New scientific discoveries are moving society toward the era of “personalised solar energy”, in which the focus of electricity production shifts from huge central generating stations to individuals in their own homes and communities.
That's the topic of a report by an international expert on solar energy scheduled for the November 2 issue of ACS' Inorganic Chemistry, a bi-weekly journal.
It describes a long-awaited, inexpensive method for solar energy storage that could help power homes and plug-in cars in the future while helping keep the environment clean.
Author Daniel Nocera explains that the global energy need will double by mid-century and triple by 2100 due to rising standards of living world population growth. Personalized solar energy - the capture and storage of solar energy at the individual or home level - could meet that demand in a sustainable way, especially in poorer areas of the world.
The report describes development of a practical, inexpensive storage system for achieving personalized solar energy.
At its heart is an innovative catalyst that splits water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen that become fuel for producing electricity in a fuel cell.
The new oxygen-evolving catalyst works like photosynthesis, the method plants use to make energy, producing clean energy from sunlight and water.
Nocera's report states: “Global energy need will roughly double by midcentury and triple by 2100 because of the rising standards of living of a growing world population.
“Most of that demand is driven by 3 billion low-energy users in the nonlegacy world and by 3 billion people yet to inhabit the planet over the next half-century.
“To hold atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels to even twice their preanthropogenic values and at the same time to meet the increased energy demand of these 6 billion additional energy users will require invention, development, and deployment of carbon-neutral energy on a scale commensurate with, or larger than, the entire present-day energy supply from all sources combined.
“The capture and storage of solar energy at the individual level—personalised solar energy—drives inextricably toward the heart of this energy challenge by addressing the triumvirate of secure, carbon-neutral, and plentiful energy.
“Because energy use scales with wealth, point-of-use solar energy will put individuals, in the smallest village in the nonlegacy world and in the largest city of the legacy world, on a more level playing field.
“Moreover, personalised energy (PE) is secure because it is highly distributed and the individual controls the energy on which she/he lives. Finally, the possibility of generating terawatts of carbon-free energy may be realiaed by making solar PE available to the 6 billion new energy users by high-throughput manufacturing.
“Notwithstanding, current options to harness and store solar energy at the individual level are too expensive to be implemented, especially in a nonlegacy world.
“The imperative to science is to develop new materials, reactions, and processes that enable the capture, conversion, and storage of solar energy to be sufficiently inexpensive to penetrate global energy markets. Most, if not all, of these materials and processes entail a metallic element. Accordingly, the subject of inorganic chemistry is especially germane to delivering solar PE to our planet.”
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