Slashdot Mirror
Using Sun's Energy to Split Water Means Solar Power All Night
phorm writes "Reuters is carrying an article about a recent MIT development which may pave the way for solar-energy to be collected for use in low-input periods. According to Reuters, the discovery of the a new catalyst for separating hydrogen+oxygen from water requires only 10% of the electricity of current methods. This would allow storage-cells to function as a form of battery for other forms of energy-collection, such as solar panels. The new method is also much safer (and likely environmentally friendly) than current methods, which require the use of a dangerously caustic environment, and specialized storage containers." sanjosanjo points out coverage of the process at EE Times, which features the MIT group's press release.
"...with our catalyst almost 100 percent of the current used for electrolysis goes into making oxygen and hydrogen."
If that is true (although I definitely have my doubts, as tales and empty promises of the past have made all of us highly skeptical when we read something like this), then it should open the road for a significantly more efficient means of producing hydrogen for hydrogen powered cars / devices. Hell a car equipped with a solar cell could just bake during the day to recharge itself and be ready to go for the commute home come 5pm. Though until I hear a confirmation of MIT's findings from another university/respected source, I hold on to my severe doubts about this.
First open sourcing solaris and now this.
Way to go Sun!
This would be a big win for any kind of "environmental" energy source (wind, waves, caged toddlers) that isn't always on.
Heck, it would make a great general-purpose home UPS and/or load leveler. If properly integrated, a home equipped with this would be less vulnerable to brownouts and blackouts. Local storage would make the job of power companies easier too.
Fingers crossed.
I hear about this stuff all the time, and not just from /.
When's it going to happen...
What are the implications for things such as water purification, desalination, etc?
Seems like a fuel cell "battery" is just the tip of the iceberg.
So, likely the fine details will be kept a trade secret for 5 years until they finally get this shit to the public. Thanks capitalism, jerks.
Now we only have to solve the problem of storing a very flammable gas and possibly an incredibly powerful oxidizer!
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
'nuff said.
Scientist and Gamer...
According to Reuters, the discovery of the a new catalyst for separating hydrogen+oxygen from water requires only 10% of the electricity of current methods
Great. So when do we see it? If it's anything like almost every other "alternative energy" advancement, it will either get snapped up by an oil-company owned holding company, or strangled by licensing fees/requirements/exclusivity deals.
Seriously- let's take a look back. Have there been any major advancements in solar energy technology in the last fifty or so years?
MIT = MIT Technology Licensing Office, and I used to work there. Six figure checks to professors were not uncommon...and it was the only part of the university that turned a profit.
It'd be really refreshing to see scientists develop a bit of altruism. It's the ultimate Open Source, and they'd be guaranteed decades, if not centuries, of good will and fame. That's worth a lot more than a few *possible* royalty checks.
Please help metamoderate.
Detail looks good on the article, though the projected time frame has a ring of indefinite extension about it. I wonder how many "ready in ten years" developments have taken less than a decade.
I know what you mean about crackpots giving electrolysed water a bad name in the past, but it's MIT so...
Have there been any major advancements? I'm don't know, because I have no idea what major means to you, but the costs have come way, way, way, way down, and they continue to get lower.
Hell, solar panels even net energy these days.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If they are talking about Titanium Dioxide, the process has been pretty well known for many years. The problem is a large source of energy in to get a small amount out. Efficiencies in photovoltaics and solar collectors in recent years may make this more attractive.
See link http://archive.sciencewatch.com/jan-feb2005/sw_jan-feb2005_page7.htm
I know it can't be better than a big ole flywheel, which is the most efficient means of storing energy we've come up with.
But it's not cutting-edge space-tech so it's ignored. Kind of sad, really. All our problems would be solvable today, but for all the non-technical obstacles.
I'm guessing they have a something in principle but there's a catch that will take 20 years to beat.
"Nocera's catalyst is made from cobalt, phosphate and an electrode that produces oxygen from water by using 90 percent less electricity than current methods, which use the costly metal platinum."
Ok wait, I looked it up and we're currently at 70% efficiency on the electrical energy it takes to split water. I believe we lose even more power to compress the gas in to liquid form for storage.
Now let's say we're only at 10% efficiency now on electrolysis. If you decreased the amount of electricity needed by 90%, you're talking about 10 times that efficiency making the electrolysis system 100% efficient which is impossible. If we're currently at 20% efficiency, then we're up to 200% efficiency which is ludicrous.
I read that lower voltage electrolysis is an active research area that increases the efficiency of electrolysis. Now perhaps what this researcher has found is a way to perform electrolysis with 90% less voltage which would improve electrolysis efficiency from 70% to maybe 85% or something in that ballpark range. That would be far more believable. I'm very much inclined to believe that the story should have reported that this new electrolysis process requires 90% less voltage; not 90% less electricity to produce the same amount of hydrogen and oxygen.
Well it seems like Prof Nocera has chosen to keep his paper off the internet, or at least his research group's publications list. His invention has already been patented, so that's not the reason. Why is that while academics in physics, maths, and engineering are busily posting copies of their papers or preprints on their websites or arxiv, chemistry academics almost never put up online copies of their papers? It seems like a poor way to go about communicating cutting edge science to me.
I can't believe that this hasn't been tagged "vaporware" yet
They have those systems and they're expensive. You need very strong materials keep that much rotational kinetic energy from tearing itself apart. You also need to magnetically levitate it to keep it from slowing down due to friction and also because it would probably be hard on ball bearings.
Any idea how efficient a compressed gas engine (turbine?) is with hydrogen as a working fluid?
I haven't, but maybe the pressure is reclaimable. Though compressors heat up don't they, so I suppose that's loss.
It is established FACT that Hydrogen is very difficult to contain. It leaks through the tightest seals like they were swiss cheese, and once free it races into the atmosphere and escapes into space.
This is not a major problem when all our hydrogen comes from the deep deposit hydrogen mines in Australia and Canada, but what if this new discovery hearalds an age of wholesail water mining? Do these so-called scientists not realise that we cannot have water without hydrogen? Have they forgotten that humans are 80% water? That water makes our crops grow and our fish swim?? Our life's blood could be literally floating away!
