Heat is the input energy. It takes heat to actuate the muscle. After it cools it stops resisting the tension. My guess is that heat is applied through nichrome wire. Although being able to actuate at 130c makes me think you could use polyethylene coils to make a waste heat recovery engine via a reciprocating pull on a flywheel

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki...

Here Is the wikipedia article on lithium air batteries. If not 10x then atleast gasoline equivalent energy storage is possible. Are you saying that you would need a lithium hydrogen battery to reach 10x potential? The lithium air battery doesn't carry a cathode so it can hold more charge per weight so that's why I assumed it would live up to the 5-15x claim on wikipedia.

This may on the surface be true. But the primary technological challenge with electric vehicles is battery technology, and this has been under development for a century and a half. Maybe even 2. Even still, though rechargeable batteries have gone up in capacity maybe 10x, it is still not anywhere near competing with ICE vehicles cost effectively. That will come when the air-chemistry batteries hit the market, with another 10x increase in energy storage per volume/weight due to negating the need to carry your cathode. (or is it anode?)

Looks like for microsoft to preserve profitability it may have to continue to branch out of its core competency, windows. Perhaps it's following in Apples footsteps in a sense, branching away from personal computing to consumer electronics.

i think he was referencing an air compressor.

a forklift battery can be had for about 5k and stores like 30-50kwh of power and will work well within its 20 hour rate for the average house. no sense in using an electric car when forklift batteries are designes to run day in and day out for a decade in even more strenous conditions. And lord knows we have enough lead and sulfur. recondition or recycle when done and little environmental damage running into the future.

are you paying 3.8 euros a litre? seriously? because that's what 6x would equate to... where do you live? netherlands? finland? sweden?

They're not electrolysing hydrogen out of the water they're removing the oxygen dissolved in it.

I think this isn't about race more nationality.

They'll just invent a loaf magazine and an autoloader belt. You could do it with a conveyer belt and an overhead heating element.

Good luck making an electrically powered ship or airplane...

Well actually what I see as the killer app for this is being able to run climate control in your vehicle and not having to worry about draining your batteries. Being able to run 300w AC power, while not spectacular, could keep you from roasting potentially. Especially if you put reflective panels in your windows when you leave.

Speaking of which, why has no car manufacturer bothered to make a car that can automatically hoist up a window sized aluminum plate with your windows when you park? Hmm...

The obvious way around this is to have a heat exchanger under the solar panels, then use some energy to cool the solar panels through the radiator. A car's radiator should be able to handle ~2kw incoming heat load, with just a pump. It would help improve efficency as well, since solar panels charge better when they're cool.

Actually I lived in Aomori city in Aomori prefecture for 5 years. Are you from Japan? If so, you know it's not a super expensive place to live. But normally they wanted 1 months rent, security deposit, 1 months rent as a real estate agent fee, and 1 or 2 months rent (I forget which) as key money. (A gift to the landlord.)

My apartments base rent was 50,000 yen (`$500) and was not the most expensive place in the city. But worse case scenario that's still almost $3000, or close to 3 months salary for a minimum wage worker. Even if you lived with your parents, it might take a year to save enough to get into an apartment like that if you still want to have fun.

In Tokyo? Blech. minimum wage isn't that much higher, but rents are almost double in the city. You have to live in Chiba or some other suburb and have long commutes to get a good rate.

having lived in Japan I can tell you the cost of getting into an apartment in Japanis something like four months rent. one month rent then one month rent realtors fees then two months rent as a gift to the landlord which is a holdover from the era after wwII when massive housing shortages plagued japan due tp large scale housing destruction. if you needed $4000 to get into an apartment you might have trouble getting into one too. also not having an apartmrnt is expensive because you can't cook or do anything for cheap entertainment.