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
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