This irresponsible god-gaming may save us from peak oil today, but our grandchildren tomorrow will be facing PEAK WATER if these experiments are allowed to continue!
Write to your political representative today!
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
Using Sun's Energy to Split Water Means Solar Power All Night
Well perhaps using Sun's energy is easy for you, but for those of us who don't live close to Sun's headquarters, it is impractical to buy a 100 mile long extension cord.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
>> It'd be really refreshing to see scientists develop a bit of altruism. It's the ultimate Open Source, and they'd be guaranteed decades, if not centuries, of good will and fame. That's worth a lot more than a few *possible* royalty checks.
Altruism neither pays for the scientists' mortgages nor pays for all the equipment they use to develop their theories.
I'm all for smacking down ridiculously-long copyrights, invalidating silly trademarks or getting rid of obvious patents (one-click shopping?), but this is the _exact_ thing that patents is supposed to support. These scientists (and by proxy, their granteurs (sp?)) took a gamble on developing a technology and they were successful. They should be rewarded for that success like any other person in society. Without that potential for gains, there's no reason to even try.
-Bucky
Well if everything was true yes.
Trouble is it's hard to tell in advance. We can be sure some (more) of it will happen though.
I'll have you know every member of my family except me were sucked dry by mutated nuclear vampire bats at night. (Insensitive clod.)
Scrape the contents of those Huggies into a biodigester and reap big $$$ in methane sales!
"it will either get snapped up by an oil-company owned holding company, or strangled by licensing fees/requirements/exclusivity deals."
Please. Show me a technology suppressed by the oil companies and I'll show you a scam.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
So when do you plan to start doing your job for free?
If you read the actual article (you need to be a AAAS member or otherwise have access to Science), you would see that that these MIT guys are using a cobalt oxide catalyst which is created during the electrolysis of water. Yeah, it's really efficient, which is good (I don't know that I buy the green thing), but it's also self-repairing. Although it seems to be future work, they're envisioning tailoring the chemistry so that the activity of the catalyst is maintained by an equilibrium of dissolving and redeposition of the catalyst electrode. As a bonus, it looks really easy to make.
This seems very interesting and I hope it goes well for them. But I can't help but feel there are simpler solutions.
Any excess electricity inserted into the grid during the day could be used to run electric motors that turn pumps and push water up a hill (or tower) which we need anyway. During the night if power is needed simply run it back down the hill through the pumps which turn the electric motors and generate electricity for the grid. And water my lawn!
I realize there is quite a bit of efficiency loss in there, but it's stupid simple and it would work, as a supplemental power system.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Meh, you're totally right. Wording screwed up there. My math was good though ;)
Never disregard the raw power inherent to stupidity... they call it "dumb luck" for a reason...
50 years ago was 1958. Interestingly enough., that was the year the first solar panels went to space. Today, you can sit right there in your chair, do some googling, whip out your credit card and have dandy solar panels shipped right to your house at less than NASA cost plus pricing levels. That's pretty significant. A few years previous to that, some of the first ones were running $1,785 dollars per watt, and those are unadjusted dollars. Today you can look for deals and get them at around 5 bucks a watt. Not too shabby. And nanosolar started shipping this year, albeit all of it to Germany where demand is higher and they will pay a bit more now, because they know conventional will be going up fast later, so they did a whole nation push for it starting some years ago. That and it is cleaner.
here's the wiki ref for the figures, Solar timeline
I bought mine at actually a little under 5 bucks a watt some years ago. silicon demand has been going more for throw away gadgets and so on in the meantime, but several new fabs go online this year and next year so prices will be dropping again.
I'm not sure I understand the problem they've solved. They say you can already get the hydrogen out of water efficiently with platinum; OK, there's plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere, so why can't we burn the hydrogen with that?
I'm guessing that the oxygen remains dissolved in the water, and that when the concentration gets too high the hydrogen can no longer be removed efficiently. Can anyone confirm this guess, or provide the real reason?
Are we assuming this because "solar" is somehow spiritually more pure than some other form of electricity?
Are we sure this is more friendly, or is it another clusterfuck like ethanol?
Oh, fuel from renewable corn sounds so much more guilt-free than fuel from oil on paper, but the reality is that it's a giant crock of bullshit.
Using (pronoun) (noun) to Split (plural noun) Means (adj) (noun) All Night
Running a university is expensive. I do tech support for an engineering department for a university and we are always fighting for more funds. Computers need to be upgraded, our infrastructure needs continual expansion to deal with the massive amounts of data, broken equipment needs replacing, and tech support staff need paychecks. That money has to come from somewhere. Some of it comes from the tuition charged to the undergraduates, however the university, rightfully so, wants a good deal of that to go to things that benefit the undergraduates.
This "People should just give discoveries away," smacks of the ignorance of someone who's never had to support themselves. We can argue that our country should be a communism (though there are some compelling counter arguments) but you can't argue that it currently is not. Thus people have to find some way to provide for their needs.
I'd be happy to work for no salary, provided that I still got to have my house, my car, my computer, food, etc given to me. However until that day, I need a paycheck from the university. Likewise we'd be happy to have no IT budget if companies would simply give us the hardware we needed at no charge. However, until that day, we need money to get the equipment that makes the department work.
What's better than profit though?
Tenure.
For one, professors have to get grants to do their research, so they are sometimes given to overstatement to that end. They are, after all, only human which means that not all of them are honest. Also, some are simply unrealistic. They think they can do something, so they announce it, even though they have no idea how to get there, and then maybe never end up doing so. Finally sometimes shit just ends up being impossible. It looks good, seems like things will work, however in the end you can't make it happen. That happens with research. You can spend millions only to realise you've been down a dead end and there's nothing to be done about it.
I agree an announcement from a major university is much more credible than some startup, but don't think things out of universities aren't overstated at times.
Solar Powered Vibrators
This research seems going in the right direction if the process does not destroy the natural earthly resources. (http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/blog/viswasadhaka)
With the recent confirmation of water on mars this new catalyst could make producing
rocket fuel (liquid hydrogen and oxygen) on mars and from mars water
a much more practical option to provide the fuel for a return trip to earth.
