4 ms·

> a team at Concordia University in Wisconsin developed micro photosynthetic power cells that generate electricity from algae. Cool! But I’m so cynical about t

> a team at Concordia University in Wisconsin developed micro photosynthetic power cells that generate electricity from algae. Cool! But I’m so cynical about this: there are so many cool party tricks you can pull off in a lab. The hard part is making it scale and be economical. And that’s why 99.9% of these stories end with: “and we never heard from them again”. Still I genuinely hope I’m wrong

szvsw 2y ago
Yeah scale is always the hard part; but it’s academia’s role largely to turn over stones and see what’s under them. It’s industry’s job to figure out which pathways are actually worth pursuing and which can be scalable/economically feasible. You never know which tech avenue might end up having some odd edge-case use unseen by researchers that ends up being a revolutionary because industry figures out how to apply it in some adjacent domain.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  It's not really that disjoint, though. Academics spin out companies, and companies employ scientists.
  - szvsw 2y ago
    Oh 100% - I am part-time employed by one such company and am currently pursuing a doctorate. I was just trying to point out that it’s always worth it IMO to be trying out all sorts of crazy stuff like this even if it doesn’t pan out as a deployable tech. If it makes sense to spin out the startup, it will happen!
jdub 2y ago
"power cells that generate electricity from algae"... in mice
- rvense 2y ago
  Maybe specially bred mice that eat algae and put millions of them in little hamster wheels?
  - CoastalCoder 2y ago
    Eat algae -> fart methane -> fuel cell ?
Aachen 2y ago
The paper linked in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40668458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40668458 doesn't sound like they've developed any power cells, only modeled what their behavior would be, so it's not even "a cool party trick they pulled off in a lab" but "pulled off in a computer" On the other hand, section 3 iirc is the one where they discuss manufacturing, so there is some thought already going into what you're saying
petra 2y ago
Algae is very hard to scale. Do many r&d projects...is there anything that has scaled with algae?

szvsw 2y ago

Yeah scale is always the hard part; but it’s academia’s role largely to turn over stones and see what’s under them. It’s industry’s job to figure out which pathways are actually worth pursuing and which can be scalable/economically feasible. You never know which tech avenue might end up having some odd edge-case use unseen by researchers that ends up being a revolutionary because industry figures out how to apply it in some adjacent domain.

robertlagrant 2y ago
It's not really that disjoint, though. Academics spin out companies, and companies employ scientists.
- szvsw 2y ago
  Oh 100% - I am part-time employed by one such company and am currently pursuing a doctorate. I was just trying to point out that it’s always worth it IMO to be trying out all sorts of crazy stuff like this even if it doesn’t pan out as a deployable tech. If it makes sense to spin out the startup, it will happen!

jdub 2y ago

"power cells that generate electricity from algae"... in mice

rvense 2y ago
Maybe specially bred mice that eat algae and put millions of them in little hamster wheels?
- CoastalCoder 2y ago
  Eat algae -> fart methane -> fuel cell ?

Aachen 2y ago

The paper linked in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40668458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40668458 doesn't sound like they've developed any power cells, only modeled what their behavior would be, so it's not even "a cool party trick they pulled off in a lab" but "pulled off in a computer" On the other hand, section 3 iirc is the one where they discuss manufacturing, so there is some thought already going into what you're saying

petra 2y ago

Algae is very hard to scale. Do many r&d projects...is there anything that has scaled with algae?