What is the world's smallest combustion engine?

Let's get our weekly dose of information and talk about combustion engine.

Image: source

An example of combustion engine that is familiar to us exists in the form of a car engine. In simple term, combustion engine is an engine which generates mechanical power by combustion of a fuel. 

Common sense tells us that the bigger the car, the bigger the engine will be. Open the front bonnet of your car and you will have some idea about its size.

How about smallest combustion engine? For now, this kind of engines sit in the lab rather than roaring on the road or spinning inside machines. Scientists call them microelectrical mechanical systems, MEMS.

How small?

In 2003, Birmingham University unveiled an engine just a few milimetres wide. They claimed that batteries would give way to lighter fuel-powered gadgets. This has not materialise yet, as it turn out to be. Otherwise we would have seen many in the market to take over the job of batteries.

In Japan, researchers at Ritsumeikan University reported in 2007 a MEMS engine with a 5mm combustion chamber and capacity of just 0.017cc. That is more than 85,000 times smaller than your typical 1.3 litre engine Perodua Myvi or Proton Saga.

So small, what are these engines for?

You cannot yet find them in the market - at least not in big scale - probably due to the difficulty in manufacture or issues on return of investment, or could simply be due to lack of application. If there are possible applications for such tiny engines, they could probably find their ways in the field of medical, military instruments, robots, or simply watches, laptops and communication gadgets.

Source: I got this fact from this weekend's Daily Express but the opinion and expansion of story are my own.

Small town looks to Renewable Energy

This is very interesting, and inspiring.

Fowler, a small town in Colorado, USA, with a population of slightly over 1,000 have recently became a standard-bearer for towns looking to become green town. It went grid neutral, i.e.,  producing as much or more power than it uses.

Image: city-data.com

How many towns, or even villages around and near you that have population of 1,000? Many, I bet. I know of some villages/towns that span some tens of acres that boost a population of 1,500 and above. We are not particularly interested in the inhabitants but rather lessons we can learn from what the folks did in Fowler.

Fowler's green initiatives

The initial motivation, according to the town's former administrator, Wayne Snider, was to save money but they realised that it was also the potential to create more jobs.

One initiative that came to fruition was a 600 kWp photovoltaic panels at seven sites around the town on municipal property. It was a $1.2 million project that sells the electricity back to Fowler at about half the rate of the current utility. First year saving from this initiative was estimated at $20,000.

Others that have been planned were 2 MWp solar array at the south of the town, and an anaerobic digestion plant that would create 45 jobs which could bring Fowler closer to grid-neutrality. These did not materialise though, after the change in the leadership of the small town lead to changes in the solar rebates policy. Snider has since move to work on similar green projects at other towns in Colorado.

Lessons to learn

With the numerous green campaigns by both public and private sectors in Malaysia, I believe that a large majority of Malaysians would have now become aware of the importance of Renewable Energy and many would like their energy coming from clean energy sources. This can be done less expensively if the appropriate structure is developed. It takes people with an open mind who have a desire to make change for the better.

We know that we can benefit from the recently gazetted Renewable Energy Act 2011, but I feel that sometimes we don't need everything to be legislated for new green ideas to flourish. Fowler is a small town and it is the smaller townships that are more suited for these sort of programmes as they can cut much of the cities red tape.

Lastly, if you have small town that is away from the grid, why not think about combining solar photovoltaic, bio-gas and wind mills to supply small power for the town? It's called decentralised power and it's green!

More lessons can be learn from what Gussing, Burgenland did for its 3,764 or so population.


Note: The Fowler story can be found at Renewable Energy World.

New Galaxy S3 launched and Compared with 4S, S2 and One X

The new Galaxy S3 that many have been waiting for is finally here.

All questions and rumours of specifications of the new Samsung Galaxy S3 has now been answered with its official announcement on 3rd May 2012. In case you were wondering if all the speculated specs materialised, head on to All New Samsung Galaxy S3, published back in March 2012.

First impression is that, the S3 resembles the iPhone 3GS, minus the excessive curved corners when front-viewed. Not that it looks bad; it is something I personally wanted done on the iPhone 4S.

Comparison with its predecessor Galaxy S2, rivals One X and iPhone 4S

The comparison is purely on specifications and not based on practical test on each gadget as at the time of compiling this article, the Galaxy S3 is not yet available to the public. There are two main aspect that consumers tend to pit a particular smart phone against another namely ease of use and 'on-paper' performance. On-paper performance refers to technical data sheet providing details of manufacturer's measured parameters. 

Many instances of tests done in the past tell us that higher specced smart phone does not necessarily perform better when bench-marked hands on with another that is slightly falls below it. The likely winner would be one that could combine the better specifications with ease of use.

 

From L-to-R: Galaxy S2, Galaxy S3, iPhone 4S and HTC One X

Galaxy S2 and iPhone 4S are included in this table to give you an idea of what kind of improvements the manufacturers of S3 and One X have included in the newer gadgets.

If you ask me, I would say the S3 look nicely built and is is only fair that Android should match that with a more stable OS and improved intuitiveness. Will just have to wait for it to be launched in Malaysia to get to feel the metal.