Living Car Free - MIT Makes Solar Power Viable/Powerful Option?

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donrhummy
08-01-08, 01:08 PM
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN3145191020080731?sp=true


A U.S. scientist has developed a new way of powering fuel cells that could make it practical for home owners to store solar energy and produce electricity to run lights and appliances at night.

A new catalyst produces the oxygen and hydrogen that fuel cells use to generate electricity, while using far less energy than current methods.

With this catalyst, users could rely on electricity produced by photovoltaic solar cells to power the process that produces the fuel, said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who developed the new material.

"If you can only have energy when the sun is shining, you're in deep trouble. And that's why, in my opinion, photovoltaics haven't penetrated the market," Daniel Nocera, an MIT professor of energy, said in an interview at his Cambridge, Massachusetts, office. "If I could provide a storage mechanism, then I make energy 24/7 and then we can start talking about solar."...


77midget
08-01-08, 07:34 PM
I really think that this is the direction that solar will go, that is to say, the primary power source for stored power/electricity. I like the fuel cell angle, because the stored power is not in the form of caustic and corrosive batteries, but it needs to be economical.