How bacteria can turn you on ...

Microbes making electricity?

Believe it. I found this article, written by my friend Steve, through Renewable Energy Access Weekly. It's a great site, great newsletter. Very informative.

It's ironic that they included this article on this particular week. Just this past Saturday, I went to Keene State College to see my sister's Academic Excellence presentation. She's been working on it as part of her accelerated masters program and she looked at gender rolls in the classroom and academic success. Her project was so interesting, well informed and presented in an entertaining manner. I was really proud.

Regardless! She wasn't the only project there. There were lots of undergrad and grad students all exploring different areas of their expertise. One that stood out to me was a kid named Jeff who spend the past few months learning about microbiology and its link to sustainable energy sources. Let me explain what he told me...

When bacteria in river beds "eat"- meaning they ingest nutrients in the soil- they create electrons ... this goes into basic bio-process, like calcium channels and things like that, all very complicated. I'm somewhat science savvy, but not so much that I could break down all of this info for you.

Anyway, this bacteria creates a weak charge, but if that charge is harnessed, could be turned into batteries or large scale electricity sources. The perfect places to implement such ideas? Waste water treatment plants. They have some doo doo, lots of bacteria, all they need is the right materials to harvest the charges the bacteria give off.

That and the industry has to find the perfect kind of bacteria to make this idea really viable, able to contribute a large amount of electricity to the greater picture.

Jeff was using the sediment from the river that runs along the campus.

I stood there with this kid and picked his brain for a while, but we both started getting really excited by the conversation ... then it dawned on me.

I know I often say that I feel like we're not moving fast enough to solve the problems we're facing. But, if kids like Jeff, my friend Tom at the Meeting School, my friend Jessica at Indigo Cafe, keep pursuing their dreams of bringing our planet into the next few centuries, we might not be at that large of a loss. We might even be able to change the course of our future.

Here's an other study, featured on ScienceDaily, that explores bacteria-produced-electricity.

The photo at the top of this post looks a lot like the project Jeff was working on. Feel free to explore the topic more, but above all- I want your feed back!!!

Think it's a waste of time?
Excited by the prospects?
Do you know of more innovative ideas for producing energy???

Let me know! I love hearing from you.
More soon. Lots of love and givin' trees hugs!
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