10 Unconventional Sources of Alternative Energy

Researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have developed a groundbreaking yet somewhat unappealing alternative to fossil fuels. They've engineered an advanced toilet for use in developing countries that utilizes microwaves to transform human waste into syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This syngas can then be used in fuel cell stacks to generate electricity. In theory, a single toilet could produce enough energy to power several homes in a village, reducing the need for coal or oil [source: FastCoexist.com].

On the surface, Delft's plan to convert waste into power might seem rather absurd. But when the stakes are high, bold solutions are required. Many view the state of our environment as a crisis. We're living on a planet with finite resources — some essential for our survival, others damaging the planet every time we use them.

Rather than waiting for the depletion of oil reserves and the sinking of coastal cities due to rising sea levels, many are turning their attention to cleaner, renewable energy sources. Some of these, like solar energy, hybrid-electric vehicles, and small hand-powered devices, have already gained traction. However, others, such as waste-powered water heaters, may require some time to gain widespread acceptance.

Here are 10 of the more unconventional ideas for alternative energy, for your reading pleasure. Some are already in circulation, while others still need a bit more testing before they’re ready for prime time. Either way, if you're reading this during a personal Earth Hour, power up your flashlight and get ready to be either surprised or amused.

10: Muscle Power

When you're at the gym, does your mind ever wander to the environmental challenges our planet faces? Do you feel a twinge of guilt as you pedal away on a stationary machine that leads nowhere, while the air conditioner cools your neck? OK, so most likely you’re focused on how many calories you're burning. But if you’re one of the more environmentally conscious gym-goers, you may soon be able to feel good about your workout without worrying about the planet’s well-being.

A number of forward-thinking gyms are popping up that transform human energy into usable electricity. One such gym in Hong Kong has regular-looking exercise equipment, but hidden inside are generators that harness the power of movement to produce energy. While you’re working up a sweat, your effort generates electricity that powers the exercise consoles and helps run the lights overhead. The gym owner claims that the average person can produce around 50 watts of energy per hour on these machines [source: Blume]. So, unless you enjoy working out in the dark, get pedaling!

Pedal generators like the Pedal-A-Watt bike stand work on a similar principle but generate more power. A person in peak physical condition can create up to 500 watts, while someone with a more sedentary lifestyle might generate about 150 watts. While that may not sound like much, it’s enough to power two laptops, two fluorescent light bulbs, and a cell phone – provided you keep pedaling steadily [source: Treehugger].

The Pedal-A-Watt bike stand operates by powering a generator through the movement of the bike's rear wheel, and it includes an optional PowerPak that stores the energy you generate for later use. The PowerPak has an outlet where you can plug in appliances that use less than 400 watts of electricity. For reference, a large television consumes about 200 watts, a stereo takes 20 watts, a desktop computer uses 75 watts, and a refrigerator draws 700 watts [source: Convergence Tech, Inc.].

9: Text 1-800-Piezoelectricity

All around us, people are glued to their screens, texting away as if their very lives depend on it. In 2006, Americans sent a staggering 12.5 billion text messages in a single month, and in the United Kingdom, cell phone users sent out one billion texts every week [source: CTIA, text.it]. We’ve all been guilty of indulging in this obsession, but what if each one of those text taps could generate energy?

That’s exactly the concept behind Push to Charge, one of the creative entries in the 2008 Greener Gadgets Design Competition. This idea is based on piezoelectricity, a process where certain metals produce electricity when subjected to force. (Electric cigarette lighters, for example, use piezoelectric crystals.)

The Push-to-Charge phone design incorporates plastic buttons mounted on a sturdy metal surface. Beneath them, there are piezoelectric crystals that generate small amounts of electricity whenever the metal is pressed down onto the crystals, creating a voltage. Tiny wires placed between the layers collect the electricity and store it in a battery.

