Duplicating MIT's artificial photosynthesis breakthrough

[James Arthur]

John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:26:54 GMT, James Arthur wrote:

Bob Eld wrote:
"James Arthur" wrote in message
news:BlLkk.33$mP.15@trnddc03...


The transcript here's the best description I've found...
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5889/710b/DC1

...but still no mention of efficiency or other performance
data. Which reeks. If it ain't efficient, it ain't a
breakthrough. If it is, that's what they should be touting.


OK on page two or three we find this:
"So is the idea then to couple this to a photovoltaic and also couple it to
a hydrogenproducing catalyst?

Interviewee - Daniel Nocera

Right. So here's how you would think about it. You take water plus these
catalysts and

light from the photovoltaic and you make hydrogen and oxygen."

Is this gibberish clear to your?

Sure. He misspoke. Or was misquoted. He meant apply PV output
to his electrolysis cell, and make gasses.

IOW, take an already inefficient source, toss away perhaps
2/3rds of that output to make something that you'll later
burn, tossing away yet another 50-60%.

12% x .5 x .5 = 3%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the
thing's overall efficiency exceeded 2%.

Cheers,
James Arthur

Not only do thay ignore the hydrogen storage problem, they seem to
think you can hop on over to Ace Hardware and pick up a convenient
fuel cell system.

John

Scientists aren't engineers.

--James Arthur

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:56:11 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabdsqy@verizon.net> wrote:

Not only do thay ignore the hydrogen storage problem, they seem to
think you can hop on over to Ace Hardware and pick up a convenient
fuel cell system.

John

Scientists aren't engineers.

Yes, I feel so sorry for them.

John

 

[John Fields]

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:56:11 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabdsqy@verizon.net> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:26:54 GMT, James Arthur wrote:

Bob Eld wrote:
"James Arthur" wrote in message
news:BlLkk.33$mP.15@trnddc03...


The transcript here's the best description I've found...
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5889/710b/DC1

...but still no mention of efficiency or other performance
data. Which reeks. If it ain't efficient, it ain't a
breakthrough. If it is, that's what they should be touting.


OK on page two or three we find this:
"So is the idea then to couple this to a photovoltaic and also couple it to
a hydrogenproducing catalyst?

Interviewee - Daniel Nocera

Right. So here's how you would think about it. You take water plus these
catalysts and

light from the photovoltaic and you make hydrogen and oxygen."

Is this gibberish clear to your?

Sure. He misspoke. Or was misquoted. He meant apply PV output
to his electrolysis cell, and make gasses.

IOW, take an already inefficient source, toss away perhaps
2/3rds of that output to make something that you'll later
burn, tossing away yet another 50-60%.

12% x .5 x .5 = 3%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the
thing's overall efficiency exceeded 2%.

Cheers,
James Arthur

Not only do thay ignore the hydrogen storage problem, they seem to
think you can hop on over to Ace Hardware and pick up a convenient
fuel cell system.

John

Scientists aren't engineers.

---
I are.

JF

 

[Bill Ghrist]

James Arthur wrote:
....

Sure. He misspoke. Or was misquoted. He meant apply PV output
to his electrolysis cell, and make gasses.

IOW, take an already inefficient source, toss away perhaps
2/3rds of that output to make something that you'll later
burn, tossing away yet another 50-60%.

12% x .5 x .5 = 3%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the
thing's overall efficiency exceeded 2%.

Cheers,
James Arthur

Whether that is accurate or not, it misses the main point, which is the
question of how you use solar energy when then sun goes down (or the
equivalent: how you use wind energy when the wind stops blowing). Solar
and wind will remain minor contributors to our energy supply until we
have an inexpensive means of addressing that issue. Storing some of the
energy for later use is one obvious approach. Efficiency is only one
factor in the expense of storing energy. The lower the capital and
operating costs are (as well as the environmental impact, if you include
that as a "cost"), the less efficiency is required in order to be
economically feasible. Whether the MIT discovery will eventually lead
to a cost effective solution is unknown at this point, but its potential
contribution appears to be the lowering of capital costs more than any
increase in efficiency. I don't have access to the Nature paper,
however, so it is a bit difficult to tell from the (as others have
noted) rather poorly written press releases.

Regards,
Bill Ghrist

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:20:02 GMT, Bill Ghrist <notmyname@notmyisp.com>
wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
...


