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Yale is the latest institution to join the DOE's Solar Energy to Chemical Fuels Initiative.
$12.8 million DOE project seeks to convert solar energy into chemical form

A team of Yale chemists accepted the challenge from the Department of Energy search for a way to distill sunlight into liquid fuel.

The Yale researchers will join 12 other institutions in attempting to create an affordable photocatalytic cell for water cleavage with visible light power. The goal of the $12.8 million DOE Solar Energy to Chemical Fuels Initiative is to create economically viable fuels suitable for use in transportation.

If the effort should prove successful, one of the major achievements will be to "overcome the problem of day/night variation of the solar resource,” according to a statement  from the Yale Department of Chemistry.

"This has been a goal of photoelectrochemistry research for more than three decades," said Yale’s project leader and  department chair, Professor Gary Brudvig. "Our challenge is to improve efficiency of solar energy utilization.”

The Yale team will focus on attaching manganese complexes to titanium dioxide nanoparticles. In the process, the team plans to develop a comprehensive understanding of the molecular-level  structural and dynamic principles underlying photocatalytic devices.

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Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By vamin on 7/1/2007 4:27:04 PM , Rating: 3
Actually, they are trying to turn sunlight into gaseous fuel. Cleaving water gives you hydrogen and oxygen.




By The Boston Dangler on 7/1/2007 5:14:55 PM , Rating: 2
...and produces less enegry than it consumes.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By vamin on 7/1/2007 5:24:43 PM , Rating: 3
...unless you are getting it for free from sunlight.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By zsdersw on 7/1/2007 6:09:34 PM , Rating: 5
Light from the sun is quite abundant and about as renewable as a source of power can be.

It's very compelling. At any given moment, the Earth receives an immense amount of energy from the sun. Most of it we're *not* using as a source of electricity.. and that's a shame. Any effort to attempt to get more of that energy from the sun into our electric power grid or into a fuel tank is worth exploring.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By Oregonian2 on 7/2/07, Rating: -1
RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By detinith on 7/2/2007 2:58:30 AM , Rating: 5
The sun is predicted to run out of its main fuel source in 6 billion years, and will almost definitely result in the destruction of the inner planets. If we master solar power, the fact it eventually runs out and we need to find a new fuel source will be the least of our worries.


By Samus on 7/2/2007 6:59:02 AM , Rating: 1
We are so going to destroy ourselves within the next hundred years anyway.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By zsdersw on 7/2/2007 6:22:34 AM , Rating: 5
Yes, and when it runs out there won't be an Earth anymore to need it.

Earth, if it survives the death of the sun, will be nothing but a charred smoldering ball of rock.

If humanity survives 5-6 billion years, I find it highly unlikely that Earth will be our only home and place on which we can survive.

Finally, what is "renewable" anyway? 5 or 6 billion years is, as I said, about as renewable as they come. What are other renewable sources of energy? Wind? Tidal? Guess what.. those would go away when the sun dies too. The atmosphere would burn off and all of the water would evaporate.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By Scorpion on 7/2/2007 2:51:32 PM , Rating: 2
For all intents and purposes, the sun's energy is "free". By "free" it means that it does not require resources on Earth to produce it's power.

The closer we get to harnessing the Sun's power, the closer we get to becoming a Type I civilization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By mindless1 on 7/2/2007 5:09:05 PM , Rating: 2
I think the DOE would disagree about free, having just spent 12.8 Million, and it certainly does require resources to produce power. What it is not is a reasonably exhaustible source of power per period, the density of that power is (and will always be) the main problem but now post-conversion into their alternative fuel.