I so fucking done with 'announcements' like this one that have phrases like this:
"Nocera...suggested that the technologies to bring this into a typical home could be ready in less than a decade."
The World, not just the USA, is between a 'rock-and-a-rock' and a 'hard place and a hard place', squeezed from all sides with the dire predictions of global warming and the economy wrecking ever-increasing price of petroleum. WTF is it with these assholes that they simply can't come out and say; "If you throw the entire world's cash supply at me I can have this working in a year."?
Okay 'smart, science-type guy', you figured out how to make it work, how much cash do you want, how much booze, broads, and blow do you need to get you off your fat, university funded, ass to get this into a viable commercial product?
Come on, just tell us, genius.
Yeah, I thought so.
Sig this!
Average commute is 15 miles.
Average electric car uses 300 watt/hours per mile (after recoving energy from braking)
Cost effective solar cells are 15%
Surface area of a car is 1.5 square meters.
Solar insulation is 1 kw/h for 5 hous a day (on average)
SOOO...
1.5 square meters * 15% * 1000 watts * 5 hours = 1125 watt/hours
The average commute is 15 miles * 300 watts-hours = 4500 watt/hours consumed.
Solar powered cars won't work until solar cell efficiencies are 50% or better.
The solution is touted as improving storage of renewable energy from fat hours for use in lean hours. That problem is already well in hand using various battery technologies. I doubt that, even with this improvement, electrolysis-gas storage-fuel cell will beat even lead-acid batteries, let alone lithium ion (with efficiences close to 100%) or stationary vanadium redox (with properties like fuel cells but storing the energy in tanks of liquids at atmospheric pressure).
But it may be a DANDY solution for providing hydrogen and oxygen for powering vehicles: (fuel-cell prime-mover hybrids, hydrogen internal-combustion (at a carnot-cycle penalty), etc.) or as feedstock for energetic chemical processes.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I just chose a vacuum cleaner at random from a retailer web site and it uses 2000W.
And you use a vacuum cleaner more than an hour a day? I just checked my vacuum and using volts times amps equals watts, 120V x 12A, my vacuum uses 1440 Watts.
Mainstream electric heaters run from 1500W to 2400W.
In many places AC uses more power than heating, however in both cases proper insulation of buildings can significantly reduce energy to control indoor climate. In Florida a well insulated house needs little if any AC, meanwhile in Minnesota one will need little if any heating. And for what heating is needed a geothermal unit is more efficient that electric, though they do need some to run, and gas.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I hope this works. Today, high degrees of energy consumption are limited to the rich. We must enable the degree of energy consumption for the poor majority of the world's population that is experienced today only in rich western countries. Think of what that would make possible. I'm more excited about that than I am about coercive energy conservation policies.
This seems very interesting and I hope it goes well for them. But I can't help but feel there are simpler solutions.
Yeah. How about using less stuff? It works 100% of the time, is 100% effective, anyone can do it, it uses current technology, and you can start right now. Sure, I love computers. But I only have one. I like TV, but I decided to save money and just watch shows through the web instead of getting cable and buying a TV. I love driving my car, but I try not drive unnecessarily. (As a side benefit I was able to cancel my gym membership and get exercise and commute at the same time.) I like steak, but I only eat red meat a few times a month because it's so damaging to the environment. I could do much more, but the important thing is getting started, and I've realized that my quality of life has improved with my reduction of material goods and extraneous entertainment.
Not saying the R&D should cease... but at some point we have to ask ourselves, "How much is enough?" The planet simply could not support a world full of Americans. The fact that this doesn't appear to alarm us is a grave indicator of our stewardship of spaceship Earth.
Seriously- let's take a look back. Have there been any major advancements in solar energy technology in the last fifty or so years?
Is this a rhetorical question? In less than 30s, using only a bare minimum of energy and thought, I checked the Wikipedia photovoltaic cell article and found out that in 2007 companies began to commercialize the so-called second generation solar cell technology. Clearly, you didn't actually "take a look back". Perhaps you should do some research next time before talking out of your ass about things you quite evidently know nothing about.
It'd be really refreshing to see scientists develop a bit of altruism. It's the ultimate Open Source, and they'd be guaranteed decades, if not centuries, of good will and fame. That's worth a lot more than a few *possible* royalty checks.
Yes, everyone knows that scientists are some of the most selfish of all people, thinking about nothing but their own pocketbooks. Oh wait, you must have scientists confused with technology licensing office clerks. After all, is it not scientists who dedicate their lives to advancing human knowledge? We owe our modern lives to science, don't forget that. You must not have obtained a PhD in science, otherwise you would know that pursuing science involves self-sacrifice in the highest degree. You don't spend 4-8 years in grad school earning nothing if all you care about is money.
clicky
So we don't go with this mimic-of-the-biologicalstuff
approach, at least for hydrogen. Dan Nocera
and Nate Lewis organized a Gordon Research Conference
on solar fuels in 2007 that assessed all the
inorganic, nonplatinum hydrogen catalysts around.
Three winners came out. One is a dimolybdenum
system that Dan DuBois at the Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory has worked on, and one is a
cobalt system that Vincent Artero and Marc Fontecave
at the Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble,
France, developed. The third was originally developed
at Iowa State in the 1980s by Jim Espenson
[BS '58], was recently improved by Xile Hu when
he was a postdoc here at Caltech, and is now
being worked on in my lab by grad student Jillian
Dempsey. The DuBois molecule and the Caltech
one are both very good. They operate at very close
to the optimum voltage to make H2. This is a critical
feature, because if the system's voltage is more
than the optimum, the extra energy is wasted. And
if the voltage is insufficient, the reaction doesn't go
at all. But Dan's molecule contains sulfur, which
can be nasty, and ours is easier to make, so we
think the Caltech one looks like a real winner.
The use of 2H + 0 = battery definitely seems more zen-correct than the things the word 'battery' refers to know. I want a cell and a panel for my laptop. This was my idea about 4 years ago, by the way. I also said "Cogito, ergo sum" when I was about 17 and tripping (didn't use those words, of course). I know, I know, "Who cares?" I do, damnit. I should be glad, I guess, to see my ideas come to fruition without my input, but I do feel kinda cheated. Guess I should quit thinking and act, eh?
