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/sci/ - Science & Math

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7167364 No.7167364 [Reply] [Original]

Why can't electric eels be bred to generate electricity?

>> No.7167368

>>7167364
*bred to generate electricity supplies*

>> No.7167375

>>7167364
because they're inefficient.

>> No.7167411

Thermodynamics.

Unless their environment is passively flowing through them.

>> No.7167456
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7167456

Why can't we breed trees with recombinant eel DNA to generate electricity? Solar panels that literally grow on trees.

>in b4 the trees escape to the wild and we have huge groves of trees that electrocute anyone who gets close

>> No.7167472

>>7167456
Not a bad idea.

>> No.7167527

>>7167364
>eels bred to generate electricity
that's not how it works.

>> No.7167541

>>7167527
>>7167368
This

>> No.7167671
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7167671

The efficiency(of the individual cells) is relatively low at 15.4%, plus an individual electric eel can't really produce that much power over a sustained period. The efficiency is notable though because it is more efficient than current glucose fuel cells, although the power densities are lower.

There has been some work showing that artificial cells could be used to generate more power: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2767210/

Now the problem with using cells like this to generate power is how you feed the cells. This does make sense for generating power inside the human body from blood glucose to power implants, but you do run into problems with biocompatibility.

>>7167456
Photosynthesis has a really low efficiency

>> No.7167699

>>7167671
Everyone listen to this guy.

>> No.7167999

Despite the inefficiency it also might be the same reason we can't generate energy from thunder (yet).

>> No.7168026

>>7167999
its me again. The efficiency is pretty damn good for conversion of what is probably glucose to electrical energy. The hard part is keeping the electrocyte cells alive. Tissue cultures don't really live that long and you can't really turn them off. As in your phone's battery could literally die on you if you didn't feed it for a few days.

We can generate energy from thunder and lightning, it just doesn't make any sense to build a device capable of doing so in significant amounts.

Significant amounts because piezoelectric microphones.

>> No.7168029

Because you are going to have to feed the things with something and you could have got more out of it by just simply burning the food.

>> No.7168082

>>7167671
I'd love to have electric eel hands, I could just slap everyone and send them into convulsions.

>> No.7168716

>>7167671
Photosynthesis of plants, but what about photosynthesis of modern cyano bacteria?