By Scorpion on 7/3/2007 2:06:46 PM , Rating: 2
See again... I clarify what "free" means and you twist it back to the wrong interpretation. Nothing is "free" by your definition. All energy which is not in a directly usable form for our houses/cars/factories/etc require conversion from one form to another. This of course is NEVER free. These are the laws of Thermodynamics.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By BladeVenom on 7/1/2007 6:41:30 PM , Rating: 5
Of course it's free. I've never had to pay for sunlight, and I don't pirate it either.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By jak3676 on 7/1/2007 9:13:51 PM , Rating: 2
Thief


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By PAPutzback on 7/2/2007 8:34:55 AM , Rating: 2
To think someone argued this point past the reply "Theif". too many scientists in this thread. I'd hate to be at their party.


By ebakke on 7/2/2007 5:26:04 PM , Rating: 2
Humor not allowed at your parties?


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By kamel5547 on 7/2/2007 12:09:40 AM , Rating: 2
YOu don't pay for light... however, its quite possible his point was that it dose cost money to capture sunlight and turn it into power. A recoupable amount of money given enough time though... but solar power IS NOT free.


By rsmech on 7/2/2007 3:12:57 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
its quite possible his point was that it dose cost money to capture sunlight and turn it into power.


What fuel source doesn't cost money to "capture"? So all things being equal it is "free". Most energy sources are "free" natural. Oil, natural gas, coal, uranium, water. The cost to capture is the variable. But in terms of the amount available and finding deposits the sun is the most abundant and the easiest to locate.

It isn't cheap to find, process, and distribute many of our fuel sources but the cost is made up in the quantity used. This may seem expensive (any new source would be) but if viable the quantity that could be used would easily cover the cost. Where would we see a negative impact versus ethanol which is food based and would have a major impact on our land use and water usage. As far as I'm concerned anything is better.


By OxBow on 7/2/2007 10:06:52 AM , Rating: 2
Solar power is free just like a mustang was free 150 years ago. The horse didn't cost anything, just run out on the range and catch one. Training and harnessing it did cost something, which was why horse thieving was a capital offense.

It costs money to turn solar power into some form of energy that we'd use in a commercial application. The key is, can that cost ratio be made economically viable or not.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By jc24 on 7/2/2007 1:08:04 PM , Rating: 2
Let's take it for granted that the solar power/sunlight is free. What about the water? Additionally, with water being as scarce as it is now, imagine what will happen when we start using it as fuel. The wars of the future which are most likely to be over water (instead of oil) would then happen sooner rather than later.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By Ringold on 7/2/2007 1:39:58 PM , Rating: 2
The water issue was discussed in The Economist a couple weeks back and they noted the additional costs it would take to deliver all of our water from desalination plants using current technology. I estimated I'd pay around an extra $10 a month. Filtration systems that can operate cheaper than the current method (heating water, condensing the steam) will be available soon enough.

I cant seem to find the link, though, as it was part of a special issue and cant seem to figure out how to search for it.


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By ZmaxDP on 7/2/2007 5:38:22 PM , Rating: 3
Ok, here goes...

1. Solar power isn't free...on any level! We have to pay for the technology to convert light into energy. Don't give some silly argument that these cost's don't count in this discussion. The cost of harvesting oil from underground and of refining oil into gasoline, plastics, and other products IS the cost you pay for those final products. Here too the "resource" is free. I certainly didn't pay to create the oil, or place it underground...did you? Also, here we have all this abundant energy (in the form of waves/particles in the electromagnetic spectrum) hitting the earth going to waste right? Wrong. What in the world (no pun intended) do you think is heating our planet, providing the energy necessary for life, or causing global warming? Point being, just like oil, natural gas, coal, wood, or any other resource with energy potential, there is a balance of that resource in our environment. Take enough out and you'll upset the balance one way or another. After all, 100 years ago people said there was enough "free" "abundant" oil to last forever! Let's pretend that in 50 years 100% of the electricity generation on the planet comes from "free" "abundant" solar resources. Well, we could be causing global cooling because we removed too much heat from the biosphere. Or, we could cause a new pollution scare from some by-product of the production of solar cells. Or, the massive amounts of batteries needed to store solar energy causes it's own pollution nightmare. Thank heavens for "clean" "free" energy.

Didn't your mothers ever tell you that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?