Perhaps next time you see something "ludicrous" you might pause to consider that may be because you've badly fucked up the maths.
If something has decreased the amount of energy needed by 90% it has reduced the inefficiency (of that part of the problem) by 90%.
In your 20% efficiency example there is 80% inefficiency. Reducing that by 90% would leave you with 8% inefficiency, making your final efficiency 92%, not 200%.
Of course in the real world there are more sources of inefficiency in the overall process than just splitting the water, so a 90% improvement in that one part will have a lesser effect on the overall efficiency than above.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
>> They should be rewarded for that success like any other person in society. Without that potential for gains, there's no reason to even try.
There's no reason to even try? There's no reason to even try?
C'mon, surely you can think of plenty of reasons. Even in today's greed-based economy, altruism still exists. Patent protection is a worthwhile incentive, but I believe that even without a temporary monopoly, even without a profit potential, there are plenty of bright and motivated people who would love to have the chance to change society for the better. A discovery that could potentially improve the standard of living for hundreds of millions of people? A breakthrough that could lead to entirely new industries? Reducing reliance on non-renewable resources? Sounds like a worthy endeavor to me, even if the inventor's monetary rewards were (unfortunately) zero.
Here's the link to the Patent that describes the invention. Interestingly the patent is drawn to the process rather than the device/product/composition which would be a stronger patent (it's harder to prove someone is using your process to produce hydrogen, rather than your product to produce hydrogen). This is probably the case because the chemicals used are not unique or new but are rather being applied in a new way.
The blurb on All Things Considered had him saying he "immediately open sourced it".
Not to mention, have you seen the waste products? I wouldn't call 'em "environmentally friendly"!
Actually the way the waste is treated now it's unsustainable. However it would be sustainable if that "waste" were composted and made into humanure. If you garden, depending on what you grow in the garden, your plants will love you for watering them with your urine. Not straight mind you, nitrogen burn can kill them, but by mixing 10 parts water to one part urine. They would also love it if they were watered with greywater. That's what I did for a while, my bathtub was clogged for a while before the owner sent a plumber. So I'd use the grey water from showering to water my garden. Those who have commented about the garden said it looks real good, another gardener asked how I got my tomato and tomatillo plants so big.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
... http://runyourcaronwater.com/ Looks totally neat!
What I was pondering on the way home today was something similar. Basically this is seems to be a really effective electrolysis configuration. Yes, it's more formal than the ones from back in High School, but the results are much the same. So it seems to me that you could something along the following:
a) Use solar or some other "renewable" power to separate water into components of hydrogen and oxygen using the new method, and distill any other impurities
b) Use the hydrogen as a fuel source for some form of motor, which should give you energy and nice clean water as an output of the reaction
c) The reaction in b will produce mechanical energy, but also likely a good deal of heat. Use that heat to boil the water
d) Use the boiled water to power an additional steam turbine
e) Water exiting the turbine is probably still nice and hot, use some in place of a home-water tank and the rest can go back to the same process or be used as drinking water.
You may already know this, but:
Solar insulation
Solar insolation. Well, that wasn't in the Firefox spell checker so I just added it to my private dictionary. Maybe you had the same problem.
Why do we need this???
They might be as altruistic as you say, but I'm afraid that cyclotrons still run into the millions of dollars no matter how good-hearted you are.
My father started his own company that develops new tests for cancer in the bloodstream. The company isn't large and doesn't actually sell any equipment (the KIMTECHs do all that), but he licenses his patents to companies which sell it to physicians all over the world.
My father is extremely altruistic but you can't run a company with a constant deficit. He put hard work and an extremely rare commodity (intelligence) into the company and he deserves to get something out of it.
Altruism neither pays for the scientists' mortgages nor pays for all the equipment they use to develop their theories.
Linus never charged for, nor patented the Linux kernel. Seems to be doing rather well for himself. Furthermore, you don't understand how research at MIT works. You write a proposal, get grant money, and then find something worked. It's not like Dr. Joe Blo spends his own personal money to buy a microscope. Everything he or she buys comes from grant money, and most of that comes from taxpayer-supported government grants. There are some exceptions, but they're rare (Howard Hughes Medical Institute is one good example.)
I'm all for smacking down ridiculously-long copyrights, invalidating silly trademarks or getting rid of obvious patents (one-click shopping?), but this is the _exact_ thing that patents is supposed to support. These scientists (and by proxy, their granteurs (sp?)) took a gamble on developing a technology and they were successful.
You seem to have interpreted my post as a rant against the patent/IP system, and you've done a great job at stuffing words into my mouth. My point was simply that it would be nice if scientists for once recognized the needs of society and the planet, ahead of their own money-grubbing desires. Science used to be about discovery- now it's all about profit (get enough money for the next project) and vanity (getting published as much as you can in the best journals.)
Please help metamoderate.
Apparently, it must be against the law to use any surface but the car's to generate its solar energy! ; ) A typical garage (22' x 22') with a south facing shed style roof is approximately 54 square meters. Plugging that into your formula gives 40500 watt/hrs produced, nearly 10X what your formula says is needed. The only thing holding it back is the storage capability of the car. With suitable storage we can do this now! BTW, insulation refers to the slowing down of heat transfer. The word representing the amount of solar radiation on a surface is insolation. Otherwise, thanks for attempting to quantify the subject, most people (on both sides) just go off half cocked.
I don't think you have to keep the O2 to run a fuel cell; won't it run off the O2 in the air? I suspect that the O2 would be tanked and sold to hospitals and industrial uses. Also, it might be more cost effective to pipe/truck the H2 to the city to operate a fuel cell there, thereby reducing the electrical loss from long distance transmission and step-up / step-down transformers.
Indeed, it might be best to convert all solar power to H2 and truck it to the city vs. building expensive transmission lines and pipelines.
