MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

[Rajiv]

MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered a new way of storing energy from sunlight that could lead to ‘unlimited’ solar power.

The process, loosely based on plant photosynthesis, uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. When needed, the gases can then be re-combined in a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity whether the sun is shining or not.

According to project leader Prof. Daniel Nocera, “This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years. Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now, we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.”

Nocera has also explained that the process (video) uses natural materials, is inexpensive to conduct and is easy to set up. “That’s why I know this is going to work. It’s so easy to implement,” he said.

Other prominent scientists in the field have rushed to highlight the revolutionary potential of the new process. According to James Barber, biochemistry professor at Imperial College London, this research is a ‘giant leap’ towards generating clean, carbon-free energy on as massive scale. In a statement, he also said:

“This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind. 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.”

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[ThePythonicCow]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

This seems to me to be just a "better battery" ... though I could not find enough details on it to determine if it was actually "better" or not. The only "solar" aspect is that one needs some sort of battery-like electricity storage when using solar cells, if one wants any power when the sun is down.

This discovery should be compared with other electricity storage (battery-like) technologies that might be practical in a few years, to determine its merit(s).

[Rajiv]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Yes. It is an inexpensive way to produce hydrogen and oxygen, but it remains to be seen whether the complete storage cycle has benefits over other storage devices.

[marvenger]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

As a store of energy its perfect. It's all about the efficiency of turning the suns energy and water into hydrogen and oxygen and then using the stored hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity efficiently when you need it. The guy in the video is obviously saying it works great, hope he's right, simplicity is beautiful.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

As a store of energy its perfect.

Are you being sarcastic, or did you find more useful information about this than linked above, or ...?

[marvenger]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Well energy goes into turning H20 into H2 and O2. H2 and O2 can then be stored fairly easily and the potential energy will not be lost. that's what I mean about it being a perfect store of energy. It won't lose potential energy like some battery systems where potential energy is lost over time due to unwanted chemical reactions occuring. I'm not a scientist but thought my high school science was enough to cover the storing of energy part. Converting it to useable electricity efficiently without waste is what I imagine is the extremely hard part, and if this guy has done it I would think this technology would have massive potential because the overall process is simple but to control it how you want is the hard part. There's a lot of insecure intellectual snobs on this site, but if you've got the time to pick through all the bullshit there's a lot of good stuff.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Thanks for spelling out your thinking.

The key part, to which I doubt us in the public will know the answer for a few years, is whether, as you've noted, he's found a way to do the conversions efficiently.

I agree that separate H2, O2, is a good store of energy. The difficulties come in (1) continued improvements in solar cells (only indirectly related to this, as the suggested source of power), (2) converting that electricity to the work of splitting H2O into H2 and O2 (electrolysis of water) and (3) efficient and economical fuel cells, which convert the separated H2 and O2 back into H2O water, generating electricity.

[marvenger]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Thanks for spelling out your thinking.

No worries, you got me in a bad moment. yeah unfortunately I'm not a scientist so I don't know much about the difficulties etc. But to me, if you're looking for sustainability something like this is the way to go. Photosynthesis is probably a pretty efficient way to extract the suns energy given that its taken billions of years to develop in a competitive world, and the scientist claims the technique to extract the sun's energy is similar to photosynthesis. I like the fact that water is used as the ingredient given that it is so abundant that human interference in the natural cycles of compound movements on the planet will be minimal; so long as the hydrogen and oxygen are always trapped I guess. So yeah if it works well I think a system like this could be very liberating for everyone. But humans will probably be always looking for that extra buck and concentrated store of energy, so nuclear will probably be the way to go for a while until that fuel runs out.fficeffice" />

'Humans make the wise choice once all their options are exhausted'....quite a few smart people have stated something similar to this and i think its very insightful

[we_are_toast]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Actually, we do need a "better battery". Converting electricity to Hydrogen is not a problem even though we may not be doing it as efficiently as we could.

Storing hydrogen is "THE" problem. There are no good ways to store hydrogen. Compressing it produces a nice little bomb that no one wants in their car, and even the best compression technology doesn't store enough energy. Storage in hydrides has recharge problems.

We can produce enough energy through various solar/wind/alternative technologies, but we haven't found a way to store it for transportation and home use. We really need an Apollo type program to develop a better battery.

Distributed computing, distributed energy production, distributed energy storage; the next bubble.

[Rajiv]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Here is a link to US Department of Energy page on Hydrogen Storage

[marvenger]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Not as simple as I thought then. Thanks Rajiv. Looks like they're getting there though, maybe developments in these nano carbon technologies they keep raving about will be the solution to the storage problem.

[VIT]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Actually, we do need a "better battery". Converting electricity to Hydrogen is not a problem even though we may not be doing it as efficiently as we could.

Storing hydrogen is "THE" problem. There are no good ways to store hydrogen. Compressing it produces a nice little bomb that no one wants in their car, and even the best compression technology doesn't store enough energy. Storage in hydrides has recharge problems.

Absolutely true. If we would get some "real" small and reliable battery which can store substantial energy inside this would change our world I guess.

[Rajiv]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

If you noticed, Nocera only talked of household usage. This makes sense -- because then you can use the 5000psi tanks -- because size of the tank should not matter. Also, the hydrogen and oxygen could potentially be used as fuel gas for cooking and hot water rather than just for electricity

[marvenger]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

If you noticed, Nocera only talked of household usage.

Yeah I did, the service station, coalfired powerplant etc all in one. this sounds great, but going back to my original reply do you think the powers that be would afford us debt serfs such liberties? They'd rather tell us that a centralised nuclear power system would serve us much better if we knew what was good for us. Here in Australia where fresh water is pretty scarce, the government banned individual households from having rainwater storage tanks, they said they were unsightly and the public couldn't be trusted to manage them themselves. So instead nothing was done to secure our water needs and now a massive and expensive and greehouse gas producing desalinisation plant is being built. And some people close to government lobbyists are going to get very rich off it.

[xtronics]

Re: MIT Energy Storage Discovery Could Lead to ‘Unlimited’ Solar Power

Please - I expected you folks to have better tuned BS filters and recognize the features of a classic venture-vulture-puff-piece.

Investors are the intended victims of venture-vultures. Venture-vultures come armed with empty patents and claims that are missing key numbers. Often they like to get funding from as far outside their industry as possible and published anywhere besides their industry magazines.

Let me diverge for a moment. Actually, there is a way of storing H2 cheaply and compactly (There is a new invention just out! You attach hydrogen to a string of carbon atoms - they call this stuff hydrocarbons. Oh, and the cheapest way to produce hydrogen? Start with petroleum. Did you know that there is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than in a gallon of hydrogen?)

Did anyone notice the lack of any efficiency claims here? Yes? move to the front of the class. (This just might have been a tip off.)

If any of you think the hydrogen-economy is anything other than a buzz term designed to separate tax payers and investors from their dollar .. you might want to read up on energy density.

http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Energy_density

Consider a little easy math - take the cycle life of a battery times its capacity in kWh to get the total kWh that can possible be withdrawn from this battery. Now, divide its cost by those kWh. (be sure you don't confuse kWh with Wh). Pretend the energy to charge the battery is free. Compare this cost to other forms of energy - like electric utility power. Notice that things are out of whack by many magnitudes...

Battery chemistry gets down to how many electrons are stored per molecule - unless we are talking about something that is so unlike a battery that it isn't a battery, then there are no breakthroughs waiting around the corner. There is a lot more money in writing grant proposals and cashing in government subsidies than you might realize.

The laws of physics are not amendable to political whims..