Hydrogen Solar Cells
Dean
Hmm. A group of researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney say they have a process that within seven years could begin revolutionizing the power industry: extracting hydrogen from water cheaply, using solar power.
Normally I stay away from alternative energy stories because it is one of the most oddly political subjects I've ever run across. Still, these guys have two nobel laureates on their team who won their prize just a few years ago for proving the feasibility of this technology, and they look pretty serious.
Luck, mates.
I got a kick out of one sentence in the article, "We have...a moral obligation to utilise this." Where does that come from? What do energy generation and morality have to do with each other?
Still it will be interesting to see if this is better that "Cold Fusion."
What you point out about how many announcements of exciting alternative energy solutions is absolutely right. This is why I often snort at people who say they want to have a "Manhattan Project for Alternative Energy," like if you pack a bunch of scientists into a dorm they'll between them come up with a magic solution. This is incredibly silly thinking. When they did the real Manhattan Project, all the theoretical work was already in place, and everybody agreed on the same general direction. With alternative energy, there are literally thousands of directions to pursue, and most of them are guaranteed to be dead ends. Then just involve politicians, who'll have their pet projects and beliefs for their districts and states, and you have a guaranteed recipe for a gigantic boondoggle that only slows down and confuses what the private sector's already doing on its own.
The process sounds potentially very interesting, but the linked article contained far too much hype for my tastes.
BTW, the Japanese are "front runners" not winners of Nobels. David Suzuki is involved and he's a kook.
But, cheap sunlight into hydrogen? Closes one of the major gaps in the technology as per this post from a couple of weeks ago at my blog which I cannot enter as your comments s/ware won't let me. Look back to Aug 16
If you want to link something, link it. You can't put in bare URLs because they're way too long for a comment window (and browsers won't break long strings without white space).
Anyhow, really looking forward to the comments on this that you post.
These are practical problems which must be solved and will raise the price, once the gas is produced the rest of the problems can be solved...but they will cost money to solve (up front expence) and to daily implement (every day operating expence).
If the Hydrogen can be generated cheaply, then all the other problems can be handled...10 to 15 years hard work, my guess.
Assuming I've read between the lines of the press release correctly, what they have found is a catalyst that is resistant to degradation when exposed to the reactant (water), and the reaction that is catalyzed to release the hydrogen can be driven by light rather than heat. For economical hydrogen production this is key, since sunlight is essentially a "freebie" and should be available at many points of use for hydrogen powered fuel cells.
As is so common, turning a fundamental discovery into a viable technology is rarely as trivial as described in the "within 7 year" type of comments made by marketing guys which always infuriate technologists who have to actually make it happen. Given the materials involved in this case, however, there won't be a technical hurdle too large to overcome, the biggest challenge may be as discussed above, the economics of the technology competing with our current energy sources.
The process of electrolysis of water into hydrogen and water is not that complicated. Have the researches explained exactly how their process is superior to standard methods?
Also: Dean, unless I'm mis-reading something, the researchers in question are not Nobel laureates, but "frontrunners," and laureates of the Japan Prize.
They are also chemists, not engineers.
Also note that they haven't even run a pilot project yet, just issued a press release that they expect to deliver the "new material" seven years from now.
Alas. Alternative energy remains such an elusive field.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.