Pressing a single button generates a tiny amount of power — roughly 0.5 watts, as the inventor claims. However, when you consider all the buttons used to send a single text message and multiply that by the total number of texts sent each day, the combined energy adds up to a significant amount of wattage [source: Parker].

This technology isn't limited to phones; it could also be applied to devices with buttons, like computer keyboards and video game controllers. If all the writers at Mytour had such devices connected to their computers, the office would probably save a considerable amount on electricity bills. You have to admit, generating electricity just by typing on a keyboard or messaging your friends is a clever and eco-friendly concept.

8: Hot Air as Fuel

Anyone living in an attic apartment will know that heat rises. Inspired by this simple principle, Australian entrepreneur Roger Davey has suggested utilizing this natural phenomenon to produce significant amounts of clean energy, all without relying on carbon-burning fuels.

EnviroMission, led by Roger Davey, is aiming to construct an enormous 2,600-foot (792.5-meter) solar updraft tower in the Arizona desert [source: Almasy]. Rather than relying on solar panels, this tower would use a massive translucent sloping canopy, roughly the size of a football field, to trap the sun’s heat like a greenhouse. The hot air inside would reach a blistering 194°F (90°C) and rise into the tower, powering 32 turbines that would generate enough energy to produce 200 megawatts per day — enough to power 100,000 homes [source: Almasy].

The concept has been tested on a smaller scale. In the early 1980s, German firm Schlaich, Bergermann and Partner constructed a smaller iron tower in Spain, which generated 50 kilowatts of energy until a storm damaged its support cables after seven years. EnviroMission’s upgraded design, valued at $750 million, proposes a more robust steel and cement tower that won’t require support cables and is designed to last 80 years — significantly longer than most conventional solar facilities. According to EnviroMission, the minor carbon emissions from manufacturing the cement will be offset in just 2.5 years of power production. A similar project is being developed in China [source: Almasy].

7: Capturing Methane Emissions from Cows

While cows seem peaceful as they graze, some environmentalists argue that their methane-producing behaviors — farting, belching, and pooping — significantly contribute to climate change. A 2006 UN report estimated that cows and other livestock, including sheep and goats, account for roughly 18% of the greenhouse gases warming the planet, which is more than all forms of transportation combined [source: Lean]. This is mainly due to the methane emitted by cows, a gas that is 21 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere [source: Los Angeles Times].

Cow enthusiasts need not worry, as scientists are actively finding ways to turn this stinky issue into a practical solution. They've already come up with a technique to extract methane from cow manure and convert it into a biogas fuel of high enough quality to be added to a regular natural gas pipeline. In Kern County, California, a company called BioEnergy Solutions uses this process to produce 650,000 cubic feet (18,406 cubic meters) of biogas from cow dung, enough to power 200,000 homes [source: Levinson].

While it may be challenging, harnessing cow farts as a source of energy isn't entirely out of reach. In Argentina, a major beef-producing country with a cattle population of 55 million — surpassing the human population — scientists have designed a special backpack for cows that captures their emissions through a tube attached to their stomachs. This innovation has revealed that cows emit between 800 and 1,000 liters of gas daily [source: Zyga].

6: Fill 'Er Up with Microorganism Excrement

If you're like most people, the term 'E. coli' probably makes you uneasy.

Believe it or not, this microscopic organism, usually linked to stomach issues, might actually help solve some of our energy problems... by excreting crude oil. It may sound far-fetched, but innovative geneticists at LS9, Inc. have been experimenting with the DNA of industrial yeast and harmless E. coli strains, enabling these microorganisms to convert agricultural waste into fuel that's nearly ready for the pump.

Crude oil shares a similar molecular structure with the fatty acids that these tiny single-celled organisms naturally produce, making the alteration process less far-fetched than it may seem. LS9 has already improved the genetic modification process, reducing what once took several months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to a mere few weeks and $20,000 [source: Ayres]. When compared to the oil drilling process, which can take years and often costs just as much — if not more, factoring in environmental costs — this approach seems like a more efficient alternative.

