MIT reporting earthshaking solar power breakthrough
I haven’t seen a ton written about this yet, so I may be overstating things, but if this pans out it’ll be huge.
MIT is reporting a breakthrough that solves the biggest problem in solar and wind power production: a steady supply of power. Wind power works great — when the wind is blowing. Solar power is great during the daytime. Until now, the best solution is to either have batteries store your power over night or combine wind and solar to hopefully balance the system. Even then, you’d realistically need a grid-tied system to ensure you were never without power.
In this discovery, a process is created that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Once the two are separated, you can store the hydrogen in a fuel cell, which is a very reliable storage system. The big problem with fuel cells, from what I’ve read, is that you generally need a robust source of power to create large quantities of hydrogen, so fossil fuels are often used.
This process in effect acts like a planet, taking in solar energy, sucking up water and giving back hydrogen and oxygen — artificial photosynthesis.
From the article:
“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.”
Let’s just hope there’s enough water…
Tags: MIT