SMART GRID

Amitabh Bacchan, Indian superstar, monitors his  power consumption on Google. Well he is not the brand ambassador of Google, neither is this some gizmo which he has purchased from some flashy store abroad. 

Welcome to the world of smart grid, which is gradually moving into our living rooms across cities.

A combo of power distribution system, telecommunication devices and electrical gadgets which can predict, and respond to, usage patterns of both suppliers and consumers, smart grids have been taken up as full fledged projects or pilots in key states and metros. Such grids are seen as a solution to demand-supply mismatch in power by stressing on efficient use.  Such grids cut down on wastage and ensure dedicated service and lightning fast response times Each state in India is gradually heading this tech savvy path, which gradually reap a lot of positives in the long run.

RIL (Reliance Infrastructure Ltd.) , the power distribution company of the Anil Ambani group, offers users the capability of remotely monitoring their power consumption in the metros like Delhi and Mumbai. The smart grid installed has the capability to re-route electricity and specifically help you in cutting down on your heavy power bills by pointing out the power guzzlers.

Apart from Reliance, it is being adopted on a pilot basis by the West Bengal’s power distribution company, Bangalore’s distribution company as well as the state electricity distribution company in Karnataka. The first global smart grid was installed in Italy by Enel six years back. It delivers savings of Euros 500 million annually on a project cost of Euros 2.1 billion.

Smart Grid also serve as an early warning system predicting load on transformers and as the name goes will smartly redirect load and share the burden, rather than crashing and causing inconvenience.

The man power and wages for remote connects, disconnects and on demand reads will gradually reduce once this system is in place. This will reduce faults and increase up times and thus earnings. Welcome technology into your homes now.

Benjamin Franklin may have discovered electricity, but it was the man who invented the meter who made the money. 

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OXYGEN + HYDROGEN = LEAF

Mankind, the biggest victim to suffer in future from the deadliest problems that the world would ever suspect. Innovation and Research are the two main weapons that can uproot such problems.

Researchers have developed an ARTIFICIAL LEAF that can split water into Oxygen and Hydrogen in presence of sunlight, without needing wires or electricity. With this technological advancement, researchers have been able to create an artificial leaf.

This artificial leaf is actually a silicon solar cell with two different materials on either side. Once immersed in water and exposed to the sunlight, the leaf begins producing bubbles on either side of the surface. The video shows formation of Oxygen and Hydrogen bubbles on either side of this artificial leaf. Oxygen and Hydrogen produced by artificial leafs can be separated using pre-developed technology and then store them or use them for Electricity generation.

Researchers explains that this artificial leaf has been produced using material that’s available in abundance. It uses cobalt, silicon and nickel and works in regular water.

The development of Artificial Leaf opens many new avenues of investigation and development of reliable and cheaper sources of energy which will last for hundreds of years.

Check out this short video that shows the artificial leaf in action:-

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
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SPACE HIGHWAYS

Have you ever seen the rope hanging from the space ? Or, better to say the rope which end disappears in the azure of the sky? Yes, you answer, but only in the cartoon about Aladdin.

However, believe me, the rope that hangs from the sky, is absolutely possible and that too without any conjuring tricks. I must be more precise and it is better to say that the rope is fastened on the surface of the Earth, consequently on the ground, and it falls into the sky.

A Space Elevator made of a carbon nano tubes composite ribbon anchored to an offshore sea platform would stretch to a small counterweight approximately 62,000 miles (100,000 km) into space. Mechanical lifters attached to the ribbon would then climb the ribbon, carrying cargo and humans into space, at a price of only about $100 to $400 per pound ($220 to $880 per kg).

Such technologies would lead to a terminology called "SPACE HIGHWAYS", which means high speed connectivity link between any celestial body and the space using a ultra high speed vehicle rolling over the it.

Looking energetically, the space elevator is the device that uses the Earth's rotational energy. Lifting up the load on greater distances is energetically very profitable. As the difference from the rocket, lifting up and landing can be done continuously. The price for drive would be law. That is the only way for massive lifting up of the load in the future. Other uses are possible, as for example the transmission of the electric power to the ground, improvement of the telecommunications etc. The space elevator would be ecologically very acceptable.

The greatest barrier in the technical sense and the most demanding task would be lifting up and setting up the first cable on the synchronous axis.

This is no more science fiction, this is what I called Technology.
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