Perry Newman
Perry Newman
Potato Power
Hoping there’s light at the end of the tunnel for Maine after this recession? Thanks to Israeli ingenuity, there may be light at the end of the tuber.
Behold the humble spud, backbone of Aroostook County, food stock to billions, and power source to the world.
What’s that? Did I lose you at “power source?” Give me a moment to explain. While it may be a bit premature to say “switch on the russet” rather than “turn on the light,” we may, believe it or not, be getting closer to that day.
Most of us know that The County produces upwards of a million tons of potatoes annually, and some tuber aficionados may be aware that another 300 million tons are produced each year around the globe, with production in developing countries increasing faster than production in the developed world.
But I’m guessing that few of us have given much thought to the potato as a scalable power source. True, some may hearken back to middle school
science fairs and remember plugging electrodes into a potato and powering a lightbulb, but that’s a far cry from banking on the potato as a legitimate renewable and sustainable source of electricity.
Or is it?
Scientists from Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed an organic electric battery—actually, a kind of potato sandwich—to meet what they describe as “significant, low-power needs such as lighting, telecommunications, and information transfer.” Though your basic potato remains the conductive medium, it’s actually a metal-and boiled-potato sandwich of sorts that takes this development from the science fair to the patent office and beyond.
The breakthrough came when the scientists discovered that boiling a potato prior to using it in electrolysis increased the power generated by a factor of 10 and enabled the battery to work for weeks, not hours. It seems that boiling the potato reduces the resistance dramatically by damaging membranes but not the other cell components within the potato.
Researchers working with more conventional batteries are struggling to accomplish similar reductions in resistance. With the low-tech potato, however, it is simply a matter of boiling the bugger and squeezing it between metal plates.
According to the Hebrew University researchers, the boiled-potato-sandwich battery generates energy that is five times cheaper than 1.5 volt D batteries and 50 times cheaper than Energizer E91 cells.
The university has decided to give the invention away for free with the goal of bringing cleaner electricity to the nearly 2 billion people in the developing world who lack electricity but who do have access to potatoes. Potatoes are inexpensive, are grown in more than 130 countries, and are available year-round.
Talk about a game changer. In an instant, practically speaking, billions of people may soon have access to cellular communications, personal computers, and lighting for their dwellings.
All this from a potato.
So what can we take from this story of ingenuity, generosity, and resource-
fulness?
I confess that there is a part of me that wants immediately to submit a grant application to the Maine Technology Institute to support further research and development, as well as feasibility studies, so that this technology, which already is proven on a small and highly local scale, might be somehow adapted to power an entire home, or even multiple dwellings.
But I’m more than willing for the University of Maine—or anyone else—to take the tuber and run with it.
It would be even more satisfying if this potato saga signaled the cultivation of a heightened level of innovation and creativity. A few years back a group of Maine businesses and organizations began to explore the potential of deriving plastics from potatoes. I’m not sure where that stands, but it is surely another indication that we are harvesting only a portion of the value to be derived from the Maine potato.
Making something out of nothing, innovating to do more with readily available resources, creating opportunity out of what is literally in our hands or even lying on the ground, and sharing it on a global basis—these are the skills we will need to develop, or perhaps recapture, just as surely as we need to develop new technologies and new sources of energy.
I don’t know whether fate is involved or if history unfolds in cycles, but I can’t help but feel it would be fitting if Maine’s prosperity and power in the 21st century was tied once again to the modest crop that has helped to nurture this state for nearly two centuries.
Perry B. Newman is president of Atlantica Group LLC, an international business consulting firm based in Portland with clients in North America, Israel, and Europe.
You must log in to post a comment.