Better Pumps, Green Mosquito Control, More Efficient Airplanes and Airports: How We Could Have Them, Why We Don't

"Nature gave inventor a blueprint, but not overnight success"
International Herald-Tribune (June 8, 2008)

"SAN RAFAEL, California: What if someone invented a better mousetrap and the world yawned?

"Until now, that has been the fate of Jay Harman, an Australian naturalist who believes that he's found a way to use fundamental properties of physics and biology to improve the design of everything from simple fans and pumps to hydroelectric dams and aircraft.

"Almost every piece of machinery in the physical world has efficiency limits related to the flow of liquids and gases: pumps consume energy to move liquids; the amount of fuel used by airplanes and cars is based on their aerodynamic efficiency; and fans and wind turbines both consume and generate energy based on the efficiency of the shape of their rotating blades."

What started as a cast made of a bathtub drain's vortex is now the Harman impeller, and other new technologies.

• Good News:
  • Pumps with Harman impellers are more efficient, consuming less energy
  • Aircraft with wingtips designed around Harman's understanding of vortexes might produce less turbulence: using less fuel, and allowing airports to safely land airplanes closer together
  • A Harman impeller, run by a solar-powered motor, could create designer ripples in stagnant pools: "changing the balance of nitrogen and oxygen in the pool" and messing with mosquito larvae - lowering the threat of malaria and encephalitis without insecticides
• Bad News:
  • Harman impellers and related technologies aren't catching on

Harman's company, Pax Scientific, "has not been an overnight success."

I can see why. This is a new technology, with a new approach to getting jobs done, that's better than existing technologies. So, it faces the twin threats of NIH (Not Invented Here) and the 'we've never done it that way.'

The International Herald Tribune article is a good read, giving background on Harman's vortex technologies, and a quick look at other technological innovations that took time to get applied, including the mouse and the hyperlink.