That sounds like an interesting discovery only if I can run my car on it
I'm imagining a partially-self-powering desalination setup that cycles through seawater (filtered for particulates), extracts the hydrogen and oxygen, combines it in a fuel cell (which power is then cycled back into the system)
But what do you then do with the brine? Dumping it back into the ocean will raise the salinity where it's added which will harm the wildlife there. I used to know about that, a long tyme ago I used to take care of a few saltwater aquariums we had in the lab where I took a Marine Biology class. I suppose it could be used for table salt thus reducing the need to mine for salt. But there will be other minerals and impurities as well.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
well as i live so far north that the sun is barely visible some 3-5 months pr year, long term storage would be nice to maximize those months when the sun really is up...
but i guess i could add a windmill to the mix to get best of both worlds so to speak.
Alaska has abundant wind power.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
OK. In my original reply, I should probably have specified explicitly that I was responding to the claim about total available service.
Okay.
The typical household (depending on climate, of course) has mainstream electric heaters, not geothermal.
... unless you're suggesting that anyone installing a solar/hydrogen power system would also be using geothermal or heat pump systems? That sounds almost reasonable, given that you were talking about average rather than peak loads.
It seems obvious to me, but perhaps I should have stated it. When you're talking about, or working on, a new energy system the first thing you should do is look into becoming more energy efficient. By investing a little in efficiency, like those who build Off the Grid do, a little investment here can cut your total energy needs and bills. I live on the grid in a big city, downtown Minneapolis is less than 15 minutes bike ride, however out of 7 light fixtures 6 have 12 watt CFLs. The seventh light I've had on less than 100 hours in the more than 4 years I've lived here, when those bulbs burnout I'll replace them with CFLs.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There's no reason to even try? There's no reason to even try?
Sure, if doctors made $20k/year, there would still be some people who put up with the 15+ years of education to do it, but I would guarantee that there would be significantly less interest. The same with someone who studies physics. If you're talking about 9 years (4 undergrad + 5ish graduate) + a post doc or two (two years a piece), they've dropped a good 11-13 years.
The big point though is that you're asking those scientists to first burn all that time and money on an education + the risk of doing research (if it fails, it's harder to get your next grant) And then you're asking those scientists to give away their knowledge for free to a company that's going to turn around, commercialize it and make a ton of money. If I were them, I would want my cut of the cake.
-Bucky
My point was simply that it would be nice if scientists for once recognized the needs of society and the planet, ahead of their own money-grubbing desires.
Yeah, we all get Ph.D.'s to get rich. (rolling eyes)
If you think that's true, I'd say you are making up the stuff about knowing scientists. Any of us could make much more money by going to business school if that's what drove us. Pardon us if we like to feed our families and put a roof over their heads besides.
Cheap energy storage IS a big problem.
Cheap solar panels are now being produced. (Nano solar).
If you power provider will not buy your excess (needed at night) what do you do? But/maintain/replace 80kwhs of batteries? In Lithium batteries this could cost ~$60,000. Don't bother mentioning Lithium. Good for Cars, Stupid for houses.
This new development offers cheaper storage. Small electrodes, cheap catilyst, $200 pressure tank, $50 motor, electronics (cost depends on how mass produced).
This is a big deal!
Gunn.
If this works and decentralized power generation becomes the norm, that will free up a hell of a lot of steel, copper and aluminum for other uses. Not to mention the lives saved since there would be so much less need for high-voltage equipment.
I rather like the idea of running my whole house on a 24-volt DC system.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Numbers are good -- here's some comments:
- Most places in the United States get ~5kWh/m2/day insolation total assuming no obstruction (parking garage) -- so your number seems high.
- 300 watt/hours/mile: where did you get that from? A liter of gasoline has about 8.9kWh of energy. So your number seems low for anything close to the kind of cars we drive today.
- I looked around for average commute distances thinking yours was small. Seems 15-20 miles is concensus. Wish my commute was average...
- PVs will never get to 50% without radical changes.
"it was the only part of the university that turned a profit." Someone needs to field a football team. It would be a bonus to have a team that the service academies could beat on a regular basis.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
Seems to be doing rather well for himself. Furthermore, you don't understand how research at MIT works. You write a proposal, get grant money, and then find something worked. It's not like Dr. Joe Blo spends his own personal money to buy a microscope. Everything he or she buys comes from grant money, and most of that comes from taxpayer-supported government grants. There are some exceptions, but they're rare (Howard Hughes Medical Institute is one good example.)
You make the assumption that I don't understand how research does. Trust me, I do.
Let me ask you this? You seem to be taking a stand against the scientists profiting about their discovery. What about the companies that commercialize the technology? Would you make the same argument towards them?
Science used to be about discovery- now it's all about profit (get enough money for the next project) and vanity (getting published as much as you can in the best journals.)
Science still is about discovery. I've personally stumbled on to things, and those "Eureka" moments are very satisfying. But that satisfaction doesn't pay my bills and it doesn't pay my employer's bills.
Yes, it sucks that science does have a giant slant towards money, but how would you propose to filter out and encourage "good" science that has a benefit to society (which people pay for in $)? Right now, people trend towards and follow the money. How would you do it?
(caveat from above, there's a lot of basic science that is so far removed from commercialization that it has to be supported wholey by governments. let's skip that for the sake of argument)
You seem to have interpreted my post as a rant against the patent/IP system
I wasn't putting words in your mouth, I just was pointing out that the one kind of IP that most people around here support, you were knocking as unneeded and (this might be putting words in your mouth) immoral.
-Bucky
However, the problem with human waste is that it can't be used for vegies because we've got a few too many nasties in it.
Just as with urine, humanure shouldn't be used straight. Manure almost never should be. When I prepared my garden beds, I built raised beds, I mixed 1 bag of cow manure to 4 bags of top soil. Actually I got some weird looks doing that, I don't have a mixer (which breaks up the particles and clumps so it won't hold as much moisture) so I spread out on the ground a tarp, added some top soil and manure in one corner then lifted it up until they mixed in another corner. I did this 3 or 4 tymes then pored the mix into the beds and turned over that and the soil that was already there digging down about a foot. The biggest problem with humanure is all of the stuff people eliminate when they're taking antibiotics, it gives bugs, microbes, an opportunity to become antibiotic resistant.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
> Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.
No, extraordinary claims require ordinary proof that has been vetted extraordinarily well.
Otherwise, someone can arbitrarily declare claims 'extraordinary' and simply raise the bar every time the proof meets their old standard. You know, like they do with global warming, or evolution.