2. What we're really talking about here is a battery. We're trying to find a way to convert the energy in light to a storage medium (hydrogen) that is in some way an improvement on energy storage in current electric battery technology (NiMH, LIon, etc...). I applaud that, really I do. Let's assume that in this case there is no net water loss in the process of splitting the hydrogen-oxygen bonds to get hydrogen, burning that hydrogen with oxygen, and then exhausting water vapor. (I seriously doubt that is the case, btw. There is likely to be some water loss at some point - some hydrocarbon production, etc... Nothing to worry about when you've got 100 fuel cell cars running about, but try taking it up in scale to a billion cars. Even a teaspoon lost a day is a LOT of water...) Yay, more "free" energy, right? Wrong again. We're puling water from natural storage and putting it in sealed storage - underground water tanks, pipes - and thereby removing it from the ecosystem. We're talking billions of gallons of water. Don't you think that is going to have an effect on rainfall, water costs, etc... No, we're going to pull it out of the ocean, it's just a drop in the bucket right? The polar ice caps are melting anyway, so we'll just keep the world from flooding...

Seriously, all this environmental responsibility stuff is about balance. There is not and never will be one "perfect" power source. The trick to us not screwing everything up royally is to keep the world in balance. So, pump a little CO2 into the atmosphere to retain some extra heat, and convert some of the resultant excess to energy by using solar panels. Fossil Fuels aren't "bad" (oh those evil fossil fuels destroying the world on purpose!) and solar energy isn't "good" (go fight that evil fossil fuel stuff!) How we use them is what creates or destroys value. We can screw up just as bad or worse switching to solar generation as we have with fossil fuels. The lesson we should learn from the industrial revolution and all the billions of tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere is that dependency on any one power source can cause political, economic, and subsistence level conflicts. Not that fossil fuels are a bad energy source. Blaming our problems on fossil fuels is just as dumb as blaming our problems on corporations, or presidents, or gods. Our problems in modern times are almost always self created - by the people, for the people. Take some responsibility yourself. Have you done everything you can to diversify and reduce your energy footprint? I haven't. So I can't point a finger at a single person on earth

(except for Al Gore, I'll point two particular fingers at him for sensationalizing the wrong "factisms" about energy balance and global warming. If he'd take the time to get things right, he might have made a lot bigger of a difference. Oh, and while he's at it I can design him a much more sustainable home, landscaping plan, and he can telecommute to his speeches. All told, we could get his energy footprint down to the equivalent of only 100 average Americans rather than several thousand. No that isn't a fact - it's a rough approximation from adding his frequent plane trips and his combined residences estimated energy usage together. Seriously Al, practice what you preach...)


RE: Maybe if it's really really cold out...
By Ringold on 7/2/2007 5:43:54 PM , Rating: 2
Christ, all I basically said was that water in the big scheme of things wont be so expensive as to be a bottleneck in and of itself. :P I didn't go on a hippy "free energy for all!" rant, I understand the costs. Solar as it is isn't at all cost effective.


By ZmaxDP on 7/2/2007 6:05:31 PM , Rating: 2
Ringold,

I probably should have posted without linking to any one person's post. If I could, I'd link my response to every person who said something to the effect of "solar energy is free". In your case, it is the #2 point that is a direct response to your post. #1 is to a bunch of other people. In this case, I'm replying to anyone and everyone in the chain of responses to the OP. The whole "response" system on this forum is way to linear. I apologize if it seemed like I was "jumping" on you in particular...

That being said, I disagree that "water in the big scheme of things won't be so expensive as to be a bottleneck in and of itself" The study you mentioned does not consider a whole range of costs associated with switching to desalinization as the major source of water supply, nor does it even consider the possible costs of environmental damages as a result of pumping that much water out of the ocean and into storage. It would be like me asking you what is the cost of a new Core2 processor and you told me the cost per unit of the microprocessor but neglected to mention the die packaging, the shipping, the shipping packaging, the CO2 produced in the shipping and manufacturing process, and the costs of planing trees to offset that CO2 production...

