Researchers Generate Electricity Using Seawater and Sunlight 88
Slashdot reader sosume writes: Scientists at Osaka University have created a new method to use sunlight to turn seawater into hydrogen peroxide which can then be used in fuel cells to generate electricity. It's the first photocatalytic method of H2O2 production that achieves a high enough efficiency so that the H2O2 can be used in a fuel cell.
It's easier and safer to transport liquid H2O2, according to the article, and while its total efficiency is much lower than conventional solar cells, the researchers hope to get better results by using better materials.
It's easier and safer to transport liquid H2O2, according to the article, and while its total efficiency is much lower than conventional solar cells, the researchers hope to get better results by using better materials.
Re: Useless technology (Score:2, Insightful)
The point of this technology is not the production of the energy, but it's ability to use to store that energy for future use, like when it's night.
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H2O2 is not a particularly good way to store energy. It is a strong oxidizer, and can burn human flesh unless diluted down to about 3%. It will ignite many substances on contact. It is also thermodynamically unstable, and can explosively decompose if it gets too hot, or comes in contact with something flammable. When it decomposes, it produces concentrated oxygen, which can cause fires to burn out of control. It is nasty stuff.
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Re: Useless technology (Score:4, Insightful)
We're talking about hydrogen peroxide, right? Like people use to put on cuts to keep them from getting infected?
And rocket propellent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] .
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We're talking about hydrogen peroxide, right? Like people use to put on cuts to keep them from getting infected?
The hydrogen peroxide antiseptic in your medicine cabinet is 97% water and 3% H2O2.
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Pumped storage (Score:2)
Pump water vertically up when there is excess energy. When there isn't, let it run downhill through a turbine.
Smallish elevated steel water tanks (which are recyclable when EOL is reached) will do for small installations. Since they're up high, they can be very close to zero-footprint. For large ones, lakes work, though there's a definite real estate issue there, and artificial lakes are better because there's better leakage control. People tend to like lakes, too. As long as it doesn't require them to give
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Well, you'd have to dig a hole large enough to take the output of the lake / tank. But other than that, yes. :)
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yes... and no. For a tank installation, you just go get a tank. They're available, there are companies that do nothing but that. To dig a huge hole... that's a pretty significant undertaking. And to get a large elevation difference, you need something like a pre-existing mine. No one's going to dig a 100 foot hole just for a water tank, the expense would be horrific, but a 100 foot elevation tower - just order it and they'll set it up.
On the other hand, if you DO dig a hole, the visible disruption of the la
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Economy doesn't work for most technically possible pumped storage projects. That is the reason pumped storage capacity is tiny and irrelevant fraction of already existing natural gas storage (that can be used for mixed or pure hydrogen too) capacity.
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pumped storage is energy *storage* that was generated some other way; basically it's a battery
natural gas is already existing energy. Basically it's a root resource.
Unless you're talking about generating hydrogen, but in that case, there's almost none of that going on and pumped storage capacity far exceeds hydrogen generation / storage / regeneration capacity.
As for "economy doesn't work", that's also not comparable, because storage of energy from another source is not what natural gas does. Aside from the
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Yes I'm talking about power-to-gas. Yes, it is in its infancy as solar/wind share in the electric grid is low and so there is no so much demand. But it has all the _seasonal_ storage and pipeline network the world needs, you just need to add electrolizers and make minor modifications to natural gas network. All the batteries, pumped hydro are for expensive short term storage or short term grid balancing and is not a substitute for long term storage from summer till winter. Regular hydro is fine for that pur
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A definite "real estate issue". My country as been using it's pumped-storage capacity for approaching 50 years now. It averages one pumped storage scheme per 30 million people. We're not a particularly mountainous country, and you do need mountainous country to get the elevation difference between your upper and lower reservoirs.
What's that, Lassie? You don't understand why you need a lower reservoir? Well, if you're trying to pu
Re:Useless technology (Score:5, Insightful)
mdsolar doesn't care about economic efficiency, which is why his "solutions" are pointless for the real world. The reason PV solar languishes at below 1% of electrical production is not some grand conspiracy. It's because PV's wholesale production cost [wikipedia.org] (after factoring in construction, financing, maintenance, lifespan) is up around $200-$300 per MWh. Coal is around $40 per MWh, around $350 per MWh if you include the environmental and health damage it causes that the IMF estimated in it's "$5.3 trillion subsidy" report. Gas around $60. Nuclear is around $60 ($90-$100 for new construction). Hydro around $30. Wind around $70-$100.
