Russian scientists create the stellar battery?

There aren't a lot of details on this one, but according to the AFP news agency, Russian scientists have developed a sort of super battery that can not only harness solar power, but star power as well. Yeah, you heard us. Valentin Samoilov of the Dubna Nuclear Institute is quoted as saying that they "have successfully created a new substance... thanks to which this battery can work on earth, independently of meteorological conditions, using solar and stellar energy." Samoilov also added that the new battery would be cheaper than a traditional solar panel, which kinda started to spike our fantastical-meters. Another report from ITAR-TASS describes this new substance as a "heteroelectric" but doesn't elaborate any further; we'll need a few more deets before we place our pre-pre-orders, but anything that supposes to save us both power and money by harnessing the power of distant stellar bodies has definitely got our immediate attention.

[Via Futurismic]

[suhail Jhand @ May 27th 2006 8:56PM]

dont you think steller energy that reaches earth is almost negligible?

[Tull @ May 27th 2006 9:13PM]

Damn commies.

[Huck @ May 27th 2006 9:14PM]

Whaaaaat? i need to check my calendar. i thought it was May not April 1.06

[strider_mt2k @ May 27th 2006 9:20PM]

I guess the Luddites have spoken...

I say bully for them. Bring it on!!

[Ethan @ May 27th 2006 9:25PM]

Technically, solar energy is stellar energy, so this may just be a silly grab for publicity.

[DT @ May 27th 2006 9:38PM]

Sounds like Boris has had a little too much wodka, eh comrade?

[Little Joe @ May 27th 2006 9:39PM]

Cold War... take 2...

Action!

[Eric Domb @ May 27th 2006 10:19PM]

I'm involved with the development of thses batteries. We are currently working on a model that will be for use in urban environments which will convert ambient light into usable energy. The material used in these urban, more aesthetically pleasing and socially accepted batteries is metroelectric.

Sorry, I had to.

[NeoteriX @ May 27th 2006 10:36PM]

Here in Communist Russia, batteries use YOU.

[leojsoap @ May 27th 2006 10:47PM]

speaking of new energy stuff…
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CMovXzVOzc4
http://hytechapps.com/index.html

[erik @ May 27th 2006 10:53PM]

damnit number 9, beat me to it...

[Speedmetal @ May 27th 2006 10:53PM]

Communist Russia? Hasn't been that way for 15 years.

[kerunt @ May 27th 2006 11:13PM]

That's an interesting development! Just think about the gadgets we will have in 5-10 years!

#12, #9 is just another dumbass American expressing his in-depth knowlege of the world. Don't mind him ;).

[hiroo @ May 27th 2006 11:23PM]

Oh, come on, you guys are sooooo skeptical. Americans develop magic substance that can boost gas milage up to 10 times all the time. Give Russians their chance, too.

[Oozer @ May 27th 2006 11:25PM]

kerunt, that "Communist Russia" quote was just a take off of a Family Guy joke. He's not a "dumbass American," he's just being clever.

"heteroelectric"? Well thank God, because can you imagine lighting something with homoelectric power? That would be one flamboyant light.

[Tony Rayo @ May 27th 2006 11:36PM]

The reason the person used the words "communist russia", is because they were making a Yakov Smirnov reference (who was a comedian during the time Russia existed as a communist state). Please don't assume people are dumb just because you don't get the joke and furthermore please don't assume dumb people only reside in America... they are most assuredly a worldwide org. =).

Back to the story though, if anything does come of this I'll be awfully surprised, as solar energy has existed for years and still only has limited uses for reasons of cost over benefits.

[Apothus @ May 27th 2006 11:52PM]

im sceptical, it sounds like a grand idea (a little too grand). the main point of interest is why they appear to have essentially binded two components. solar pannels and batterys rely on completely different properties.

