Viruses generally have a pejorative connotation (a seriously bad rap) -- whether they destroy your computer's hard drive, or whether they have you wheezing and weak, at home in bed. They are quite small, easily manipulable (biochemically), can be laboratory-modified and produced as needed, and are the smallest and simplest physical structures that are acknowledged by the scientific community as living organisms. They are resilient, and in terms of potential energy to mass ratio, one of the most powerful little battery packs known to Humankind at the date of this writing.
Configured properly, viruses can be the key component in operations where potential energy is turned to mechanical energy, and that mechanical energy is is converted to usable or storable electrical energy.
Because of their tremendously effective ability to survive changing environmental conditions, and due to their incredibly potent method of reproduction by invasion and DNA host cell conversion, propagating viral-based "colonial" power cells does not represent a daunting challenge.
Unlike nanotechnology and many other promising technologies for the improved health and longevity of our species which require a great deal of value added intellectual and experimental work, the virus may represent the fastest path to scalable energy production.
Some article excerpts follow for your further exploration of this topic.
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Article excerpt courtesy of SmartPlanet:
A new electricity source: Viruses!
Article Excerpt courtesy of BigThink:
Scientists Build Electricity Producing Viruses
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Readers of The Global Futurist Blog can anticipate many partnerships to be forming between commercial interests and academic institutions over the next two years to be able to refine development of this approach and to commercialize it within the next 36 to 48 months.
Wind power, solar power, hydroelectric power, geothermal power and Thorium-based electronic power are all disadvantaged in the race for a solution to the global energy crisis because of their lengthy development time tables (from theory to application), their large expense to construct or create or due to the need for very expensive safety precautions and testing (over repeated trials) of these precautions to ensure a wary public of their efficacy.
Douglas E. Castle
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