The inventors of this process imagine their microorganism waste, dubbed 'Oil 2.0,' as both a renewable and carbon-negative resource. This means that the process would remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits, thanks to the raw materials it uses. Additionally, the organisms wouldn’t rely on any single type of agricultural waste, thus avoiding the debate over using specific food crops for fuel. Instead, the process would use whatever raw material is plentiful in the local environment.

As of June 2008, LS9 had developed a 1,000-liter machine that can produce the equivalent of one barrel of oil per week, occupying just 40 square feet (3.7 square meters) of space [source: Ayres]. While this may seem small, you'd still need a building the size of Chicago to meet the United States’ oil demands, but perhaps it’s time to reconsider your perspective on yeast and E. coli.

5: Floating Wind Farms in the Middle of the Ocean

While the idea of offshore wind farms supplying electricity has been widely discussed, the ongoing delays in the CapeWind project in Nantucket Sound show that it is not so simple to gain the support of coastal residents, who fear that wind turbines will spoil the beauty of the coast or harm sensitive marine ecosystems [source: Lindsay]. This challenge might be addressed by placing wind farms far from the coastline, where they are out of sight, and having them float on the water’s surface, tethered rather than anchored to the ocean floor.

Floating wind turbines offer several advantages over traditional ones, notably their ability to harness the stronger winds found further out at sea. Winds in the open ocean can blow at speeds twice as fast as those near land, making floating turbines an even more promising source of energy [source: Economist]. Some studies suggest that these wind farms could supply up to 15 percent of the world’s future energy needs [source: Jacquot].

In late 2011, a $30 million prototype offshore floating wind farm called WindFloat was set up 217 miles (349 kilometers) off the coast of Portugal [source: Scientific American]. This farm features a 2-megawatt turbine from the Danish company Vestas, mounted on a triangular floating platform created by Principle Power, based in Seattle. The platform is anchored with four lines, two of which stabilize the turbine’s column to reduce excessive motion. Ballast water is moved between chambers within the platform to help it withstand more intense offshore weather. Antonio Vidigal, CEO of EDP Inovacao, a partner in the project, stated, "The deep ocean is the next big energy frontier" [source: Scientific American].

4: Kites Attached to Ocean-going Ships

Here's an innovative energy solution for the open ocean. While many of us associate global warming with coal power plants and vehicle emissions, cargo ships contribute approximately 2.7 percent of the world’s man-made greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Maritime Organization. This equates to roughly 870 million tons of pollution altering the climate each year [source: IMO].

Any innovation that helps ships reach their destinations with less fuel consumption is a significant advantage. That's why, in recent years, some innovators have been revisiting wind power, an old method of ship propulsion that was widely used in the mid-1800s, as a way to supplement the carbon-burning engines of large cargo vessels. In the mid-2000s, one company suggested attaching massive 13,000-square-foot (1,207-square-meter) kites to freighters, flying about a thousand feet (300 meters) above the ships to help propel them. According to estimates, such a system could reduce fuel consumption by up to 25 percent, cutting carbon emissions and potentially saving over $1 million annually in fuel costs for the largest ships [source: McSweeney].

In 2008, the 10,000-ton container ship MS Beluga Skysails became the first to utilize auxiliary kite power, with a 160-square-meter (1,722-square-foot) kite flying 300 meters (984.2 feet) above its bow during a journey from a German port to Venezuela. This setup allowed the ship to reduce its diesel fuel costs by 10 to 15 percent, saving between $1,000 and $1,500 daily during the two-week voyage. The ship's parent company, the Beluga Group, plans to use kites in the future to reduce fuel expenses by up to 20 percent [source: Huck].

3: Super Small Nuclear Reactors

While tenants are commonly evicted for reasons like not paying rent or making too much noise, in 2011, a 31-year-old Swedish man named Richard Handl became possibly the first renter to face eviction for attempting to construct a nuclear reactor in his own kitchen.