As for solar not being cost effective, I also disagree. It totally depends on the situation. In Austin, TX with the city, state, and federal rebates/tax incentives it is actually very cost effective to go solar if you'll do a grid tied (not battery) solar system and live in the house for 5 years (assuming the house is relatively new and has decent insulation and appliances). I know several people in the area that have already made their investment back in reduced or even positive (or is it negative?) energy bills. (They get a "check", not a bill). Is it cost effective for the entire country to switch - probably not. Will it be in 10 years? Maybe so. With roughly a 10% efficiency gain every two years, solar panels are likely to become cost-competitive with fossil fuels in two to four years without rebates/incentives in some climates. If you live in London, you're probably SOL on them ever becoming cost-effective. But, that isn't to say that your cousin in the south of France couldn't install enough capacity for the both of you and use his energy earnings to offset your spendings (you'd pay for half of the install cost, of course).


By sitong666 on 7/2/2007 1:43:09 PM , Rating: 2
Yeeees, I can see there being wars over something that covers 66% of the Earth's surface...

In any case, you seem to be implying that the atoms that make up a fuel are lost when a fuel is used? Not so.

I assume they are just trying to seperate water into oxygen and hydrogen to use the hydrogen as a fuel? Well guess what product you get from reacting Hydrogen and Oxygen. Yup, water.


By sitong666 on 7/2/2007 1:43:12 PM , Rating: 2
Yeeees, I can see there being wars over something that covers 66% of the Earth's surface...

In any case, you seem to be implying that the atoms that make up a fuel are lost when a fuel is used? Not so.

I assume they are just trying to seperate water into oxygen and hydrogen to use the hydrogen as a fuel? Well guess what product you get from reacting Hydrogen and Oxygen. Yup, water.


Around for a while
By PedroDaGr8 on 7/1/2007 6:19:55 PM , Rating: 2
This type of chemistry was dicovered by Fujishima and Honda (1972) and has been heavily researched since then. I hope that this technology really does come of age and prove to be useful. Unforunately the original material TiO2 nanocrystals have a semiconducting bandgap that places the absorption range strictly in the UV. This means that most of the light from the sun goes unused.




RE: Around for a while
By Treckin on 7/1/07, Rating: -1
RE: Around for a while
By Wonga on 7/1/2007 7:11:10 PM , Rating: 2
You'll have to forgive me if I'm wrong here (I'm going on memory), but I was under the impression radiation in the visible range is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that passes through the earths atmosphere in the highest quantities.

Please point out if I'm wrong, it has been a while since I did a module on photovoltaics...


RE: Around for a while
By phil126 on 7/1/2007 8:22:39 PM , Rating: 2
Yes and no. It might be in the highest photon quantities but it is not the most energy. UV photons from the sun still provides more energy than the visible spectrum or IR. Most the X-rays and deep UV are absorbed before they make the Earth's ground (thankfully). IR and visible light just don't carry that much energy, relativly speaking.


RE: Around for a while
By masher2 (blog) on 7/1/2007 11:03:52 PM , Rating: 4
> "I was under the impression radiation in the visible range is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that passes through the earths atmosphere in the highest quantities"

You're correct; the previous poster was wrong. The solar spectrum peaks around the 500nm range, which is square in the middle of the visible spectrum. That's why our eyes evolved to see that band in fact...its where most of the energy is.


RE: Around for a while
By GlassHouse69 on 7/2/07, Rating: -1
RE: Around for a while
By rsmech on 7/2/2007 3:17:28 AM , Rating: 2
Which part doesn't make sense?


RE: Around for a while
By FITCamaro on 7/2/2007 6:55:27 AM , Rating: 2
He's probably a believer that god snapped his fingers and we appeared here as we are.

While I believe there is a "god" I believe in evolution considering we have a multitude of evidence to that fact. Such as skeletons of earlier versions of mankind.


