New Innovations in Technology

Throughout the recent history of our world, the human race has developed and improved in many ways. Most of those improvements are through technology. In 1752, a man by the name of Benjamin Franklin tied a key to a kite and innovated electricity. Thomas Edison harnessed that electricity and changed it into light. It was through these inventions that the modern world can do all that they can do. Who knows what innovations of this era will be the next electricity. Will it be wireless power, LASIK eye surgery, E85 ethanol to power our vehicles, or will we completely stray away from fossil fuels and use electric cars?

Wireless Power

In the late 19th century, the realization that electricity could be coaxed to light up a bulb prompted a mad dash to determine the best way to distribute it. At the head of the pack was inventor Nikola Tesla, who had a grand scheme to beam elec­tricity around the world. Having difficulty imagining a vast infrastructure of wires extending into every city, building, and room, Tesla figured that wireless was the way to go. He drew up plans for a tower, about 57 meters tall, that he claimed would transmit power to points kilometers away, and even started to build one on Long Island. Though his team did some tests, funding ran out before the tower was completed. The promise of airborne power faded rapidly as the industrial world proved willing to wire up.

Then, a few years ago, Marin Soljacic, an assistant professor of physics at MIT, was dragged out of bed by the insistent beeping of a cell phone. "This one didn't want to stop until you plugged it in for charging," says Soljačić. In his exhausted state, he wished the phone would just begin charging itself as soon as it was brought into the house.

So Soljacic started searching for ways to transmit power wirelessly. Instead of pursuing a long-distance scheme like Tesla's, he decided to look for midrange power transmission methods that could charge--or even power--portabl­e devices such as cell phones, PDAs, and laptops. He eventually landed on the phenome­non of resonant coupling, in which two objects tuned to the same frequency exchange energy strongly but interact only weakly with other objects. A classic example is a set of wine glasses, each filled to a different level so that it vibrates at a different sound frequency. If a singer hits a pitch that matches the frequency of one glass, the glass might absorb so much acoustic energy that it will shatter; the other glasses remain unaffected.

Soljacic found magnetic resonance a promising means of electricity transfer because magnetic fields travel freely through air yet have little effect on the environment or, at the appropriate frequencies, on living beings. He devised a simple setup that wirelessly powered a 60-watt light bulb.

"In today's battery-operated world, there are so many potential applications where this might be useful," he says. "It's a powerful concept."

LASIK

LASIK is used to correct refractive errors. It is eye surgery that reshapes the cornea in order to produce clear vision. The LASIK refractive eye surgery procedure can treat myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), and astigmatism, and reduce patients’ dependency on contact lenses and glasses. Because refractive errors impede the focusing ability of the eye, patients who suffer from these conditions experience blurred vision. LASIK eye surgery provides these individuals with an effective treatment option, where a predetermined amount of corneal tissue is removed. This reshaping of the cornea improves the eye’s focusing power and enhances patients’ visual acuity.

The traditional LASIK vision correction procedure begins with the creation of a hinged corneal flap. After the eye is anesthetized with topical eye drops, the LASIK eye surgeon creates the flap on the outer surface of the eye to expose the underlying cornea. The flap can be created with a hand-held device (scalpel) or with a computer-guided laser. The cornea is then reshaped using an excimer laser and the flap is replaced.

E85 Ethanol

E85 is an alcohol fuel mixture that typically contains a mixture of up to 85% denatured fuel ethanol and gasoline or other hydrocarbon by volume. On an under natured basis, the ethanol component ranges from 70% to 83%. E85 as a fuel is widely used in Sweden and is becoming increasingly common in the United States, mainly in the Midwest where corn is a major crop and is the primary source material for ethanol fuel production; however as yet, there are about 1500 filling stations selling E85 to the public in the US, and, until recently, only three in Canada.

E-85 ethanol is used in engines modified to accept higher concentrations of ethanol. Such flexible-fuel vehicles (FFV) are designed to run on any mixture of gasoline or ethanol with up to 85% ethanol by volume. There are a few major differences between FFVs and non-FFVs. One is the elimination of bare magnesium, aluminum, and rubber parts in the fuel system. Another is that fuel pumps must be capable of operating with electrically conductive ethanol instead of non-conducting dielectric gasoline fuel. Fuel injection control systems have a wider range of pulse widths to injection approximately 40% more fuel. In some cases, FFVs use acid-neutralizing motor oil. For vehicles with fuel-tank mounted fuel pumps, additional differences to prevent arcing, as well as flame arrestors positioned in the tanks fill pipe, are also sometimes used.

Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peat lands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a "biofuel carbon debt" by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages

Electric Cars

A new kind of car that is supposed to slash gasoline consumption and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is finally out. The car is a modified Toyota Prius with an extra battery installed in the spare-tire compartment. Conventional hybrids like the Prius run on an electric motor part of the time, but the electricity they use is generated by a gasoline engine and by capturing energy from braking. In the plug-in version of the car, the extra battery can be recharged from an electrical outlet. The battery stores about 40 miles' worth of electricity; if it's depleted, the car reverts to conventional hybrid mode.

The few plug-in vehicles on the road today are prototypes that, as is being discovered, aren't always reliable. But recent advances in battery technology have attracted the attention of major manufacturers, raising the possibility of a mass-produced plug-in car. General Motors has announced that it is developing plug-in hybrids that use advanced lithium-ion batteries and could be ready within a few years. One of the GM designs--for a car known as the Volt--calls for a gasoline engine that kicks in after 40 miles just to recharge the battery. Toyota also says it is researching lithium-ion batteries and testing plug-in vehicles.

An electric battery with a 40-mile range could nearly eliminate trips to the gas station for many drivers, since Americans drive just over 30 miles a day on average. But unlike earlier, all-electric cars, the new hybrids could handle longer commutes; the Volt is designed to travel 600 miles using its backup gas tank to charge the battery. And electricity from the grid is cheap: the equivalent of a gallon of gas costs less than a dollar.

The environmental arithmetic is also favorable. Generating the electricity to power plug-in cars causes less greenhouse-gas pollution than burning gasoline does, according to a recent study by the Electric Power Research Institute and the National Resources Defense Council. Even in the worst-case scenario, in which a plug-in vehicle got all its electricity from coal-fired plants (in reality, electricity in the United States comes from a mix of sources that on average release less carbon dioxide than coal plants do), it would still be responsible for a third less ­greenhouse-­gas pollution than a conventional car. And though plug-ins and conventional hybrids would account for similar amounts of greenhouse-gas emission in most parts of the country, plug-ins in areas with clean sources of electricity, such as hydroelectric power, would be responsible for about half the carbon dioxide emissions of other hybrids.

Unlike other alternative technologies, such as cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, plug-ins doesn’t require any significant new infrastructure. Existing gas stations would provide the fuel for long trips, and electrical outlets in garages would provide the power for short commutes. (Eventually, charging stations could be installed for city dwellers.) And plenty of electricity is available, particularly overnight. According to a study from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, there's already enough excess generating capacity at night to charge 84 percent of the cars, pickups, and SUVs on the road today, if they were all suddenly converted into plug-in hybrids.

It will be through these new developments and innovations in technology and science that the human race will be able to continue on to affect the world in only a positive way.