Sorry, but that soundbyte just gets to me.
My own figures:
The Tesla and EV1 both use ~12kWh/100km, or about 200 Watt-hours per mile.
I don't know what you drive, but a typical compact is about 4.5 by 1.5 meters, or about 6.75 square meters of horizontal surface area. If no more than a third is glass, that gives 4.5 square meters for cells.
Solar insolation is certainly no more than 1000 Watts/sq.m even at noon, but you're also gathering sunlight the other 3 to 5 hours you're at work. The final total will obviously vary hugely depending on your location and time of year, but on a good summer's day you might get 6500 Wh over the whole work day. But 15% efficiency sounds about right.
Sooo...
4.5 sq.m * 15% * 6500 Wh/sq.m =~ 4400 Wh produced
15 miles * 200 Wh/mile = 3000 Wh consumed
So even with a less-than ideal day, you might still be fine. Of course, a cloudy winter day in Minneapolis or a 30 miles commute would kill you, but at least you wouldn't have to charge up some days.
To a solar-hydrogen technology in development by an Australian company announced last year.
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/innovations/stories/s1913712.htm
CRAP...Solar powered cars will work just fine as soon as we slap a 1.5 square meter solar panal on the top of the car and another 4.5 square meter panel over the parking spot. Or a damn plug at parking spot. Or one at your house. Sure we aren't going to have a 100 solar powered car any time soon but who cares. An electric car that is charged by solar power made at my house or at my job is just as good.
the biggest problem is that it's very expensive to buy sufficient panels to generate 1000W of power
It depends on what you consider expensive. Five Sharp 224W Solar Panels, each costing $1200, would cost $6000 and generate more than 1000W.
The biggest problem with solar power is that we can't generate enough power and not the fact that we can't store it.
Do you know more than those who write for SciAm? SciAm published an article, "A Solar Grand Plan", detailing how the US can produce "69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy (which includes transportation) with solar power by 2050." Potential wind power is even greater. The Rocky Mountains from Canada to Texas alone, Oilman and Billionaire T. Boone Pickens is proposing this, has enough potential wind energy to provide the US with electricity. Actually his plan is for independence from imported oil. Use of the wind would allow natural gas fueled power plants to be closed then the gas coulf be used as vehicle fuel.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
watt/hours? I think you mean watt-hours. I keep reading what you wrote as "watts per hour", which is not a unit of energy, but a rate of change of power.
I wish utilities companies just used joules...
I'll start beleiving it when I start seeing some real progress.
For there to be much progress though people have to know and people as well as politicians have to get out of the way. For instance in both Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras offshore wind farms were proposed however NIMBYs and others have fought against these wind farms. "Offshore wind power could supply almost all of the East Coast's energy needs" according to a study funded by the University of Delaware and Stanford University. While I'm against nuclear power plants anywhere, and not just in my back yard, I'd love to have both wind gennies and solar PVs on my property. I live in a city now, rent to own sort of thing, so a wind gennie is probably out of the question. But once I do own the building, which has 4 apartments, I plan on saving money so I can remodel it to be as energy efficient as I can and I'd like to install some PVs on the roof, which will be a Green roof. Besides a few PVs I'll also use it for gardening.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
our grandchildren tomorrow will be facing PEAK WATER if these experiments are allowed to continue!
Our grandchildren will be facing Peak Water no matter what. Throughout the world water is be mined, pumped, from the surface as well as aquifers faster than it can be replaced. Some places, like Australia, are in a drought now. Victoria is on water rationing and farmers have been decimated by the lack of water.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The Reuters article claims the new catalyst drops the conversion inefficiency by about 90% compared to platinum. Since platinum efficiency is about 50-70%, that means that the new efficiency is about 95-97.5%.
This is an incredible advance, if it's true. Even though it increases the efficiency of only the oxygen generation, leaving hydrogen still generated by a platinum catalyst at the old efficiency. Even if the efficiency has jumped only from 50-70% to about 70-85%, that's still a big jump. And it shows that there's a lot of reachable gains left to get, and not necessarily in the distant future.
--
make install -not war
A post above says the reaction first produces phosphoric acid, and that's what you'd store to later recombine with ocygen to produce energy.
So what are the storage requirements then?
A large fuel cell stack will cost you around $10 a watt (smaller ones are more expensive per watt). Let's say that some big fuel cell manufacturer and can afford to sell them in bulk for $5 a watt. Well, go check out your breaker box. How many watts is it rated for -- 30kW? 50kW? 100kW? That's hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of fuel cells alone. Not exactly affordable. Even if you were to use a battery or capacitor buffer so that you only need to be able to provide a fraction of that, it's still priced way out of any semblance of affordability. Of course, you don't *have* to use fuel cells. You could use a H2 ICE or turbine. But then your efficiency is *even lower*.
Batteries are really the only realistic option in the foreseeable future.
"He's a god; it'll take more than one shot." â" Lady Eboshi, Mononoke Hime
Hi, I had my PhD in hydrogen fuel cells and see how misleading the sentence you quoted is.
First off, they talk about current, not power. Current is determined by how many electrons you have, which is proportional to the reaction rate. Of fucking course almost all current goes into the reaction, where else should it go? There can be some parasitic losses, but these are usually negligible. What determines the energetic efficiency is the voltage that you have to apply to split water, and that's going to be higher when you want the reaction to go faster.
Anyway, electrolysis is a fairly efficient process anyway. If you measure first-law-efficiency, it could be possible to attain an efficiency slighly higher than 100% because the reaction has a large positive entropy change (gas molecules are formed), resulting in a reaction that cools the water; of course the second-law efficiency cannot go beyond 100% because that is the physical limit.
Finally, what you care about here is the round-trip efficiency for production, storage and consumption. Electrolysis is easy, but hydrogen storage and fuel cells are not. The MIT people of the article worked on the easiest chunk of it, producing hydrogen. Nothing to be found about hydrogen storage (which is probably the most difficult part: hydrogen is a gas and has a very low volumetric energy density, so you either cool it at 22 K and liquefy it, or you compress it at hundreds of atmospheres, or you adsorb it onto some metals to produce hydrides. Neither solution is simple.