Einstein that grand american demonstated that with the photo electric effect, electrons get bumbed out of materialls by photons whilst batteries are a chemical reaction in which electrons are transfered from one element to the other (essentially). for this idea to work it would there would have to be a casing that could take advantage of the photo electric effect and instead of passing the e- through the wires into another element storing a charge.

im going to hold off any more scheptisum becuase i hope that i am wrong (i live in country WA so solar power is a big thing over here)But it still sounds like a good old piece of propaganda

[haha @ May 27th 2006 11:59PM]

we know this is going to be total rubbish.

triumph of the cranks

[Quinlan @ May 28th 2006 12:06AM]

"Samoilov also added that the new battery would be cheaper than a traditional solar panel, which kinda started to spike our fantastical-meters."

[yubastard @ May 28th 2006 12:16AM]

damn! I wish I had a stellar battery for my cellphone

[Rob @ May 28th 2006 12:54AM]

Reminds me of when I was a kid reading a magazine about harnessing lunar energy. The magazine was called National Lampoon.

[Oddmanout @ May 28th 2006 3:20AM]

Dubious at best. "Stellar battery" ? If this were something intended for use in a deep space probe that had virtually no moving parts and would need every erg of energy it could collect (and wouldn't have to do so through an atmosphere) I might almost believe it, but as is it sounds a bit far fetched that this tech can be put to any practical terestrial application.

[BklynKid @ May 28th 2006 4:16AM]

In mother Russia, carrr drrive you!

[Melker63 @ May 28th 2006 4:43AM]

Quote: "10. speaking of new energy stuff…
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CMovXzVOzc4"

Unless it works also on salty ocean-water, we in deep shit anyway. Freshwater is increasily a scarse commodity these days.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2003/world_forum/water/default.stm

[nosferatukiller @ May 28th 2006 7:16AM]

The truth is that I don't know why you are surprised so much, it is true that probably it is a real new invention and on that aspect it did surprise me. But though I don't have no idea of what it may be the reason for it too work. I basicaly think that we just hold on the evident (day light, in the spectrum we can see with our eyes). What about if the batery instead of reacting to normal viewable wave frecuencies (like day light)it wold work on other ones like x-ray radiation or any other cosmic energy that our planet absorves every day no matter if it is day or night?

[nosferatukiller @ May 28th 2006 7:22AM]

Just one thing 17, I agree with you in your theory and I think that it doesen't invalidate what I say about other wave fequencies but I do have to say something. Einstein was not American he was German and Jewish he left Germany mainly doe to the Nazi persecution. An other thing is that he found the oportunity to work it out in the US. But the fact is that most of the most famous theories of Einstein were done even before he left hes home land.

[weatherman @ May 28th 2006 8:09AM]

Leo: first, that's toally off topic. Second, that piece is about some guy who figured out a way to make hydrogen gas, which he calls "Aquygen Gen," from water. Even if his claims of making "HHO" are true (HHO being a somewhat dubious gas theory) or he has made a more efficient electrolysis procedure (possibly a big boon to hydrogen cars) the very idea of powering a vehicle on water is absurd: the process requires electrical energy to convert water to combustible gas, and you're not getting that electricity on board the car - the MOST energy that you could get out of the combustion would be the SAME energy you put in with electricity in the first place.

If what you're talking about though is making that energy portable, then yes, hydrogen gas can do that. We've known that for years. Hundreds of years.

"Oy, but what about this HHO theory? Couldn't that somehow make the energy more portable?" No. I suppose there are some who would say that the gas is somehow safer (I'm not doing a lot of research on this) but even if it is, it's going to be nine times heavier than hydrogen gas of the same energy output. The most efficient way to power a "water car" is to break hydrogen away from oxygen, load the tank up with hydrogen, then recombine it with oxygen drawn from the air. That process removes most of the weight from the fuel itself (oxygen being 16 times heavier than hydrogen).

So maybe this guy has invented some kind of novel twist on the decades old "HHO" or "water torch" technology, but it doesn't sound to me like it's a revolution in energy production or portability. Honestly it sounds like a bunch of hooey.

Melker: last time I checked, sea water was made of H2O.

