MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method

MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (Full Version)

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outlier -> MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (7/31/2008 3:42:21 PM)
I heard about this on NPR. Normally I would file it under too good to be true. But it is MIT saying it and it is Science Magazine publishing it. If it works it would change things a lot. Interesting. ScienceDaily (July 31, 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." Unleash Solar Power (ScienceDaily) CNET Outlier

bipolarber -> RE: MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (7/31/2008 4:00:18 PM)
It's interesting, but I think I'll wait until this thing gets vetted before I jump in behind it. (I still remember the "cold fusion" flap.) Still, it's an attractive idea... almost taoist... mimic nature to solve your problems. Also, I could see something like this (if it's not hype in search of funding) being combined with some of the newer tech like "hydrogen sponge" systems for storage. So... solar energy in, split water into hydrogen and O2, and use it for powering a fuel cell that can power your house, sans centralized grid. It seems more plausible than some of the "perpetual motion machine" solutions I've heard about in the last couple of years... It'll still be decades before we see a reliable production unit roll off an assembly line... but it does show promise.

DomKen -> RE: MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (7/31/2008 4:07:09 PM)
Not to put a damper on this but this isn't a particularly novel idea. What they're doing is using solar energy to power a hydrolysis reaction to produce O2 and H2 for later use in a fuel cell. The problem with this is you need power for two seperate steps. First you need the current to power the hydrolysis reaction. Presumably the catalysts that they're using make this a reasonably high effeciency reaction. However the other step seems to be getting glossed over. The H2 gas has to captured and stored for use in the fuel cell later. Compressing the H2 so as to store it efficiently is going to take power as well. How much input power the entire system needs to produce x kilowatt/hours of current will dictate if this can be done on rooftop instalations and still have power available for the daytime demand. If this is more efficient than simple lithium ion batteries I'd be shocked.

DarkSteven -> RE: MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (7/31/2008 7:29:04 PM)
If this is legit, there will also be a tremendous application in water desalinization, which is crazy energy intensive.

Termyn8or -> RE: MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (7/31/2008 8:18:42 PM)
DK is right. You have to put it in tanks under pressure to use it. Otherwise you wonderful electric car gets to the end of your driveway and it's over. Compressing the gas is work, done by a machine, but it is still work. From where does the energy some to produce that energy ? Every idea that comes close to free energy is shot down, because there is no free energy. The machine I mentioned in "Can't be done" is now sold and patented. But it is still not free energy, I think I have figured it out, but it is not free energy. Nothing ever was nor ever will be. And if you think solar is free, it is not. Watch photosynthesis centers along with their vast photovoltaic systems required to maintain them finally do the math. It will probably become another loser in the energy game. One idea that might help is to put them out in the desert. But if you are doing photosynthesis, water will be required. In the desert, water needs to be trucked in. Another little thing nobody thinks about. Even the supposedly magical machine I brought up in 'Can't Be Done' only does one thing. Generate electricity. From there you convert it, and that is not efficient. The way to really attack this problem would be instead of thinking of making the energy, how to accomplish what it does for us. Without it of course. But oh well. This whole idea, a form of seperating the gases from water, then compressors to pump it into tanks, then the fuel cells are not cheap. You think the average person is going to do all that ? They don't even have the time to teach their kids to read. So the way it will be done if it is done at all will be a centralized system, and as soon as they know they got us by the balls, they will gouge us as well. Human nature. T

Leatherist -> RE: MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (7/31/2008 8:21:08 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Termyn8or DK is right. You have to put it in tanks under pressure to use it. Otherwise you wonderful electric car gets to the end of your driveway and it's over. Compressing the gas is work, done by a machine, but it is still work. From where does the energy some to produce that energy ? Every idea that comes close to free energy is shot down, because there is no free energy. The machine I mentioned in "Can't be done" is now sold and patented. But it is still not free energy, I think I have figured it out, but it is not free energy. Nothing ever was nor ever will be. And if you think solar is free, it is not. Watch photosynthesis centers along with their vast photovoltaic systems required to maintain them finally do the math. It will probably become another loser in the energy game. One idea that might help is to put them out in the desert. But if you are doing photosynthesis, water will be required. In the desert, water needs to be trucked in. Another little thing nobody thinks about. Even the supposedly magical machine I brought up in 'Can't Be Done' only does one thing. Generate electricity. From there you convert it, and that is not efficient. The way to really attack this problem would be instead of thinking of making the energy, how to accomplish what it does for us. Without it of course. But oh well. This whole idea, a form of seperating the gases from water, then compressors to pump it into tanks, then the fuel cells are not cheap. You think the average person is going to do all that ? They don't even have the time to teach their kids to read. So the way it will be done if it is done at all will be a centralized system, and as soon as they know they got us by the balls, they will gouge us as well. Human nature. T Salt water can be pipleline shipped from the sea to the desert for relatively low cost-once the infrastructure is built. Especially if wave powered ram pumps do part of the work.

Vendaval -> RE: MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (8/1/2008 3:30:04 AM)
Good progress. Thank you for the link, outlier. [:)]

bipolarber -> RE: MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (8/1/2008 6:25:37 AM)
The thing is, this is NOT a scheme (as I understand it) to make a small solar array do the work of Hoover Dam... No, all this system seems to be proposing, is a means of storing the energy you get from the sun, efficiently enough to keep the power on, even during cloudy periods. As the article itself says, there's always been the bugaboo about solar that you can't depend on the weather. Yet statistically, you CAN figure on a certain percentage of your days of the year to be sunny, or at least partly sunny. Solar works. There's no question about that. The problem is how to store the energy during "off-peak" production days, so that you aren't browning out when you have gray fall days? I sincerely doubt that this system breaks the laws of thermodynamics... (i.e. there's going to be some energy loss in conversion) But, if that loss is low enough, it may make solar much more practical, on a large scale.

NeedToUseYou -> RE: MIT To Unleash New Solar Storage Method (8/1/2008 6:34:46 AM)
Maybe I'm missing something, and I may be, but why wouldn't this be used for heating to. I mean, I assume most of the waste heat in the circuit that causes the electrolysis isn't wasted if the product wanted was heat, and the product of the process would be two flammable gases. It would seem it must be more efficient than just a direct electrical heating. I'm just thinking heater.. Don't know, but it just seems to me if it's efficient to turn it into hydrogen, and oxygen, then store that then convert it back to electricity, it must be more efficient to use the heat from the process, and then burn the gases directly, so no storage required for that purpose.

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