RE: Around for a while
By MrTeal on 7/2/07, Rating: 0
RE: Around for a while
By sitong666 on 7/2/2007 7:08:24 AM , Rating: 2
Please stop reading Wikipedia as gospel. Your comment clearly comes from the Solar_Radiation wiki page. Note how it says "Mostly" and "About" when it talks about uv, visible and IR radiation. This is because the sun emits radiation in other parts of the EM spectrum i.e. the Sun DOES emit X-rays!


RE: Around for a while
By geddarkstorm on 7/3/2007 5:04:16 PM , Rating: 2
Ever seen the sun through a Calcium filter or the SOHO x-ray pictures? It's quite amazing. And you are, of course, quite correct :D.

The sun also releases quite a plethora of Gamma Radiation, as that's the major form released in most Hydrogen-Helium and Helium-Helium fusion reactions. X-rays and other lower energy radiation comes from the super heated plasma state of the sun (X-rays, for instance, are generated either by deflecting a particle that's moving at a sufficient speed, or when a high energy electron strikes another atom, being either deflected or kicking out a lower electron shell electron and forcing a higher shell electron to fill the spot which emitting an X-ray. Fusion releases plenty high energy electrons (beta particles) which is why X-rays are so plentiful from the sun. But fusion itself gives off Gamma Radiation from everything I've studied so far, and X-rays are an indirect consequence of beta particle emissions). Technically, the best solar energy capturing system would have to be space bound and absorbing gamma radiation (several orders of magnitude more energetic per photon than x-rays depending on where in the spectrum you decide to draw the lines) and hard X-rays.


RE: Around for a while
By NEOCortex on 7/2/2007 2:54:05 PM , Rating: 2
I happen to know some of the people working on photocatalytic TiO2 at the University of Illinois. From what I can gather from their research, the band gap (i.e. UV only sensitivity) isn't the main concern. Band gaps can be changed somewhat by introducing other elements into the TiO2 lattice.

The more critical issue facing this technology is maximizing the amount of electrons that reach the surface after they are excited by photons. It's these surface electron then have the chance of being able to split water.


Free of Environmental Threats?
By rainwalker on 7/1/2007 8:56:51 PM , Rating: 2
So, this sounds great and all, but since I'm not educated enough in this type of science, I have to ask: does this not pose any kind of new threat to the environment? We won't, like, use up 5% of the warming energies of the sun to fuel society and, in the process, cool the Earth like 10 degrees (or whatever)?




RE: Free of Environmental Threats?
By masher2 (blog) on 7/1/2007 11:06:23 PM , Rating: 5
No. Basic thermodynamics. Whatever solar energy we capture, will return to waste heat whenever we use it. A solar cell generates 10 watts of electricity...whatever device consumes that electricity generates 10 watts of heat. Unless we start shipping the fuel off planet, the net effect is zero.

Besides the fact that we'll never be able to capture even a measurable percentage of the solar irradiance in any case.


RE: Free of Environmental Threats?
By ZmaxDP on 7/2/2007 6:50:09 PM , Rating: 2
I take two exceptions to this... (I'm fond of twos today)

1. Even if we're shipping that energy 100 miles from where it is collected, we're disrupting the balance of heat distribution across the planet. By releasing that heat into a cooler climate and removing the heat from a hotter one, you could be balancing global temperatures which would eventually reduce wind speeds, moisture travel, etc...

2. Sure it comes out as waste heat, but since the light (before it was converted) might have been used to photosynthesis or some other chemical process, you aren't just taking away heat from the equation when you remove the light. By removing the light, you may be preventing plant growth which can actually create a cooling effect on the local micro climate. So, you could be adding heat by taking away energy - now that is some freaky thermodynamics for you! Then again, the black (or dark blue) solar panels release a ton of heat themselves that might have been reflected back into the atmosphere by higher albedo surfaces. Thus, raising local temperatures and reducing plant life in the area further raising temperatures.

