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.
This new method developed by MIT of splitting water molecules mimics the way photosynthesis works in plants.
“You’ve made your house into a fuel station,” Daniel Nocera, a chemistry professor at MIT said. “I’ve gotten rid of all the goddamn grids.”
My guess is that we’ll figure out the scalability issues of these imaginative efforts sooner than most can possibly conceive.
Look for cooler heads to prevail as breakthroughs like this continue to cheapen today’s best alternative energy sources.
Is there really a need to rush to “large-scale investments” in current, inefficient technologies?
Now that we’re focused on the solutions and working the problem can we be safe knowing that our efforts will bear fruit sooner than expected? If we ‘re able to get to the Moon in the sixties could we have breakthroughs of this magnitude in the next five years?
Will every windmill we build need to be taken down? This problem is obvious at South Point. The old wind farm remains long after the new wind farm goes into production.
Every single battery we use to store energy will also need to be recycled. Locally, there are two times a year when battery recycling is offered. Throwing your batteries in the landfill is illegal.
“Within two years, you’ll start seeing module designs,” Nocera said. “A lot of my MIT colleagues are raring to go and work on this and they are all engineers and they’re pretty damn good.”
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Additional Reading
MIT researchers attain solar ‘nirvana’
Cheap Catalyst Could Turn Sunlight, Water Into Fuel
Photo at top by defrost.ca
This discovery is certainly an important one. It is sad that there is no mention of it in the media. I wonder why. As mentioned in the write up this dicovery or invention could be the reuseable energy source mankind has been looking for. Several years ago I realized photosynthesis is the answer and thought if we could synthesis the firt stage of it we have endless source of energy. The product that result for you process, hydrogen, is a very good source and easy to store. Please let me know why there is not any mention of this in the media.
Thanks
November 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Aloha John, we completely agree. It seems there's no money is energy problems that are solved. Perhaps there's more money is energy problems rather than solutions? This is an amazing discovery as are many others…
November 12th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I'm no scientist, but I'm sure I remember watching a program in the UK in about 1995 of a man who had created a car to run off hydrogen from water and I think he was doing the same thing. Just Googled it and it seems you can download it:
http://www.torrentreactor.net/torrents/2026121/...
November 30th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
aloha John, you're right. although folks are having varying levels of
success with hydrogen power in general the folks at MIT seem to be onto
something new with these solar collection/storage devices. A search at
youtube for water for fuel also turns up some interesting videos. thanks for
the addition…
November 30th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Now thats a first step to an affordable water solar battery.
February 24th, 2009 at 8:51 am