Then, there is the issue of making a good fuel cell. The current order of magnitude for efficiency is around 50%, which is still much better than cars, but is a long way to 100%.
The technology is great, but the article is way hyped; in fact I do not see anything radically new in it. However, there is the word patented, which always makes my bullshit detector go crazy: this could just be a PR stunt for a patent.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
is cobalt phosphate the same as phosphoric acid? or is cobalt phosphate anhydrus phosphoric acid or somthing?
Could somebody please explain to me why fuel cells are so important? I don't see why it's better to use them than to just have the solar cells hooked up to regular old batteries.
Surface area of a car is 1.5 square meters.
Why would you put the solar panels on the car?
If you put the panels on your roof, they can dump energy into the electrical grid during peak load when it is most needed. You then charge your car at night, when the grid has excess capacity.
Plus you don't have to lug around the solar panels on your car all the time, so it will be lighter.
Thanks!
Even if the solar panel is on the car, it can be let's say 2x3 meters, 6 square meters instead of 1.5.
This gives 4500 watt-hours.
I admit the bigger panel may mean a shape with more drag, but not necessarily.
Mod parent up, insolation is very different to insulation.
Average electric car uses 300 watt/hours per mile
That's W*h/mile, not W/h/mile. 1 W*h happens to be the same as 1 Joule, the unit of energy.
EEStor and MIT have super capacitors that are probably better for this. Higher efficiency and most likely lower costs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
But the car is in the garage at night
Art is the mathematics of emotion
Oh please what a corny uninformed post. Firstly, all companies are set up to be profitable. Secondly, many Americans own stock in companies like Exon through their 401K so in a sense many people are getting back their investment. Thirdly, if the MIT thing is genuine the 'hated' oil companies could simply buy the patent and move into the broader energy business. (Don't for one minute buy into the ' they buy the invention and suppress it silly view.) You may resent the oil companies, but at least they are keeping the money in the US. The oil states in the gulf and elsewhere are - in some cases - earning a billion dollars in a day!
Two words:
Stanley Meyer
That "new" way of separating water was done 20 years ago by Meyer. His way of separating water could use tap water, sea water, polluted water; as long as it was some kind of water. Google his name if you want the real story.
1 W*h happens to be the same as 1 Joule, the unit of energy.
Umm, no 1 Watt*second = 1 Joule, 1 Watt * 1 h(3600 s) = 3600 J, congrats you've gotten it wrong by several orders of magnitude, are you responsible for the mars lander?
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Arrgh! Its Watt*hours of energy , not watts/hour.
What are you trying to do, ruin my sex life?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I like this idea for a multitude of reasons. One is that then the average home would have a large storage of water, which, in times of war or disaster would be a VERY GOOD THING, in my opinion. What's the numbers? What kind of water tower would you need to store the 1 kw it takes to keep your home alive all night?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Well, they could easily work if you augment the charge with solar panels at home, and then use that electricity to charge the car at night, which is yet another reason we need better energy storage, which I believe is what the initial story is all about, no?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
1.5 square meters * 15% * 1000 watts * 5 hours = 1125 watt/hours
The average commute is 15 miles * 300 watts-hours = 4500 watt/hours consumed.
Solar powered cars won't work until solar cell efficiencies are 50% or better.
I'd just say your numbers prove pure solar cars won't currently work. Hybrid solar cars apparently could reduce other power source requirements by about 1/4 by your numbers, that's if you can get the solar power equipment and the other power source all packed into the car.
We just need hybrid solar, hydrogen, gas, and CNG vehicles so the damn things could run off any of the available energy sources.
Does this mean I can have a free Oxygen bar in my house? Sweet!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Altruism neither pays for the scientists' mortgages nor pays for all the equipment they use to develop their theories.
Though of course when referring to tenured professors at major research universities, who _might just have other means of access to salaries and research funding_, this sentence makes a little less sense. :)
"Daniel G. Nocera
The Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry"
From http://web.mit.edu/Chemistry/www/faculty/nocera.html
What are the implications for things such as water purification, desalination, etc?
Nobel Prize.
Can they award both Chemistry and Peace for the same achievement?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"Nocera's catalyst is made from cobalt, phosphate and an electrode that produces oxygen from water by using 90 percent less electricity than current methods, which use the costly metal platinum.
The system still relies on platinum to produce hydrogen -- the other element that makes up water."
So what? We don't need to produce O2, we need to produce H2.
You wouldn't have to store the gas indoors. Most non-industrial cisterns and septic tanks are buried in the owner's back yard.
Combine this with a rainwater catchment system, and you can cut back on two utility bills.
Thanks for dropping that link. Quoth Wikipedia:
Grubbs earned that Nobel and then some, I'd say.
Really. If you wanted to, you *could* ride in to work, but as with any change, there are barriers to entry. (Yes, I've lived in Texas. Yes, I've ridden my bike to work on a regular basis, and often do, though I escaped TX.) I was hesitant as well. When I was a contractor for a large bank, you think I wanted to show up like a sweaty hog? You think I wasn't afraid of those crazy Texas drivers in their enormous cars? But I did it anyway. Buy some odor-free (and aloe-free!) baby wipes. Voila, instant shower-in-a-bathroom. Buy a messenger bag and fold your clothes. You can make it happen if you really want to. I found I didn't even need coffee on the mornings I rode in. But nobody can help you if you throw up all these barriers yourself. If you don't want to ride to work, that's fine. But you COULD ride your bike to work. You just don't want to.
If we are currently 70% efficient that means for every 100 units of energy expended we manage to succcessfully "store" 70. So, we lose 30 units in the "storage" process. If we become 90% more efficient that means we will manage to store 90% of the 30 we were losing before, so, 70 + 30 * 0.90 = 97. So, we are now, overall, 97% efficient as opposed to 70% efficient, a 90% increase in efficiency.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Not true. The well-endowed Ivies mainly function as large, tax-exempt hedge funds. That's why Harvard has stopped charging tuition for most of its students. The advantages to a hedge fund of its size from being untaxed are far greater than the tuition revenues being foregone. Basically, the Ivies have become huge investment funds, running educational charities on the side as a way to enhance their status and gain a tax advantage.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
70% Efficiency : 100 units in = 70 units stored
Now, use 10% of energy to store same result :
10 units in = 70 units stored
Wow! That is Amazing!
