Waste water generator- Possible game changer?

Researchers in the US have built a prototype device which they say can generate electricity from waste water.

www.bbc.co.uk...

If they can make it work on an industrial scale I think this could be a serious game changer. Weather it will generate enough power we can effectively use I do not know. But for the water purification alone this could help so many people all over the world.

reply to post by CR4V3N


GE will buy the patent and it will NEVER see the light of day. That's how these things normally work. Nobody wants clean, low cost, highly available energy. At least not the big energy companies.

~Tenth

How strange i was thinking to myself only yesterday almost exactly this, though specificly rain water run off from house roofs - it thunders down those gutters somtimes!!!!

Any water flowing anywhere could be tapped to a little generator, really nice to see its a serious idea!

Adding the chemical process to generate even more, not just flow, is insanly good!

Lights getting dim? Go to the toilet!

reply to post by tothetenthpower


You so beat me to it.
If it's not GE, it's an associate of theirs. The shelves are over loaded with clean technologies that are game changers. I don't see any end in sight to this suppression.

reply to post by JibbyJedi


Considering they own most of Tesla's patent, including the EVER important Geostatic Energy patents, it would not surprise me in the least bit.

~Renth

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I see your point.

Here is a company's developing a product close to this:

www.statkraft.com...

There also a large company and definitely have the resources to make a technology like this work.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

You so beat me to it.
If it's not GE, it's an associate of theirs. The shelves are over loaded with clean technologies that are game changers. I don't see any end in sight to this suppression.

edit on 2-3-2012 by JibbyJedi because: (no reason given)

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by CR4V3N

 

GE will buy the patent and it will NEVER see the light of day. That's how these things normally work. Nobody wants clean, low cost, highly available energy. At least not the big energy companies.

~Tenth

Yeah, good thing there is mom and pop shops fighting the good fight:

Exhibitors:
A106 BP
A201 Codexis
A202 Pangea
A301 Centre of Expertise Program (OSKE)
A302 Green Power Conferences
A401 Evonik
A402 ePURE
B201 Argus Media
B202 Vogelbusch
B203 Davy Process Technology
B204 PRAXAIR
B301 BDI - Bioenergy
B302 SGS
B303 E4tech
B304 J.Wiley
C101 Elsevier
C102 LMC
C103 DEKRA
C201 Rockwell
C202 BlueSens
C203 Sud Chemie
C204 ASG
C301 Arizona Chemical
C302 Peterson Control Union Group
D101 Port of Ghent
D201 NESTE
D203 BioGasol
D301 Axens
D302 Agilent
D303 Saybolt
D401 CBI
D402 Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels
D403 Intertek
E101 CLUSTER IAR – FRENCH BIOFUELS DELEGATION
E201 Koole
E202 Tüv Süd
E204 UOP
E206 Port of Rotterdam
E301 ADM
E303 Andritz
E401 Westinghouse Plasma Corp
E403 Hygear
E404 Emerging Markets Online
E502 NL Agency
E503 BD Biosciences
E602 Cargotec Sweden Bulk Handling AB
F102 DNV Business Assurance
F103 JOil
F201 MBP Group
F202 Unica
F203 Gelsenkraft

Oh wait, those are small companies?



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I watch that show Shark Tank, and they show how big business tries to buy up new game changing inventions just to sell them to the giants to be shelved.

This guy was on that show about these nasal screens...


The sharks asked him why he didn't sell to the giant corporations, and he said that they wanted to buy him out and shelf his invention with the reasoning - why prevent illnesses for $2 when you can treat them ongoing for $14? He refused to sell out, then 1 of the sharks offered him $4 million for 100% equity in the product, the largest offer in the show's history.

He turned it down, because he wanted to "help people" and knew it would get shelved if he sold out. Greed is not in this man's blood, we need 1 million more guys like him in this world.

reply to post by boncho


I don't understand what that information is supposed to mean regarding this topic? Are you saying that there isn't a systematic purchase of free/low cost/renewable energy patents by major energy corps?

Cause there certainly is.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower

Nobody wants clean, low cost, highly available energy. At least not the big energy companies.

Sorry. Is it profitable, is it commercially viable? Yes, they want it.

While some patents do get bought out to be shelved, it is usually a product or process that is equal to current technologies. The majority of purchased technologies and patents are meant to be developed into something else though.

Something commercially viable, marketable, and profitable.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Such a sad state of affairs on this planet at the moment.
Corporate greed knows no limits,even if it means killing the entire biosphere,well that's just fine it seems.

We could have had water powered cars are free electricity some 50 years ago if the fascists hadn't got their way.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


You are correct.

But..Did you review my last two links? That's a rather large company championing this type of technology, with the resources to make it happen. Surely some will slip the big corps. shelving net and become mainstream? We know there's a lot of people trying this sort of thing so it makes sense that some will eventually succeed....I hope!

I build wastewater systems and have worked in renewable energy.

We already use membranes in water and wastewater treatment systems

You could easily add more equipment to produce electricity that the plant could use..

