Soil As A Source Of Electricity
Dec 05, 2023 7:01 am
Soil As A Source Of Electricity
3 min read
Oil rigs, nuclear power tunnels, windmills, solar panels, coal power plants, rivers, dams, and lakes for hydropower and more. These are the ways of generating electricity that the world is most accustomed to. But with technology always evolving and at an ever-increasing pace, there is another form of generating electricity that is being explored and that is quite different from the rest – soil.
Farms take up a large amount of space, equating to 38% of our global land area. Bioo, a battery company in Barcelona, is generating electricity from soil using biobatteries.
They are also creating biological batteries that can produce enough electricity for agricultural centres, meaning single-use batteries don’t need to be used, thereby eliminating the need for farm workers to walk around farmland and replace the batteries inside sensors.
Soil is rich in fuel and harvesting that fuel can produce energy. Bioo’s biological batteries are used to power the sensors that farmers plant in farm soil to collect data. The battery will provide a constant supply of power as long as the soil is watered. These sensors will then give farmers the information that helps them decide when to irrigate and fertilise their crops most efficiently. This is essential as modern-day farmers rely more and more on data, technology, and automation to operate their farms as efficiently as possible.
How the Bioo battery sensor works
- Microorganisms feed on organic matter in the soil.
- Organic matter gets broken down.
- The process of breaking the organic matter down releases hydrogen ions and electrons.
- A wire inside the Bioo device transports the electrons from the anode of the battery to the cathode, powering the sensor in the process.
Benefits of this technology
- Energy is produced constantly (in every weather condition e.g. sun, cloud, rain, wind, and at every time of the day e.g. day, night etc.)
- Soil is readily available everywhere.
- Sensors will last up to 10 years instead of having batteries replaced multiple times a year.
- Is up to 10 times cheaper than chemical batteries (according to Bioo founder and CEO Pablo Vidarte).
As some of you may recall from your school science class, the acids in a potato are often used to power small lights. Using this same kind of concept, Bioo has developed ‘Bioo panels’ – larger biological batteries placed underground which also use the soil to produce energy which powers single streetlights or full lighting installations both during the day and at night. These panels function using the same principle in the sensor – constant breakdown of organic matter in the soil producing constant power.
One company, Bayer, has calculated that by using Bioo’s biological reactors for their sensors, they will be saving €1.5 billion per year. Bioo claims the following about its panels:
- Can power up to 6 light points per every 7x7 meters.
- Result in up to 50% decrease in irrigation and up to -4⁰C of heat.
- -334.4g/m2 CO2 reduction per year.
According to Pidarte, Bioo’s panels can produce 3.7W per 0.09m2 – about a quarter of the average solar panel. This is impressive considering that there are many constraints with using soil as a conductor of electrical current, and that this technology is still in the developmental stage.
Drawbacks of this technology
- Bioo’s sensors and reactors cannot store energy for later use as batteries can.
- Low overall electric conductivity of microorganisms (in soil) as compared to metals.
- High resistance to electric current in soil.
Bioo aims to expand this battery technology to powering large lighting systems and entire biotech cities in the future. They also hope to go officially commercial with their sensors next year. They further believe that they will increase the energy density of their batteries, allowing them to store energy for later use. Experts believe that for this technology to be adopted at scale, it will have to obtain price and operational efficiency.
With more people looking to live sustainably, more companies pledging to operate sustainably and more farmers focusing on regenerative agriculture, innovative green energy technologies such as Bioo generating energy from soil will become influential, and eventually reach a point where they cannot be ignored.
What do you think of soil as a source of electricity? Do you think that this is a viable option in the race to harness energy from the earth sustainably? Share your thoughts by replying to this email.
For more information on soil as a source of electricity, or any other renewable energy related articles, view the other blog posts on my website and be sure to open my weekly emails every Tuesday at 9AM CAT.
See how Bioo created music using plants: https://youtu.be/Wq08qRZy_h0?si=O-2i5i2wLPyUiTMX
Interesting Updates
(19) Cyberbeast vs Porsche 911 - YouTube
Virgin Atlantic jet completes world's first sustainable fuel flight
