New Solar Technology

UIC engineers developed a method to produce hydrogen from water using solar power and agricultural waste, cutting energy needs by 600%. This process uses biochar to lower electricity requirements, achieving high efficiency and offering potential net-zero emissions.

UIC engineers have introduced a groundbreaking method for producing hydrogen gas using solar power and agricultural waste, drastically reducing energy consumption and enabling net-zero greenhouse emissions.

Engineers from the University of Illinois Chicago have developed a novel method to produce hydrogen gas from water using solely solar power and agricultural byproducts like manure and husks. This technique slashes the energy required to extract hydrogen from water by 600%, paving the way for more sustainable and environmentally friendly chemical manufacturing.

Hydrogen-based fuels are one of the most promising sources of clean energy. But producing pure hydrogen gas is an energy-intensive process that often requires coal or natural gas and large amounts of electricity.         READ MORE...

Space Based Power

Sci-Fi fans and futurists have long envisioned a mechanism that would capture solar power from space, focus it and transmit it to earth as a way of providing more efficient energy for humanity. 

There are many theoretical potential benefits of this if it can be made to work, including less pollution and no fear that the source of power will ever run out. 

With the right architecture, space based energy transmitted like this could also make access to energy available with little or no infrastructure. Just set up a device in your yard and there is your power.

How might this work? The video here from Dr. Ali Hajimiri, Caltech Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering and Co-Director of the Space-Based Solar Power Project, explains how:

Thanks to the vision and hard work and engineering of this Caltech team part of this vision has now been successfully demonstrated.  READ MORE...

Solar Power Global Leader is CHINA

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China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, is on the cusp of a clean energy transition as new solar power becomes cheaper than coal throughout most of the country, according to a new study.

By 2023, China will have the capacity to deploy solar power nationwide at the same price as coal, and currently has that ability in three-quarters of the country, according to a joint study from Harvard, Tsinghua, Nankai and Renmin universities.

“Today subsidy-free solar power has become cheaper than coal power in most parts of China” in a trajectory spreading across the country, study coauthor Xi Lu said in a statement.

While the country is a long way from tapping that theoretical potential, the new research highlights “a crucial energy transition point” at which solar becomes a “cheaper alternative to coal-fired electricity and a more grid-compatible option,” said co-author Michael McElroy.

By 2060, the study found, China will have the capacity to meet 43 percent of its power needs with solar energy that costs less than 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour — less than half of China’s 2019 price for coal energy, and less than a quarter the current average U.S. energy cost.

That projection is much faster than previous studies, which researchers say failed to account for the way that China’s growing solar sector — which now represents a third of total global solar production — has benefited from technical advances and economies of scale.

The report comes ahead of the global climate summit in Scotland next month, where China’s plans to transition away from coal will be a major factor in the world’s ability to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

One key accelerant of China’s solar growth is the “cost of capital:” how much solar developers have to pay in interest or dividends to secure funding for new projects.

This number plummeted 63 percent in China between 2011 and 2018, even as government subsidies fell away, researchers said.  READ MORE...