[Marxism] "Major Discovery" From MIT Primed to Unleash Solar Revolution

[Dbachmozart at aol.com]

"Major Discovery" From MIT Primed to Unleash Solar  Revolution  
Thursday 31 July 2008 
by: Anne Trafton, MIT News
 
<_http://www.truthout.org/article/major-discovery-from-mit-primed-unleash-sola
r-revolution_ 
(http://www.truthout.org/article/major-discovery-from-mit-primed-unleash-solar-revolution) >
 
Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy  storage system. 
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. 
"This is the nirvana of what we've  been talking about for years," said MIT's 
Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus  Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of 
a paper describing the work in  the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has 
always been a limited, far-off  solution. Now we can seriously think about 
solar power as unlimited and  soon." 
Inspired by the photosynthesis  performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew 
Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's  lab, have developed an unprecedented 
process that will allow the sun's energy to  be used to split water into hydrogen 
and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and  hydrogen may be recombined inside a 
fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity  to power your house or your 
electric car, day or night. 
The key component in Nocera and  Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that 
produces oxygen gas from water;  another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen 
gas. The new catalyst consists of  cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, 
placed in water. When electricity -  whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind 
turbine or any other source - runs  through the electrode, the cobalt and 
phosphate form a thin film on the  electrode, and oxygen gas is produced. 
Combined with another catalyst,  such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen 
gas from water, the system can  duplicate the water splitting reaction that 
occurs during photosynthesis. 
The new catalyst works at room  temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's 
easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's  why I know this is going to work. It's so 
easy to implement," he  said. 
"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." 
"Just the Beginning" 
Currently available  electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and 
are often used  industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis 
because they are very  expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) 
environment that has little to  do with the conditions under which photosynthesis 
operates. 
More engineering work needs to  be done to integrate the new scientific 
discovery into existing photovoltaic  systems, but Nocera said he is confident that 
such systems will become a  reality. 
"This is just the beginning,"  said Nocera, principal investigator for the 
Solar Revolution Project funded by  the Chesonis Family Foundation and 
co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers  Center. "The scientific community is really 
going to run with this." 
Nocera hopes that within 10  years, homeowners will be able to power their 
homes in daylight through  photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy 
to produce hydrogen and  oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. 
Electricity-by-wire from a  central source could be a thing of the past. 
The project is part of the MIT  Energy Initiative, a program designed to help 
transform the global energy system  to meet the needs of the future and to 
help build a bridge to that future by  improving today's energy systems. MITEI 
Director Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida  Green Professor of Physics and 
Engineering Systems, noted that "this discovery  in the Nocera lab demonstrates that 
moving up the transformation of our energy  supply system to one based on 
renewables will depend heavily on frontier basic  science." 
The success of the Nocera lab  shows the impact of a mixture of funding 
sources - governments, philanthropy,  and industry. This project was funded by the 
National Science Foundation and by  the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave 
MIT $10 million this spring to launch  the Solar Revolution Project, with a 
goal to make the large scale deployment of  solar energy within 10 years.



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