PV has dropped to about $125-$150 per MWh in the last few years, but it remains to be seen if that's real gains or due to dumping by Chinese manufacturers to try to drive other manufacturers out of business. Even if real, it still remains the most expensive source of electricity, which is why it's stuck at below 1% of production.
Re:Useless technology (Score:5, Interesting)
Another economic impact that gets brushed aside in national content supply and jobs. For PV, a large chunk of the initial capital cost goes straight to China or other Asian manufactures. There are some US manufacturers but they are not the biggest players. Installation jobs are low paying, and there are few ongoing maintenance jobs. Wind requires a bit more from a maintenance and on-going supply standpoint, and has pretty good local parts content.
Coal, gas, and nuclear all have high local construction content, and employ more people with higher paying jobs on an ongoing basis. In a changing world where automation is taking over and good jobs are harder to find, employment factors into the overall economic benefit. A nuclear plant, for instance, will employ hundreds of six figure salary, educated workers, and also hundreds of higher paying craft and labor jobs. Nuclear and coal also keep a large number of support companies in business. And, they pay back a lot more in taxes via property, employment, etc than they are subsidized.
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Another economic impact that gets brushed aside in national content supply and jobs. For PV, a large chunk of the initial capital cost goes straight to China or other Asian manufactures. There are some US manufacturers but they are not the biggest players.
I assume you never buy Asian electronics? Also, as far as economy is concerned, people generally profit from lower prices of goods. If US manufacturers are not the biggest players, maybe they could try harder? It's their problem if they're uncompetitive, not the buyer's problem.
Nuclear and coal also keep a large number of support companies in business
You make it sound if needing lots of people was good for industrial progress. On the contrary, getting rid of people is the best thing you can do.
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I don't intend to go full Goodwin, but Hitler said the same thing.
Re:Useless technology (Score:4, Interesting)
I assume you never buy Asian electronics? Also, as far as economy is concerned, people generally profit from lower prices of goods. If US manufacturers are not the biggest players, maybe they could try harder? It's their problem if they're uncompetitive, not the buyer's problem.
Why would you assume I never by Asian products. I do. That is completely irrelevant to my point, in fact I pointed out that the US IS very competitive in supply of content for nuclear, gas, and coal. I didn't say it was a 'buyers problem' either. Not sure how that is relevant. My points stand even with your tangential commentary.
You make it sound if needing lots of people was good for industrial progress. On the contrary, getting rid of people is the best thing you can do.
No, I said creating more jobs is a positive economic factor. In case you haven't figured it out, unemployment is not a good thing for the economic health of a nation, nor the individuals.
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Why would you assume I never by Asian products. I do. That is completely irrelevant to my point, in fact I pointed out that the US IS very competitive in supply of content for nuclear, gas, and coal. I didn't say it was a 'buyers problem' either. Not sure how that is relevant. My points stand even with your tangential commentary.
The US could play a much larger role if it wanted. Between automation and smart manufacturing and such innovative products as SolarCity's upcoming high-efficiency, low-cost cells, there's absolutely potential for US-based PV companies to snatch a substantial portion of the global market.
No, I said creating more jobs is a positive economic factor. In case you haven't figured it out, unemployment is not a good thing for the economic health of a nation, nor the individuals.
Unemployment doesn't seem to be a problem for robotic utopias. Getting the same wealth output from fewer people has never been not a good thing.
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Another economic impact that gets brushed aside in national content supply and jobs. ... There are some US manufacturers but they are not the biggest players. Installation jobs are low paying, and there are few ongoing maintenance jobs. Wind requires a bit more from a maintenance and on-going supply standpoint, and has pretty good local parts content.
Coal, gas, and nuclear all have high local construction content, and employ more people with higher paying jobs on an ongoing basis. In a changing world where automation is taking over and good jobs are harder to find, employment factors into the overall economic benefit.
You mean that Make-work is a good thing?
It has a negative economic impact.
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UBI (Score:2)
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So, you view generating electricity as 'make work'. I think users of electricity would disagree that it has no value.
You fail reading comprehension completely – Mr. Troll.
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You mean that Make-work is a good thing?
It has a negative economic impact.
All work is make work. There is no fundamental reason that humans could not go back to hunter gathering. All else is optional.
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All work is make work. There is no fundamental reason that humans could not go back to hunter gathering.
Immediate massive starvation is not a good enough reason?
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If you love economics as much as you appear to, you'd realize it's adherents don't care about people having jobs as long as costs are cheaper. Those costs being, of course, only those they can measure and those that they are unable to saddle other unsuspecting people with, or even costs like "might destroy the habitability of the planet".