I think grand-parent was right. The article summary mistates the "...requires only 10% of the electricity...". I think the correct thing they meant to say, is that it is 90% more efficient, like my analysis above.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
I didn't get the connection to leaves and electrolysis. What's the connection?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
SuperBanana said:
It'd be really refreshing to see scientists develop a bit of altruism. It's the ultimate Open Source, and they'd be guaranteed decades, if not centuries, of good will and fame. That's worth a lot more than a few *possible* royalty checks.
Heard this on NPR on my way home from work yesterday:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/07/31/solar_storage/
"MIT has patented the process and is forming a company to develop the technology for market. Nocera also published his discovery in today's issue of the journal "Science."
Nocera: I open-sourced it right away. Because it's easy to do, you'll have the entire community across the world begin working on this."
Sounds like he did "open-source" it, or so he says. But where is the "source" ? Published in "Science" ? Can someone who subscribes to that magazine take a look? Does it seem like it contains all the details necessary to reproduce the technology?
>It'd be really refreshing to see scientists develop a bit of altruism. It's the ultimate Open Source, and they'd be guaranteed decades, if not centuries, of good will and fame. That's worth a lot more than a few *possible* royalty checks.
Scientists at MIT don't own their inventions, MIT does. It's not Nocera's to give away, it's MIT's. Luckily for Nocera, MIT will share some of the wealth, but professors do not own the patents they produce while working for a university.
It's an exciting possibility, but the post makes it sound like this is a new idea. The idea of taking a renewable energy source's electricity and using it to produce hydrogen during off peak hours has been used before.
It's interesting to note that in cases where the renewable energy source is sufficiently far from the load, it is, in some cases, viable to produce hydrogen, then ship it to the load and burn it to create electricity (using a generator, of course).
Sizeable deposits of cobalt in Canada and Cuba, no cobalt in the US or none to speak of. Why am I not surprised.
I usually take the train to work, but I often ride my bike.
Train (including getting from home to station): 50-60 minutes (more if the trains break down)
Car: 35-45 minutes (more if traffic jams)
Bike (using most direct but most scary route): 45 minutes (other routes 60-75 minutes)
So I can get to work on my bike in less time than taking the train, and not much more time than driving my car. And I get a good, healthy workout while doing it. Granted, I have to take a shower when I arrive at the office, but still...
No sig? Sigh...
http://www.discussglobalwarming.com/blog
http://www.aninconvenientguilttrip.com
Does this mean we can now make hydrogen 10X cheaper for cars than before?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Ah, think about your battery powered drill. Use a second battery pack to charge during the day and swap out for the next day. Or just dump its energy into the car's pack when you get home.
Spin up a flywheel during the day. Compress air in a tank during the day. Charge a lead-acid battery during the day... etc
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
But the charging station can have batteries that charge throughout the day... then, plug in your car at night and drain the charging station into the car. Simple transfer of the day's solar power into the overnight transfer of energy. Now a full day's sunlight on the roof of your garage can charge your car overnight.
Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
This substance is required for this to work and yet is involved in the death of many children every year - not to mention it can work it's way into your body from the enviorment easily. It's just not worth messing around with such harmful chemicals.
Dude! why do you think we bought all those suv's & hummers?
We were planning on the extra surface area when we put in the solar conversion kits.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
Switch to LEDs when the CFLs go. LEDs use even less power than CFLs and don't have the disposal issue CFLs do (CFLs contain mercury).
Currently LEDs, most anyway, are only good for spot lighting, they aren't good for area lighting. When good area lighting LEDs come out, and they don't cost too much, then I'll buy some. On the other hand I've been thinking about converting my Maglite to use an LED. While Maglite now sells LED flashlights I've had mine for more than 10 years and it's still good. I see no reason to replace it, the embodied energy of a new one is probably more than the energy I have now uses.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Governments of the world should all chip in some big bux, hand them guys some billions, and open source all their patents, just to help save the global economy and the climate. I think this is one of those deals we shouldn't wait on, 50 cent a watt solar PV that can be printed on demand would be the most serious energy game changer since...dunno, fire?
Well there is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rb_rDkwGnU
I really don't think this whole HHO thing is new. Just heavily suppressed and discredited because of how quickly it could make fossil fuels obsolete. Its good to see it actually coming out into the open, finally. The oil moguls must go or we all will.
Did digg trump /. with arguably the biggest story of the decade/generation/century?...
Original /. post July 31 7:05 pm and currently has 527 comments to digg's 403...
original digg 1 day 11 hours ago http://digg.com/general_sciences/MIT_Major_discovery_primed_to_unleash_solar_revolution
# comments is very telling...
and because we already have tons of ICE
that is Internal Combustion Engines
upgrading an ICE to run on hydrogen is cheaper
than buying a new car
That's why it will be not on rooftops, but in the deserts ... there is enough space and plenty of sun ... great for utility scale projects.
See also DESERTEC and
NEAL, is planning to build a 3,000 km-long (1,875 mile) power cable to Germany to
If you ask me, the Solar Thermal Millennium has eventually been unleashed!!!
Imagine the potential of water splitting and desalination combined with solar thermal power plants, as such build in Spain .
Solar thermal power plants are the most efficient way today to convert sunlight to electricity in large scale and utility scale.
Remaining process heat can be used for sea water desalination.
The desalinated water can then be used for hydrogen production.
The water desalination is essential, otherwise we'd have the biofuel against food fight again, but this time it's about water.
(n.b. High efficient PV for roof tops, needs metals like Indium, hardly available and the energy required to produce such cells is horrible.)
MIT one of the Best Technology schools in America and I believe they are on something big with all of these discoverys ove the past few months. The Facts are in the numbers people. We (america) is finally paying attention to Solar Power, Renewable Resourses, and bio-fules where the rest of the world has been doing it for decades. If this country where to harness these new technologies that would mean more jobs, more money for middle class families, and bring the dollar where it's supposed to be. http://solarpowermarket.blogspot.com/