Came across this interesting article on solar power and it's potential for around-the-clock energy production....interesting stuff.
Major discovery on solar power
Major discovery on solar power
Major solar power discovery
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Sounds great. I hope that it pans out the way they talk about.
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Why does this not sound revolutionary? What am I missing?
Quote:
When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source
What's the "solar" part of this that's revolutionary
Quote:
When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source
What's the "solar" part of this that's revolutionary
Good stuff, the Arabs should develop it.
Color me cynical, but I'll file this next to switchgrass ethanol, algae gasoline and the fuel saver magnet you clip on to the fuel line.
I'm stoked that a nonprofit school figured this out and not a publicly traded company. However it makes me yet more cynical that any green IPO would be backed by reasonably successful scientific minds that will do something useful to both the planet and my pocketbook.
We need another Tesla to come along.
Originally Posted By: mechtech2
We need another Tesla to come along.
Aint that the truth! A real genius!
We need another Tesla to come along.
Aint that the truth! A real genius!
This does appear to be huge. Essentially its artificial photosynthesis. I am normally skeptical but this is really a quantum leap..why it took so long is a mystery.
The way out of the energy mess, isnt going to be one big thing. Rather a lot of little things. Changes will come slowly, but it needs to happen. The biggest obstacle to change will be if oil prices drop and all this movement gets forgotten about as it did when Reagan took office.
Quote:
The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.
So this is this the breakthrough? Need details. Sounds like it could be more efficient than even our friends the plants.
Quote:
Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.
Here's how plants do it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Thylakoid_membrane.png
Water part:
Quote:
Water photolysis
Main articles: Photodissociation and Oxygen evolution
The NADPH is the main reducing agent in chloroplasts, providing a source of energetic electrons to other reactions. Its production leaves chlorophyll with a deficit of electrons (oxidized), which must be obtained from some other reducing agent. The excited electrons lost from chlorophyll in photosystem I are replaced from the electron transport chain by plastocyanin. However, since photosystem II includes the first steps of the Z-scheme, an external source of electrons is required to reduce its oxidized chlorophyll a molecules. The source of electrons in green-plant and cyanobacterial photosynthesis is water. Two water molecules are oxidized by four successive charge-separation reactions by photosystem II to yield a molecule of diatomic oxygen and four hydrogen ions; the electron yielded in each step is transferred to a redox-active tyrosine residue that then reduces the photoxidized paired-chlorophyll a species called P680 that serves as the primary (light-driven) electron donor in the photosystem II reaction center. The oxidation of water is catalyzed in photosystem II by a redox-active structure that contains four manganese ions; this oxygen-evolving complex binds two water molecules and stores the four oxidizing equivalents that are required to drive the water-oxidizing reaction. Photosystem II is the only known biological enzyme that carries out this oxidation of water. The hydrogen ions contribute to the transmembrane chemiosmotic potential that leads to ATP synthesis. Oxygen is a waste product of light-independent reactions, but the majority of organisms on Earth use oxygen for cellular respiration, including photosynthetic organisms.
[edit] Quantum mechanical effects
Through photosynthesis, sunlight energy is transferred to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. The transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously, so little energy is wasted as heat. However, only 43% of the total solar incident radiation can be used (only light in the range 400-700 nm), 20% of light is blocked by canopy, and plant respiration requires about 33% of the stored energy, which brings down the actual efficiency of photosynthesis to about 6.6%.[6]
A study led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley suggests that long-lived wavelike electronic quantum coherence plays an important part in this instantaneous transfer of energy by allowing the photosynthetic system to simultaneously try each potential energy pathway and choose the most efficient option. Results of the study are presented in the April 12, 2007 issue of the journal Nature.[15]
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis (not so bad for want (need?) "of attention from an expert on the subject")
The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.
So this is this the breakthrough? Need details. Sounds like it could be more efficient than even our friends the plants.
Quote:
Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.
Here's how plants do it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Thylakoid_membrane.png
Water part:
Quote:
Water photolysis
Main articles: Photodissociation and Oxygen evolution
The NADPH is the main reducing agent in chloroplasts, providing a source of energetic electrons to other reactions. Its production leaves chlorophyll with a deficit of electrons (oxidized), which must be obtained from some other reducing agent. The excited electrons lost from chlorophyll in photosystem I are replaced from the electron transport chain by plastocyanin. However, since photosystem II includes the first steps of the Z-scheme, an external source of electrons is required to reduce its oxidized chlorophyll a molecules. The source of electrons in green-plant and cyanobacterial photosynthesis is water. Two water molecules are oxidized by four successive charge-separation reactions by photosystem II to yield a molecule of diatomic oxygen and four hydrogen ions; the electron yielded in each step is transferred to a redox-active tyrosine residue that then reduces the photoxidized paired-chlorophyll a species called P680 that serves as the primary (light-driven) electron donor in the photosystem II reaction center. The oxidation of water is catalyzed in photosystem II by a redox-active structure that contains four manganese ions; this oxygen-evolving complex binds two water molecules and stores the four oxidizing equivalents that are required to drive the water-oxidizing reaction. Photosystem II is the only known biological enzyme that carries out this oxidation of water. The hydrogen ions contribute to the transmembrane chemiosmotic potential that leads to ATP synthesis. Oxygen is a waste product of light-independent reactions, but the majority of organisms on Earth use oxygen for cellular respiration, including photosynthetic organisms.
[edit] Quantum mechanical effects
Through photosynthesis, sunlight energy is transferred to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. The transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously, so little energy is wasted as heat. However, only 43% of the total solar incident radiation can be used (only light in the range 400-700 nm), 20% of light is blocked by canopy, and plant respiration requires about 33% of the stored energy, which brings down the actual efficiency of photosynthesis to about 6.6%.[6]
A study led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley suggests that long-lived wavelike electronic quantum coherence plays an important part in this instantaneous transfer of energy by allowing the photosynthetic system to simultaneously try each potential energy pathway and choose the most efficient option. Results of the study are presented in the April 12, 2007 issue of the journal Nature.[15]
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis (not so bad for want (need?) "of attention from an expert on the subject")
That system is probably powering Area 51 as we speak.
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Quote:
Quote:
The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.
So this is this the breakthrough? Need details. Sounds like it could be more efficient than even our friends the plants.
This is the part that I thought I was alone on here. This isn't, in any way that I can see, "photosynthetic" energy. It's an electrode modality break through ( or so I reason).
It doesn't care where it gets electricity from ..why the expounding on anything "solar" about it escapes me.
Or am I just dense and don't get the joke
Quote:
The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.
So this is this the breakthrough? Need details. Sounds like it could be more efficient than even our friends the plants.
This is the part that I thought I was alone on here. This isn't, in any way that I can see, "photosynthetic" energy. It's an electrode modality break through ( or so I reason).
It doesn't care where it gets electricity from ..why the expounding on anything "solar" about it escapes me.
Or am I just dense and don't get the joke
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