and diabetes, than those who were still married to their first husband or wife by middle age. The divorced and widowed also had aged less gracefully, reporting more problems going up and down stairs or walking longer distances.

Some research now says that single people who have never married have better health than those who married and then divorced. So just because you are married is not enough: you have to be happily married, your fights have to be full of warmth even when angry and you need to remain married - to enjoy a long and healthy life.

A new approach to terrorists

A new article in the financial times has an interesting approach to dealing with young terrorists.

"First, demystify terrorist lives and deaths. The average day in the life of an Islamic extremist is similar to that of a petty criminal: tedious, lonely and punctuated by fear. Terrorists’ incompetence and narcissism must be highlighted. There is no shortage of material. One cell could not remember the name of the prime minister they were planning to kill; intelligence services report that many are avid consumers of pornography. Humour is a potent weapon here; remember how the British Fascist party in the 1930s was undermined by satire, not least by P.G. Wodehouse. Chris Morris’s forthcoming film satire of British jihadis, Four Lions, will be worth a dozen official anti-terrorism messages.

Second, expose al-Qaeda’s ideology as thin and unable to withstand sustained criticism. Far from being afraid of radical messages, we should let them circulate freely. Young people will be drawn to them regardless; better that it is in the open. Young Muslims who turn to violence tend to be less well-read than those who remain peaceful. Liberal values of free speech and dissent are central to the destruction of the al-Qaeda brand.

Finally, western governments should welcome non-violent forms of radicalism. Young people need to vent their frustrations, and participation in demonstrations is much higher among the non-violent. Young radicals can be drawn away from violent activity by the chance to work on charity programmes in Palestine or Afghanistan: a real Peace Corps."

The death of outrage

The past few months have seen a level of vitroil, smears and outright lies from senior politicians in the US which has come as a total surprise. But even more astonishing has been the lack of outrage at this descent into a culture of hate and calumny. There was always a level of courtsey in discourse at even the most difficult of times in the US but the past few months have shaken that belief in civility.

Imagine two governors of US states stating that slavery did not matter "diddly" or that the Civil war was fought for states rights. This from the party of Lincoln and in the year 2010. Or take a senator who says he never said he was a maverick while standing next to his published biography whose title is my life as a maverick. Or the leader of the opposition, Mitch McConnell, blandly lieing about the import of a financial regulation bill. Or the tea partiers still demanding Obamas birth certificate and hanging him in effigy. Or people spitting on black congressmen or calling some faggots in the House.

That there will always be fringe elements that will go beyond the bounds of decency occurs in every country. But the fact that it arouses so little outrage or revulsion is the real surprise. The main stream media cover it as if it was a soap opera and they were mere onlookers recording the event for posterity. They are afraid to label these efforts for what they are - disguised racism and bigotry. If many of these media were to cover the Nazi pogroms, I presume they would still manage to hide their real feelings and be objective and dispassionate.

But there are a few brave souls who do speak out : Paul Krugman is not afraid to call McConnell an ignorant liar; Friedman is willing to challenge Bibi Netanyu; Frank Rich is not afraid to call the tea partiers by their real name - racists and bigots; David Brooks is willing to make an objective evaluation of Obama's first year in power. Yes, these are the few left with any integrity in their public professions. For the rest, it seems like profiles in cowardice seeking shelter behind a non existent press objectivity.

The ones who are really missing in action is this ugly period of american life are the elders in the Republican party. After all do GW Bush, ex senators Warner and Danforth really approve of their party allying itself with the worse elements of the racist south? Do they not feel any obligation to speak out against challenges to the legitimacy of the President or the hanging of nooses or labelling slavery "diddly"? Should they not speak out?

The fact is that just as Pakistanis had to realize the dangers Taliban posed to their country before they finally moved to action to isolate and eliminate them, so it will have to be with the republicans. Only they can move to remove this tea party led cancer now gnawing at their party. But until they are willing to realize and accept the danger this racism poses to their party and their country, it is futile to expect any lowering of temperature or any future rise in civility in public discourse. Surely the republicans must realize that it is the soul of their party that is at stake.

Mandela's Way: Fifteen Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage

In Africa there is a concept known as ubuntu—the profound sense that we are human only through the humanity of others; that if we are to accomplish anything in this world, it will in equal measure be due to the work and achievements of others. Ubuntu sees people less as individuals than as part of an infinitely complex web of other human beings. It is the idea that we are all bound up with one another, that me is always subordinate to we, that no man is an island.