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Re:Useless technology (Score:4, Interesting)
It's because PV's wholesale production cost [wikipedia.org] (after factoring in construction, financing, maintenance, lifespan) is up around $200-$300 per MWh.
Uh...$300/MWh...? Where the hell do you live? In some kind of Goldplatedistan? Maybe you could make a less piss-poor argument using actual recent figures instead of referring to some decade-old tables that even Wikipedia itself warns about being out of date.
it still remains the most expensive source of electricity
Uh, nope. That would probably be diesel generators. And gas, in Europe. And especially diesel generators in Europe.
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Large parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia will probably never have practical solar power. Even in the summer the efficiency is relatively bad (due to the angle of the sunlight) and when energy is needed the most in the winter the northern parts have almost no sunlight at all.
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Large parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia will probably never have practical solar power.
That's perfectly fine, though. Nordic interconnects with Danish wind and German wind and solar together with Norwegian hydro can power a substantial part of the region. Swedish and Finnish nukes can handle the rest. Poland, though, looks bound to remain dirty for a considerable time to come.
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This is true: economic efficiency (including all externalities) is the number that matters most. But at 0.55% energy efficiency in the conversion from solar to H2O2, dropped to 0.28% after H2O2 to electricity, it will need to be ridiculously cheap per for its economic efficiency to make up the huge gap in energy efficiency compared to traditional PV solar with battery storage.
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How does H2O2 compare to lead acid batteries?
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offtopic : don't know but I do recall a real funny joke about H2O2 ... I'm laughing but I can not remember the joke.
Re: Easier and safer (Score:3, Funny)
Two chemists enter a bar.
The barkeep asks what they'd like to drink.
One says "I'd like some H2O, please."
The other says "I'd like some H2O too!"
The second chemist dies.
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we have a winner
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I'm not sure if you are trying to say that my response is off-topic, but really the stupid hydrogen economy needs to be compared against common sense tried and true technologies before we get so excited about it.
No, H2O2 is NOT an excellent way to store energy in a lot of circumstances - for instance, in an airplane. The fact that it's easier or safer than H2 doesn't make it easy or safe.
20x better (Score:2)
Researchers are developing a new type of environmentally friendly fuel cell that runs on aluminum and renewable resources and generates about 20 times more electricity per pound than car batteries.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
Not welcomed by some government agencies (Score:2)
Widespread and common storage of hydrogen peroxide won't be welcomed in some quarters, as it's is a very well known agent of homebrew bombs.
URL:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6274299.stm/
They got 33 years.
Re:Not welcomed by some government agencies (Score:5, Funny)
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I didn't realise Alfred made a car driven by TNT. Thanks for the tip, I'll pop down to the garage and stock up on a few kg.
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TNT car engines (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a dumb idea- don't try this at home- but in principle there's no reason why you couldn't make an engine that runs on TNT.
TNT explosions are sooty. When TNT detonates it forms nitrogen gas and steam, but also carbon monoxide and elemental carbon which are both flammable- so you actually get more energy out of TNT if you burn it with oxygen instead of detonating it. TNT is pretty stable and was originally used as a yellow dye for years before anyone even realized it could explode (or that it was toxic). It can be melted and aerosolized like gasoline or diesel into a flammable fuel-air mixture. But since it melts at 80 degrees, it would be like making a ICE engine that runs on melted wax. It would also generate YUGE amounts of nitrogen oxides and would be much filthier than diesel. In general nitrogen is not something you want in an internal combustion engine, and there are plenty of organic molecules that don't contain nitrogen at all. From an emissions perspective, THC would be a much better fuel than TNT.
TNT also has catalytic properties (it can form charge-transfer complexes) so it might actually be useful in something like a battery.
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I think we all should encourage would-be-terrorists to make acetone peroxide given the high chances of them blowing themselves into pieces when making it. Even for amateur pyromaniacs there are much safer stuff that is only marginally harder to make than the mother of satan...
Deceptive/Clickbait Title (Score:2)
Hydrogen Peroxide is not electricity
Low molar solutions of Hydrogen Peroxide in sea water aren't particularly useful for anything.
Wonderful Research (Score:3)
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As a monopropellant is isn't great but I wouldn't call it lousy, in practical use it isn't actually a fuel - it is the oxidizer.
But yes it's nasty stuff in high concentrations.
I've got them beat. (Score:3)
I know how to generate electricity using sunlight and no seawater at all!
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Incidents are more the exception than the rule.
Love it, but it's doomed (Score:2)