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Producing energy ‘out of thin air’

  • by JW

… by turning the ambient humidity in the air into contained, synthetic thunderstorms [University of Massachusetts]

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Is there really such a thing as ‘free energy’?

It depends on how you define ‘free’ – and whether you think there have been such energy sources which have been ‘supressed’ over the years: Free energy suppression conspiracy theory – Wikipedia

Of course, one you install any renewable energy system, once you’ve paid out that outlay, the energy then produced is ‘free’: Solar panels: are they worth it? – MoneySavingExpert

A new technology is being looked into which would produce energy ‘out of thin air’ – as reported in today’s Mail:

A new clean energy prototype promises to work wonders out of thin air. The researchers call it Air-gen, a mobile electricity generation device that uses a network of protein nanowires to turn the ambient humidity in the air into contained, synthetic thunderstorms. This ‘human-built, small-scale cloud,’ these scientists said, can produce electricity ‘predictably and continuously’ in a wider variety of conditions than sun-dependent solar cells or wind-dependent turbines.

New Star Trek-style device ‘harvests clean energy out of thin air’  | Daily Mail Online

With more from the science press:

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered a method to harvest continuous electricity from air humidity using any material with nanopores smaller than 100 nanometers, called the “generic Air-gen effect.” This technique, scalable and interruption-free, paves the way for a broad range of cost-effective, continuous electricity generation from various materials, overcoming limitations of condition-dependent renewables like solar and wind power.

Clean Energy 24/7: Engineers Use Nanotechnology To Harvest Electricity “From Thin Air”

Nanopores are the secret to making electricity from thin air. These nanopores allow water molecules to pass through and create a charge imbalance, essentially forming a battery that runs as long as there is humidity. Credit: Derek Lovley/Ella Maru Studio