As for the theory that the world is running out of water, those BBC articles are some of the worst bits of yellow journalism I've seen in a while. Very little fact, lots of hype:

"One of the disappointments of the World Water Forum in Japan in March 2002 was its focus on mega-engineering solutions like dams and pipelines, rather than using natural systems like forests and wetlands to conserve water."

"Because the world's water suppy is finite, most of life's other necessities are finite as well."

Quotes like these suggest a complete lack of understanding of the way that water circulates in our environment, and what is really needed to conserve water in areas where growth outstrips supply. I consider myself an environmentalist - heck, I've been in front of congress testifying on environmental issues. But those articles completely miss the boat (NPI) when it comes to water policy. And they give nutters half-baked notions that make them run around crying that the world is running out of water, and that "water will be more important than oil this century" -- well of course it will be, because we're going to run out of oil! Cheezits are going to be more important than oil!

Oh, and Melker: are there really 62 others?

[YourNameHere @ May 28th 2006 9:12AM]

"kerunt, that "Communist Russia" quote was just a take off of a Family Guy joke."--#15

Dude, that joke goes back much further than family guy.

[nosferatukiller @ May 28th 2006 10:18AM]

I realy don't quite understand why the hassles of H2O and H, as faar as I read the article doesen't mention for a moment anything about electrolisis to separete water in too hidrogen.
On the other hand, what may be a luxury in this next century about the water will be rather the potable water, the drinkable one. doubt a lot that the seas will dry as an example. The cicle of water is easy, evaporation, condensation, rain and evaporation again. I even doubt that there could be a mass evaporation of water since I doubt the admosphere could withstand all the waight of the evaporated water. What I don't know... going a bit further, is if in the high estratosfere we have small parts of our atmosfere geting lost in space doe to the little gravety and solar winds or so. But in any case difficultly we wold get too loose much water that way neather since at such low temperatures the water condenses and as so it becomes heavier long before it reaches "outer space". All in all, what I'm coming to say is that water my be every day a more value font of life if the climate changes, but only in certain places. In others it may become a nighmare with all kind of heavy storms but one thing is sure, water will keep on falling from the skies in one part or other of the planet and whon't desapear in a very long periode of time.

[ikk @ May 28th 2006 10:41AM]

"24. Unless it works also on salty ocean-water, we in deep shit anyway. Freshwater is increasily a scarse commodity these days."

i believe it works on H2O, which isn't freshwater ;)

[mythos @ May 28th 2006 10:43AM]

I've been all over the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research's website. There is no Valentin Samoilov or Applied Research Center as reported by ITAR-TASS
(http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=8798924).

See for yourself, http://www.jinr.dubna.su/struct.htm.
I scoured their site, translating a number of pages from
Russian trying to verify their source. This is bunk.

[nosferatukiller @ May 28th 2006 11:20AM]

Ok, H2O is not tap water, I know but you can aply electrolisis to it quite in the same matter I think as to get H out of it and the solid residues... well I supose you will have to scrach them off the depo. :))
Anyway, it is also possible to create destilated watter though I don't know if the energy required for that wold be cost efficient.

[Lenbot @ May 28th 2006 11:20AM]

ummmm check it out 31. I think he does exist but that doesn't make this 100% true of course

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:1GE-oTFduzYJ:atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/ORGANISATION/Directory/S_atlas_users.html+%22Valentin+Samoilov%22Scientist&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=5

[nosferatukiller @ May 28th 2006 11:24AM]

Yes, but don't you find something curious? in Russia the domains are: .ru and not .ch as faar as I know could that mean that the guy is realy in Chequia? anyone knows?

[nosferatukiller @ May 28th 2006 11:29AM]

Forguet my last coment, I don't know what cern.ch means but now I saw that all the rest of the institutions that come out of it have the same domain and un the top it says generic mail... who knows what will that mean. The only thing we have about this guy is a name and a suposed nuclear reserch organization, just the same as in the begginging. At least there are some that have telephones but this one doesen't even have that.

