Biopowers: Energies from Living Things

In 1962 a team of scientists produced a special radio station that had a range of 15 miles. Even though communication was being accomplished in space at a range of more than a million times this distance, the new radio caused much excitement among scientists. The reason: its power supply was a "battery" made of bacteria. For 1he first time, practical amounts of electricity were being produced by a form of life and put to use.

Called a "biocell", the new power supply had a liquid fuel containing tiny forms of life that changed the fuel directly into electric energy. This was far more than an interesting experiment. The biocell is being developed as a producer of electricity for radios, for signals to guide ships, for lights, and for other uses. Though the working biocell is only a few years old, some scientists feel that it will one day produce power cheaply as is now being done by other methods, and that the biocell will use materials that would otherwise be considered waste. Early biocells were powered with sugar, but a wide range of fuels can be used. Work is being done using sea water to feed the bacteria. Grass cuttings or even dry leavings are suggested for possible use.

History of Biopower

Electricity from living cells is no new idea. Man experienced the strange "shock" produced by some fish even before electricity was really discovered. Then in time there were other discoveries. Benjamin Franklin found that the lightning in the sky was electricity Lulgi Galvani found electricity in the muscles and nerves of animals. But the African catfish produces far more electricity than most other living creatures. And another fish, the electric eel, is well named, for it has an even greater electric charge.

Research workers discovered that ever humans produce small amounts of electricity in their bodies. Our hearts produce a very small amount that can be measured, so do our brains Instruments measure the electric waves in both heart and brain for doctors and help them to decide what is causing a patient to feel sick.

Although all this was known of the relation between life and electricity, it was not until the 20^th century that serious work was begun on the production of electricity by bacteria. The first research results were published in 1912, and since 1960, much research work in this area has been done and the biocell has moved from being a curiousity of the scientific workshop to a practical source of power.

The biocell's future

The biocell is completely new in the field of power production and, as yet, no mass-produced models have begun to replace the older types of batteries. It might be wondered, then what all the excitement is about.

There are many methods for changing chemical energy to electricity already. At least one method is simpler and, in theory, delivers as much energy as is put into it. The biocell, on the other hand, uses about 50 per cent of its fuel just to feed the tiny bacteria that do the work in the cell.

However, the biocell can use as its fuel materials in many cases unusable for anything else. Supporters of the biocell point out that if practical biocells can be operated on fuels such as sea water, waste, air, and sunlight, and we will have a source of energy that will never end. Instead of burning fuels like wood and coal and oil as we have done for hundreds of years, we should look to nature for another way and let bacteria take over the task of power production in addition to those of producing food and medicine with which we are more familiar.

Research on biopower may not only benefit the production of electricity, but will also yield results helpful to food industries, such as cheese, which depend on the action of bacteria. Farming and chemistry will also profit, since bacteria are important in the processes occurring in those areas. In a world of space travel, of atomic power, and of a great number of other man-made developments, it is a pleasant change to see something as lowly as a "bacteria battery" seize the interest of engineers and scientists. The driving force behind biopower is life itself.