(This part not in direct response to masher...)
Anyway, I know I'm being the devil's advocate here, but the point is the same. I'm not an anti-development eco-terrorist, and I'm in no way advocating for skipping this whole solar thing and staying on the fossil fuel bandwagon till it rolls off the cliff. The "scenarios" I'm using are simply to illustrate that any change is still a change, and we need to weigh all the consequences of our energy decisions better than we are currently. There is no one stop energy shop on planet earth - no matter how much any person or organization tells you otherwise. Whenever you rob, you're making someone else poorer. That's another law of dynamics. (Not just thermo...)


By geddarkstorm on 7/3/2007 5:17:21 PM , Rating: 2
Your scenarios, and the original poster's concerns, are not realistic, thankfully.

1) The Sun heats the atmospheres and that's what drives temperatures. We humans don't heat up or cool the atmosphere directly in any meaningful way, it's all by the sun. We stay warm at night because of the IR radiation given off by the atmosphere and earth as both cools from the heating the sun gave them. Also, the IR given off by the sun continues to bounce between the ground and within the atmosphere, keeping things warm on the dark side of the planet till it rotates into the sun again. Moreover, absorbing sunlight in no way whatsoever changes the heating to the atmosphere done by the sun. Otherwise, wouldn't it be colder were there are a lot of plants? It isn't, unless you're in the shade, which is the tie in to the rebuttal of point 2.

2) No way in heck would collecting sunlight affect plants in any way unless the plants were in the shadow of the collector. Given the surface area of the earth and that these collectors are best deployed in desert like regions where solar radiation is so intense most plants can't survive... It's a total moot point. You might as well complain that skyscrapers are killing all the plants because they cast the biggest shadows of all!

Harnessing light doesn't suddenly strip it from ever coming to earth. We aren't dipping into a well. Solar Energy can't have any greater impact on the environment than the amount of land that the devices cover.


By astrodemoniac on 7/2/2007 8:21:31 AM , Rating: 2
No problem. We'll use it to power heaters ;)


The Oil Companies will love this!!!!!!!!
By youdosuck on 7/1/2007 3:55:00 PM , Rating: 5
I bet we never hear of this again.




RE: The Oil Companies will love this!!!!!!!!
By ncage on 7/1/07, Rating: 0
RE: The Oil Companies will love this!!!!!!!!
By jahc919 on 7/1/2007 9:31:22 PM , Rating: 2
Instead of complaining you should just hedge higher fuel prices by investing in Exxon's stock. The majority of its shareholders are either individuals, small investors, or institutions such as pension funds which pay for people's retirement benefits. So if you want my grandmother to live off social security instead of her investments such as Exxon which has earned her a great return then you should vote for more federal income taxes. Or, better yet we could just turn communist and get rid of our extremely efficient free market economy.


By mindless1 on 7/2/2007 5:29:17 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, I think your grandmother should end up with less if we don't volunteer to pay for her retirement. To many, gas is a requirement not a luxury and should not be priced beyond the reach of all, else it just encourages even more citizens to be non-productive members of society which will also drive up taxes through various social services and penal system costs as well as fewer taxpayers equalling higher tax per capita.

On the other hand, higher gas prices may deter some from driving as much or making smarter transportation choices which helps the environment but it still does nothing about the growing majority of lower class workers. I guess you're in favor of a system where they all live in dorms on-site? Seems the only answer to this transportation problem unless they're just bussed together to essentially the same type of community housing off-site.


LIQUID FUEL
By werepossum on 7/2/2007 2:07:16 PM , Rating: 2
There does seem to be a disconnect here. The headline and the article itself refer to turning sunlight into liquid fuel, but there's no mention of any liquid fuel. Considering that improved and cheaper photocatalytic cells are certainly worth the effort, I'm a bit confused as to why the reference to liquid fuels. For that matter I really don't see the problem with using hydrogen as a gaseous fuel for that matter - I don't see it as any more damgerous than gasoline.




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