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| Breakthrough in Solar Energy? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 1 2008, 03:38 PM (304 Views) | |
| George K | Aug 1 2008, 03:38 PM Post #1 |
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Finally
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Major Discovery Primed To Unleash Solar Revolution: Scientists Mimic Essence Of Plants' Energy Storage System ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2008) — In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine. Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy. Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon." Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night. The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced. Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis. The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said. Giant leap for clean energy Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year. James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale. "This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem." Just the beginning Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates. More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality. "This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this." Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Kincaid | Aug 1 2008, 03:43 PM Post #2 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Hear hear! And the improverishment of a certain Middle Eastern region of the world. |
| Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006. | |
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| Copper | Aug 1 2008, 04:10 PM Post #3 |
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Shortstop
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Funding and sponsorship is fine, but let's not forget the real work was done by Al Gore. |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| JoeB | Aug 1 2008, 05:40 PM Post #4 |
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Senior Carp
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Integrating the new electrolyzer into existing photovoltaic systems is unnecessary. A load leveling technology such as this should be implemented on a large scale as part of the utility grid. The hydrogen could be burned in a large scale efficient peaking generator skipping the expensive fuel cells altogether. It could compete with other leveling schemes such as using plug-in hybrids and electric cars as bi-directional energy storage devices. |
| "There are many ingredients in the stew of annoyance." - Bucky Katt | |
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| ivorythumper | Aug 1 2008, 05:41 PM Post #5 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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That is pretty cool. But it irks me when articles that purport to inform put in crap like this
Uh, yeah, assuming we covered every friggin' square inch of the earth with material to capture that energy. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| JBryan | Aug 1 2008, 05:42 PM Post #6 |
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I am the grey one
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You say that as if it was a hard thing. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| ivorythumper | Aug 1 2008, 05:47 PM Post #7 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Give me a Federal grant and I'll get to work on it.
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| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| JBryan | Aug 1 2008, 05:51 PM Post #8 |
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I am the grey one
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There is now a Congress ready to act and a guy running who will rubber stamp it. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| George K | Aug 1 2008, 06:00 PM Post #9 |
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Finally
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No they're not. They just went on vacation for 5 weeks. It'll have to wait until after Labor Day. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| JBryan | Aug 1 2008, 06:02 PM Post #10 |
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I am the grey one
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They really can't act until the |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| Copper | Aug 1 2008, 06:12 PM Post #11 |
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Shortstop
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Well they said in one hour they could get a whole year's worth. So let's say 12 hours a day for 365 days 12 * 365 = 4380. So we only need 1/4,380 of the earth's surface. Earth — Surface Area: 510,065,600 km2 According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth 510,065,600 / 4,380 = 116,453 km2 needed. If we cover the entire ANWR with enviro-friendly solar panels... Let's see the ANWR has 1.5 million acres which = 6,070 km2. So I guess that ANWR really would be just a drop in the bucket. |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| jon-nyc | Aug 2 2008, 03:13 AM Post #12 |
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Cheers
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What a sh1tty article. Processes for using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen have been known for over 200 years and have been done commercially for over 75 years. Shell oil has a hydrogen filling station in Iceland for fuel-cell driven buses. That hydrogen is generated using electricity (generated from geothermal energy) to split water. Is this new process more efficient (than the ~40% efficiency of today's process)? How much so? I'm not saying that there's nothing new or even great going on here, its just that this article doesn't tell you what it is. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Axtremus | Aug 2 2008, 03:28 AM Post #13 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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See: http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/dgn/www/resea...conversion.html and http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/dgn/www/research/pcet2.html And there are tons of references there if you want to dig out publications that treat the subject matter more rigorously. |
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| jon-nyc | Aug 2 2008, 03:48 AM Post #14 |
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Cheers
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Neither of those really address my questions either. Plus, Prof. Nocera seems to be confusing everything by pretending he's working on solar energy. According to the article, he's not. He's working on the electrolysis of water (the electricity for which could come from any source). So, what's new here? Ok, he's using a new catalyst. Why is it better than others? And, again, what's the efficiency? |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Mikhailoh | Aug 2 2008, 04:01 AM Post #15 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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No problem. Just make solar cell parking lots. That would cover an awful lot of this country. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| Axtremus | Aug 2 2008, 05:18 AM Post #16 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I can't find the efficiency number either. But to address what's new about the new catalyst:
Also, from this Forbes article (link: http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/30/nocera-so..._0731solar.html )
Again, no efficiency number, but they staking claims in the ability to use pH-neutral water and cost reduction as differentiators, things that they claim will allow distributed storage of solar energy. (I think the impact here is that this form of storage is expected to be a lot cheaper and more efficient than battery systems. There's a little video put up at MIT's site: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html Those nerds know PR.) The article published in Science is available to subscribers only. I am not a subscriber. Perhaps some one subscribed to Science can perhaps give it a quick look and fill us in with an efficiency number? (Link: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/315/5813/789 ) |
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| jon-nyc | Aug 7 2008, 06:49 AM Post #17 |
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Cheers
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These guys were skewered on The Oil Drum. Local Scientist Splits Water, Saves World, Gets on TV. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Kincaid | Aug 7 2008, 10:24 AM Post #18 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Great article, Jon, but saddening too. Get all hyped up over (probably) nothing. This article would also be a good read for anyone that is looking toward a future of hydrogen vehicles. Until they solve the issue of where and how they are going to get the hydrogen, it is a more expensive fuel than oil. My understanding right now is that the easiest or perhaps most abundant source of hydrogen is used by cracking natural gas atoms, using beaucoup electricity. Not very efficient or cost effective. Uninformed people go around talking about hydrogen vehicles as the next great thing. Well, it could be, years from now. All that said, I think that figuring out some way to use a photosynthetic process to get our energy is where the future lies. |
| Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006. | |
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| Larry | Aug 7 2008, 11:40 AM Post #19 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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I split water into hydrogen and oxygen every time I start the engine in the Pie Wagon..... ![]() And they laughed and called me names........ HAHAA!!! You fools of the barge...... ![]() |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| jon-nyc | Aug 7 2008, 12:02 PM Post #20 |
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Cheers
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Hey Lar, good to see you back. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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Give me a Federal grant and I'll get to work on it.



4:40 PM Jul 10