This is impressive (and makes me look too cynical in my prior Triflin' Energy Drainin' post, altough that analysis, in my view, remains correct in its premise). It looks like researchers at MIT may have found a way to address some of the most significant issues that raised so much concern for me in that post. This could be monumental.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.
Basically, MIT scientists claim to have found a way to efficiently split the hydrogen and oxygen from water in order to "store" the energy, and then release the energy again in a fuel cell. This has been, in my view, the only way hydrogen fuel cells make sense - as an ultra-efficient battery to store clean energy, which makes sense but only if you can get beyond the multiple hurdles of inefficiency, sourcing the hydrogen from a clean source (water, rather than natural gas, for instance), and utilizing electricity that comes from a clean source. The scientists claim that they:
. . . 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.
Significantly, unlike current methods of electrolysis to split the atoms in water, this method uses normal water at room temperature conditions, mimicing the process of photosysnthesis.
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.
This still seems to have a way to go, given that solar cells are still fairly inefficient at capturing the sun's energy (a technical problem), and extremely expensive (a commercialization and mass marketing problem). It also seems to me to be less of a solar play than a hydrogen play. But for hydrogen cells to make sense, they need to go together.
Brave new world.
Update: Looks like MIT has pushed the envelope on honestly reporting the "discovery" and the media badly muffed getting the story right. Details in a follow-up email.
