Recently, our little electric co-op experienced a power outage that lasted several hours on one of the hottest days in anyone’s memory. It made us stop our various pursuits of gardening, unpacking, mowing and the like. We moved alternative energy to the top of our to-do list.
Don began designing our solar powered system with much internet research and telephone calls to distributors. As always, the drawback for solar is the energy storage system for use at night. Battery technology is still in its infancy but there are regular breaks into new directions. Most of the new technologies come from other countries and may be many years down the road to mainstream in America. It is disheartening to see how slow our country has been with rising to the new challenges of our age.
And yet… it isn’t all bad news. My email inbox had some lovely news. Kudos to MIT.
From today’s alternet feed:
Are Solar’s Problems Solved?
By Eoin O’Carroll, Christian Science Monitor. Posted August 4, 2008.
A big drawback of solar power is that it doesn’t work at night or on cloudy days. But researchers at MIT say they now have an inexpensive way to store solar energy when the sun isn’t out.
Daniel Nocera, a chemistry professor at MIT, and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Mr. Nocera’s lab, have developed a catalyst made from cobalt and phosphate that can split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas. When used in conjunction with a photovoltaic solar panel, their system can use water to store the sun’s energy.
‘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.”
It is an interesting article and I have my fingers crossed that the engineers at MIT will be given the sort of financing they need to pursue this system.
Menopausal Mick