[nosferatukiller @ May 28th 2006 11:31AM]

Ok, the institute exists it seems:

http://www.jinr.dubna.su/ it whas as easy as looking in google!!!

[nosferatukiller @ May 28th 2006 11:45AM]

There you have the link that Samoilov exists and has to do with the research facility, what? I don't know, but if someone knows russian perhaps he can clear that for us.

http://lit.jinr.ru/cgi-bin/search.cgi?ul=www.jinr.ru&restrict=&exclude=&q=Samoilov&OK=...

[CHeese @ May 28th 2006 12:53PM]

.ch stand for switzerland (confederatio helvetica) and CERN is a big multinational research facility featuring a huge particle collider, based in Switzerland

[obm @ May 28th 2006 2:00PM]

Most probably they have found a chemical that turns cosmic rays into energy and stores it. Seems feasible, since in my knowledge japan and russia have the state of the art cosmic ray detectors. CERN also specializes in high energy, and this material should serve as a perfect layer for their multi-layer detector scheme. Thinking how we are constantly bombarded by cosmic rays, and in an increasing manner with the decrease in ozone layer, this thing will work night and day, even underground! I don't think much energy is harnessed at this level though.

[Clay @ May 28th 2006 2:44PM]

Oh number 9, you beat me so easily.

Next time!

[Emceay @ May 28th 2006 3:45PM]

In non-soviet Russia, the past clings to Vladamir Putin.

[Jurij Burkanov @ May 28th 2006 4:57PM]

I'll believe it, when I'll see this thing working in my cellphone.

[ethana2 @ May 28th 2006 10:47PM]

uh. I'm glad to see that they intend to use technology for us instead of against us... they still.. ok cut through the conspiracy stuff. Google "scalar EG" or "phase congugate EM" and stuff like that. There is such thing as subspace, and it is possible to directly suck thermal energy out of things, like stars, at superluminal speeds using longitudinal electrogravitational waves. They have used the technology to suck heat out of the earth, and now, they can target the interior of our sun. Beleive me or call me nuts. Its true, guys. I'll spare you an in-depth explanation- you'll find that somewhere else if you care, anyway. Eman out.

[nosferatukiller @ May 29th 2006 1:57AM]

A pitie that I only found on Google one person's theory, I still didn't read it so don't know were to go from here. Anyway, are you sure it isn't more sience fiction this thing of 'subspace'? I have seen it in many articles about Startrek but no serious articles exeptuating this one:

http://www.physicsguy.com/subphys/SubspacePhysics.html

That is written in 1994 and as I say, as a philosophical theory more then fisic standards for the little part I have seen. If some one whant's to read it, I will, but when I have some time... I hope to understand it too. ;)

[Aigarius @ May 29th 2006 11:47AM]

The story seems to be true:

More detailed press release:
http://www.dubna.ru/news/7/2006-05-25

Linking of the name to the institute:
http://www.jinr.ru/jinrmag/koi8/2005/17/nc17.htm

Patents:
http://www.fips.ru/rupatimage/0/2000000/2200000/2240000/2249000/2249277.pdf

It looks like another kind of Gratzel cells based on titanium oxide microparticles. At this case doped with some heavy metal ions for increasing the energy efficiency in long wavelength path of solar spectrum.

Basically they doubled the efficiency of conversion of the visible part of the spectrum and increased the efficiency of the conversion of IR range by 50%. Additionally the material can be tweaked to adapt to any other part of the spectrum.

Fun stuff, lets hope that it will come to a product eventually.

[R. Weir @ May 29th 2006 11:49AM]

Dr. Samoilov was on a experimental group that measured the energy of protons and deuterons and their effect on certain materials. The invention is more than likely based on this work. As stated in the Russan atricle, this device is cheaper than solar pannels not batteries. This device is a solar cell based on producding electrical energy from protons and deuterons. The cell may be more efficient but there is very little energy in protons and deutrons and the size of this cell would be extremely large to produce in significant electrical energy.