Richard Stengel spent two years with Mandela and has now published a book on the fifteen lessons on life, love and courage that he gleaned from the great man’s life. The book itself is worth reading but the few snippets below give a glimpse of the greatness of the man. First the lessons:

Courage is not the absence of fear

Be measured and calm at all times

Lead from the front and the back

Look the part

Have a core principle

See the good in others

Know your enemy

Keep your rivals close

Know when to say no

It’s a long game

Love makes the difference

Quitting is leading too

Its always the both

Find your own garden

Courage is not the absence of fear. It’s learning to overcome it. None of us is born courageous, he would say; it is all in how we react to different situations. He loved to quote Shakespeare: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard It seems to me most strange that men should fear, Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.” A coward might select that passage to give the impression that he was courageous, but for Mandela the passage is not bravado, but a simple statement of reality. Pretend to be brave and you not only become brave, you are brave.

Mandela sees almost everyone as virtuous until proven otherwise. He starts with an assumption that you are dealing with him in good faith. He believes that, just as pretending to be brave can lead to acts of real bravery, seeing the good in other people improves the chances that they will reveal their better selves. It is extraordinary that a man who was ill-treated for most of his life can see so much good in others. In fact, it was sometimes frustrating to talk with him because he almost never had a bad word to say about anyone. He would not even say a disapproving word about the man who tried to have him hanged. It is not that Mandela does not see the dark side of someone like John Vorster; it is that he is unwilling to see only that.

He knows that no one is purely good or purely evil. We were talking one day about a prisoner who had been a rival of Mandela’s on Robben Island and who had actually put together a list of grievances about Mandela. When I asked him about the fellow, Mandela did not address the man’s hostility but said, “What I took from him was his ability to work.”

He chooses to look past the negative. He does this for two reasons: because he instinctively sees the good in people and because he intellectually believes that seeing the good in others might actually make them better.

By behaving honorably, even to people who may not deserve it, he believes you can influence them to behave more honorably than they otherwise would

But Mandela believes in and takes emotional risks. He goes out on a limb and makes himself vulnerable by trusting others. We sometimes do that by confiding in others we don’t know well. Yet we rarely equate risk with trying to see what is decent, honest, and good in the people in our daily lives.

He had always appealed to people’s minds, but he knew that his ultimate victory would only come when he won over their hearts.

“The liberation struggle was not so much about liberating blacks from bondage, it was about liberating white people from fear.”

The time of your greatest triumph is the time when you should be most merciful.

Mandela would say we need to do a better job of expecting the expected, that we often do not prepare for those things we know are likely to be coming.

Mandela is not a man of maybes. He may be silent. He may be evasive. He will sometimes delay and postpone and try to avoid you. But in the end, he will not tell you what you want to hear just because you want to.

He almost always saw both sides of every issue, and his default position was to find some course in between, some way of reconciling both sides. In part this came from his deep-seated need to persuade and win people over, but mostly it came from having a nonideological view of the world and an appreciation for the intricate spider’s web of human motives..

Trust is a foundation of leadership. We trust that a leader is honest, able, and has a vision of where to go.

As he would say, you must reflect the goal in the way you seek it. He would sometimes quote Gandhi: “Be the change that you seek.” Mandela was tolerant of everything but intolerance. He would never discriminate in his goal to end discrimination. A noble goal should not be pursued by ignoble means.

Mandela’s example shows the value of forming as complete a picture as possible before taking action. Most of the mistakes he has made in his life came from acting too hastily rather than too slowly. Don’t hurry, he would say; think, analyze, then act.

“It is absolutely necessary at times for the leader to take on independent action without consulting anybody and to present what he has done to the organization.”

In his life, Mandela has often changed his mind when circumstances change. To him, that is simple common sense. When he sees what he regards as the inevitable, he will alter his point of view.

When Mandela became president, he presided over cabinet meetings in the same way. He did his best to see that opposing views were aired, if not always adhered to. He almost always spoke last, and more briefly than anyone else.

He was impressed by the way Lincoln used persuasion rather than force in managing his cabinet. He once told me an anecdote he recalled about Lincoln talking someone out of being in his cabinet and ended by saying, “It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it is their own idea.”

Since boyhood he had understood that collective leadership was about two things: the greater wisdom of the group compared to the individual, and the greater investment of the group in any result achieved by consensus. It was a double win.

Samuel Johnson once said there was nothing more relaxing than concentrating on a pleasant task that engages the mind but does not tax it too much. For Mandela it was his love of gardening.

In many ways, Mandela’s greatest act of leadership was the renunciation of it.