The Barnes That Saved Mankind ?

Interesting story about a distant relation of the Barnes line.

I believe this technology could change the entire planet.

Mankind will no longer be dependent upon chemical energy - OIL - for most of his domestic and commercial transportation systems.

The ability to now use alternative energy systems coupled with batteries that actually work as efficiently as chemical energy systems storing and delivering power, means the efficiency and power delivery levels to make such technology commercially viable has now been created.

That means the beginning of the end of the domination of the internal combustion engine - economically, politically, geo-politically and domestically.

There will be a reduction in oil demand for cars simply as there will be a gradual reduction in the type of cars that need oil.

We can now integrate all sectors of transportation with a national energy independence and renewable energy system that holds out the promise of a new National Industrial Revolution.

Instead of re-fueling with petrol, the driver recharges with power at his fuel station which is then stored in these batteries.

That means they can re-charge with energy from any sources of energy, which makes hydrogen energy production systems and integrated insfrastructure now a practical energy delivery system to gradually replace the internal combustion engine and its associated infra-structure.

All that matters is electricity is available to re-charge the batteries.

That electricity can come from a myriad supply sources, thereby breaking at a stroke our dependence on oil to deliver energy to cars via petrol at petrol stations.

As the primary demand for oil is for vehicles this means the new battery technology can replace internal combustion engines slowly, first building up the infra-structure at the same time as introducing tax duties to drive demand towards the new magnetic battery systems.





University of Miami physicist develops battery using new source of energy
His discovery is a 'proof of principle' of the existence of a 'spin battery'



IMAGE: The top is a graphic representation of the overall device structure. The diameter is roughly that of a human hair. The bottom is a magnified image of the central part....


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CORAL GABLES, FL. (March 11, 2009)—Researchers at the University of Miami and at the Universities of Tokyo and Tohoku, Japan, have been able to prove the existence of a "spin battery," a battery that is "charged" by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). The new technology is a step towards the creation of computer hard drives with no moving parts, which would be much faster, less expensive and use less energy than current ones. In the future, the new battery could be developed to power cars. The study will be published in an upcoming issue of Nature and is available in an online advance publication of the journal.

The device created by University of Miami Physicist Stewart E. Barnes, of the College of Arts and Sciences and his collaborators can store energy in magnets rather than through chemical reactions. Like a winding up toy car, the spin battery is "wound up" by applying a large magnetic field --no chemistry involved. The device is potentially better than anything found so far, said Barnes.

"We had anticipated the effect, but the device produced a voltage over a hundred times too big and for tens of minutes, rather than for milliseconds as we had expected," Barnes said. "That this was counterintuitive is what lead to our theoretical understanding of what was really going on."

The secret behind this technology is the use of nano-magnets to induce an electromotive force. It uses the same principles as those in a conventional battery, except in a more direct fashion. The energy stored in a battery, be it in an iPod or an electric car, is in the form of chemical energy. When something is turned "on" there is a chemical reaction which occurs and produces an electric current. The new technology converts the magnetic energy directly into electrical energy, without a chemical reaction. The electrical current made in this process is called a spin polarized current and finds use in a new technology called "spintronics."

The new discovery advances our understanding of the way magnets work and its immediate application is to use the MTJs as electronic elements which work in different ways to conventional transistors. Although the actual device has a diameter about that of a human hair and cannot even light up an LED (light-emitting diode--a light source used as electronic component), the energy that might be stored in this way could potentially run a car for miles. The possibilities are endless, Barnes said.

"There are magnets hidden away in many things, for example there are several in a mobile telephone, many in a car, and they are what keeps your refrigerator closed," he said. "There are so many that even a small change in the way we understand of how they work, and which might lead to only a very small improvement in future machines, has a significant financial and energetic impact."


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To read the study log on to: http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html under "Advance Online Publication."


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