Now..

whats the equipment cost to manufacture, install, maintain, replace...
how much output over time will determine if its cost effective.

reply to post by capecrusader


If its as easy as you think then surely it wouldn't be much more on top of current operational costs? Plus the power generated would be routed to power the plant, this must seriously take chunk out of normal operational costs.

But as you say they don't currently do it and there must be a reason behind it. If the general opinion on company's is to be believed then saving them money/potential to make more money is the driving force behind there actions and there not using this tech so it must be useless?

Then why would so many other persist in trying to make it sustainable and mainstream?

reply to post by JibbyJedi

The sharks asked him why he didn't sell to the giant corporations, and he said that they wanted to buy him out and shelf his invention with the reasoning - why prevent illnesses for $2 when you can treat them ongoing for $14? He refused to sell out, then 1 of the sharks offered him $4 million for 100% equity in the product, the largest offer in the show's history.

I wasn't able to find the episode, I did find this though:

And so right as the investors were losing interest, he revealed he had a multi-million dollar order from Saudi Arabia to which Kevin O’Leary emphatically said “Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?!”.

*

And then this:

First Defense Nasal Screens (FDNS) a United States Company and an undisclosed U.A.E company filed final U.S. State Department authenticated contracts to the U.A. E Embassy in Washington D.C Thursday morning July 1st for legalization and final registration. The contract provides and grants exclusive distributorship rights in the Arab world. Countries included in the contract are United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Syria, Jordon, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Morocco.

*

Where is there signs of suppression or this being shelved?



In fact what happened, is he had an offer from the Arab world, and when he turned it down and brought the product to market, he then signed a distributorship deal over a dozen Arab countries.

(I suppose for all the sand in the nose?)

Where is there evidence of someone trying to shelve it?

reply to post by CR4V3N

Then why would so many other persist in trying to make it sustainable and mainstream?

New technology has always been revolutionary to the business market. And why wouldn't it be?

It doesn't mean that all of them will work, or that all of them are worth studying, but people can't predict the future. A lot of time and money gets spent on projects that are just useless by the end of their course. And also, people get money looking for sustainable technologies, interest groups lobby governments and pull on people's heartstrings to throw cash at "green" tech. Just look at the wasted money in the Obama administration and the results, or lack thereof.

reply to post by boncho

Where is there evidence of someone trying to shelve it?

The evidence is what he said on that episode, it's from the middle of season 2.
He did say he had huge orders overseas in the Arab countries, but when asked why he didn't get funding from big pharma companies, he told them those companies wanted to buy him out and shelf it so can could maximize profits by treating vs preventing.

When the sharks heard that, plus the large pending orders to Saudi Arabia, they made him huge offers for 100% equity. The looks on their faces told me that they wanted to sell it to big pharma for a profit because this guy wasn't caving to the large offers from them. He needed financing from the sharks to afford the costs to fill those large orders, and he settled for a great deal that still left him controlling equity.

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
reply to post by boncho

 

Where is there evidence of someone trying to shelve it?

The evidence is what he said on that episode, it's from the middle of season 2.
He did say he had huge orders overseas in the Arab countries, but when asked why he didn't get funding from big pharma companies, he told them those companies wanted to buy him out and shelf it so can could maximize profits by treating vs preventing.

When the sharks heard that, plus the large pending orders to Saudi Arabia, they made him huge offers for 100% equity. The looks on their faces told me that they wanted to sell it to big pharma for a profit because this guy wasn't caving to the large offers from them. He needed financing from the sharks to afford the costs to fill those large orders, and he settled for a great deal that still left him controlling equity.

I don't understand where the suppression is supposed to be.

Hmm.

Don't sell your product to your competitor.

It's about the same sense you need not to step in dog poo.

He had offers from the Saudi's originally, obviously the product had demand. They weren't going to suppress it, they wanted to use it.

reply to post by boncho

He had offers from the Saudi's originally, obviously the product had demand. They weren't going to suppress it, they wanted to use it.

He had orders from the Saudis, and there was great demand for them.
He told the sharks that the giants wanted to shelf it, because of the logic of treating illness for $14 vs prevent for $2 were the exact words said.

He said over 90% of allergies and common illnesses are contracted through the nose not the mouth, and those screens would greatly reduce illnesses by that kind of margin. Bet your ass big pharma would want that patent to shelf, no doubt about it. They don't last forever, so theoretically the product orders could be filled, profits made, then it could be taken off the market soon after.

Game changers that could reduce profits are bought up and shelved, it's not a conspiracy theory it's business as usual.

reply to post by JibbyJedi

Game changers that could reduce profits are bought up and shelved, it's not a conspiracy theory it's business as usual.

Actually no. What actually happened is business as usual. It's rare that a good idea is shelved. In this case it wasn't.

But first off, we don't even know if he is telling the truth or if he made the whole story up. I'm not even convinced this is the greatest product in the world (hard to tell without personally testing-as it is something that sticks on your skin)

And it wasn't suppressed.