Turning heat into power…. with nanoantennas, not women.

A while back I told you about a new technology in the making that uses treated glass to pull in the power of the sun’s beautiful rays, well s**t just got real: The U.S. Department of Energy in Idaho just did 2 things; first, they designed something called nanoantennas that can efficiently draw power from all kinds of heat sources, and secondly, they proved just how little there is to do in Idaho. THANK YOU IDAHO!!!!

As explained on Engadget, the technology is designed and recently tested to draw energy from all kinds of IR sources at an 80% efficiency. Just to put that into perspective, current Solar panels available today on the market are only 30% efficient. Not only can they turn heat into power, but technically it can be used to COOL things as well. Since it draws the heat it basically cools the air around the items that it could be powering.

Of course, there are some snagging points. Unfortunately the Alternating Current that is created by the heat draw is currently too fast for any of our current AC to DC converters to handle. So there is some more technology that needs to be worked out before this can become viable for practical use, but if they get some more AC to DC people in Idaho man.. ask Kevin Garnett - ANYYTTHINGG’SS POSSIBLEEE!!!

But for the future, think of the possibilities: Nanoantennas on your mp3 player in your pocket drawing the heat off your body! You can finally run that 20k you’ve been too pansy to because you were “afraid your Ipod would die.” Take that Sloth! There are many other great examples I could give you but anytime you bring one of the 7 deadly sins into an argument, you basically win in my book, and thankfully, I’m writing it.

Read more @ eurekalert.org. Thanks Engadget.