Handl, who revealed to a local newspaper that his fascination with nuclear physics began in his teenage years, spent about $950 gathering the materials needed to build his own nuclear reactor. He sourced radium by purchasing glowing clock hands on eBay for just a few dollars each and extracted thorium oxide from Coleman gas lanterns. Handl even constructed a makeshift neutron gun by inserting a small glass tube into a plastic pill bottle and covering it with lead. He documented every step of this DIY process on his blog titled "Richard's Reactor." However, when Handl reached out to government officials to verify if he was breaking any laws, the authorities responded by sending police to his home to seize his homemade reactor [source: The Local].

Despite the controversy, our Swedish friend might have been onto something. Nuclear power, known for generating electricity with minimal greenhouse emissions, had been enjoying a boost in its reputation until a devastating earthquake triggered a catastrophic nuclear accident in Japan at a facility near Tokyo in March 2011. But what about smaller, more contained reactors? Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have designed a reactor the size of a hot tub that could provide enough energy for 20,000 homes. The catch: It costs $25 million, which is a bit steep for backyard installation. Additionally, another Chicago-based company has reportedly been working on an even smaller version of a reactor, one about the size of a microwave oven [source: Zyga, source: Koziarski].

2: Reprocessing Coffee Grounds into Biodiesel

That morning cup of coffee, which gets us energized for the day, might soon fuel trucks as well. In 2009, University of Nevada-Reno engineering professor Mano Misra, famous in the lab for his coffee habits, noticed the oily sheen floating on top of a cooled cup of coffee. This sparked an idea in Misra's caffeine-fueled mind, and he tasked a couple of students to explore whether coffee oil could be converted into biodiesel.

The students discovered that depending on the type of coffee bean used, coffee grounds could contain up to 20% oil. This oil is particularly stable when exposed to oxygen, meaning it doesn't degrade and clog fuel lines. They also created a method to remove sulfur from coffee-derived biodiesel, which comes from the volcanic soils where coffee is grown. The resulting fuel met the biodiesel standards set by ASTM International, a global testing body.

The researchers estimate that if all the coffee grounds produced by coffee drinkers worldwide were collected and reprocessed, it would generate 2.9 million gallons of diesel fuel annually. Alternatively, the grounds could be turned into fuel pellets. If Starbucks were to recycle all its coffee grounds, it could create 89,000 tons of fuel pellets each year, providing millions of dollars in revenue and helping mitigate rising fuel costs for trucking companies [source: Schill].

1: Orbiting Mirrors to Transmit Solar Energy

You’ve probably seen the joy children have when they catch a glimpse of their reflection in shiny mirrored balloons at birthday parties. Now, imagine a fleet of giant versions of these party balloons—perhaps a mile across—deployed in geostationary orbit around Earth. Could these massive reflective surfaces be the solution to the global energy crisis and climate change?

In a 2007 article, the late William F. Schreiber, an engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed launching a fleet of these enormous balloons into orbit. Controlled remotely, the balloons would unfold and inflate, continuously adjusting to Earth's position relative to the sun. These spherical mirrors would capture and focus solar energy, transmitting it in concentrated beams to receiving stations on Earth. The energy would then be used to heat water, producing steam to drive turbines and generate electricity.

"The balloon method is quite appealing because it allows focus to be controlled through internal pressure [inside the balloon], as opposed to the challenge of creating and positioning an extremely precise mirror in orbit," Schreiber stated [source: Schreiber]. While Schreiber's concept of utilizing enormous shiny balloons might seem unconventional, there is a growing interest among scientists in the potential of satellites to capture solar energy and transmit it back to Earth. A recent study by the Paris-based International Academy of Astronautics asserted, "Solar power from space has the potential to play a critically important role in addressing the global energy demands of the 21st Century." U.S. Air Force Colonel Michael Smith, director of the Pentagon's Center for Strategy and Technology, has remarked that the concept could provide safe, clean energy for the entire world "if we can make it work" [source: Daily Mail].