That Ommmmminous Hummmmmmm....

[athelind]

MicroTurbine Produces 1.1 Watts on a Silicon Chip

Now, this is cool.

Of course, in addition to cell phones, PDAs, laptops, and such, increasing the energy density of a portable power supply by a factor of 10 might make man-portable energy weapons much more plausible...

Comments

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

Very cool indeed. ^^ Its about time the miniaturization process hit power generation.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. You know how much I love turbine engines... Mmmmm...

[araquan.livejournal.com]

I wonder about emissions though... Would this mean that you should only use diesel-turbine electronic devices outside or in well-ventilated areas? I wonder also how much vibration and jostling (or just plain dropping) a 100000RPM rotor would tolerate while in opearation- such treatment is a certainty in military applications or in cell phones. Might take a while to work out some kinks there.

Myself, I'd be satisfied with a turbine engine the size of a V8 can... But I have R/C aircraft applications in mind. }:>

[athelind.livejournal.com]

All good questions, especially the emissions. I'm wondering if they'll shift over to alcohol or hydrogen for production versions -- those are the fuels they keep touting for miniature fuel cells for portable electronics apps.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I wish this had come out before I wrote Albedo...

[athelind.livejournal.com]

That's okay, we can save it for our "High Action Space Opera That Conceals Harder SF Than Most 'Hard SF' Games".

[rikoshi.livejournal.com]

Aw, pish-tosh. You just need to throw around phrases like "superstring theory" and "nine-dimensional" and "Van de Graaf adult toys" in order to earn your street cred.

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

Right. I'll take an eletrolux raygun for christmas!

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. The "Rolls-Royce of Atomic Weapons."