Sure. He misspoke. Or was misquoted. He meant apply PV output
to his electrolysis cell, and make gasses.

IOW, take an already inefficient source, toss away perhaps
2/3rds of that output to make something that you'll later
burn, tossing away yet another 50-60%.

12% x .5 x .5 = 3%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the
thing's overall efficiency exceeded 2%.

Cheers,
James Arthur

Whether that is accurate or not, it misses the main point, which is the
question of how you use solar energy when then sun goes down (or the
equivalent: how you use wind energy when the wind stops blowing). Solar
and wind will remain minor contributors to our energy supply until we
have an inexpensive means of addressing that issue. Storing some of the
energy for later use is one obvious approach. Efficiency is only one
factor in the expense of storing energy. The lower the capital and
operating costs are (as well as the environmental impact, if you include
that as a "cost"), the less efficiency is required in order to be
economically feasible. Whether the MIT discovery will eventually lead
to a cost effective solution is unknown at this point, but its potential
contribution appears to be the lowering of capital costs more than any
increase in efficiency. I don't have access to the Nature paper,
however, so it is a bit difficult to tell from the (as others have
noted) rather poorly written press releases.

Regards,
Bill Ghrist

A lot of energy breakthroughs devolve to bad calorimetry.

John

 

[HarryD]

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:mr4994doesarp1fq9n7umm7mnqvrbg6mjk@4ax.com...

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:20:02 GMT, Bill Ghrist <notmyname@notmyisp.com
wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
...


Sure. He misspoke. Or was misquoted. He meant apply PV output
to his electrolysis cell, and make gasses.

IOW, take an already inefficient source, toss away perhaps
2/3rds of that output to make something that you'll later
burn, tossing away yet another 50-60%.

12% x .5 x .5 = 3%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the
thing's overall efficiency exceeded 2%.

Cheers,
James Arthur

Whether that is accurate or not, it misses the main point, which is the
question of how you use solar energy when then sun goes down (or the
equivalent: how you use wind energy when the wind stops blowing). Solar
and wind will remain minor contributors to our energy supply until we
have an inexpensive means of addressing that issue. Storing some of the
energy for later use is one obvious approach. Efficiency is only one
factor in the expense of storing energy. The lower the capital and
operating costs are (as well as the environmental impact, if you include
that as a "cost"), the less efficiency is required in order to be
economically feasible. Whether the MIT discovery will eventually lead
to a cost effective solution is unknown at this point, but its potential
contribution appears to be the lowering of capital costs more than any
increase in efficiency. I don't have access to the Nature paper,
however, so it is a bit difficult to tell from the (as others have
noted) rather poorly written press releases.

Regards,
Bill Ghrist



A lot of energy breakthroughs devolve to bad calorimetry.

John

Is this not the same school that discovered Resonate Energy Tunneling

(Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Big hat, no cattle!
Harry

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:22:21 GMT, "HarryD" <harryd@tdsystems.org>
wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:mr4994doesarp1fq9n7umm7mnqvrbg6mjk@4ax.com...
On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:20:02 GMT, Bill Ghrist <notmyname@notmyisp.com
wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
...


Sure. He misspoke. Or was misquoted. He meant apply PV output
to his electrolysis cell, and make gasses.

IOW, take an already inefficient source, toss away perhaps
2/3rds of that output to make something that you'll later
burn, tossing away yet another 50-60%.

12% x .5 x .5 = 3%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the
thing's overall efficiency exceeded 2%.

Cheers,
James Arthur

Whether that is accurate or not, it misses the main point, which is the
question of how you use solar energy when then sun goes down (or the
equivalent: how you use wind energy when the wind stops blowing). Solar
and wind will remain minor contributors to our energy supply until we
have an inexpensive means of addressing that issue. Storing some of the
energy for later use is one obvious approach. Efficiency is only one
factor in the expense of storing energy. The lower the capital and
operating costs are (as well as the environmental impact, if you include
that as a "cost"), the less efficiency is required in order to be
economically feasible. Whether the MIT discovery will eventually lead
to a cost effective solution is unknown at this point, but its potential
contribution appears to be the lowering of capital costs more than any
increase in efficiency. I don't have access to the Nature paper,
however, so it is a bit difficult to tell from the (as others have
noted) rather poorly written press releases.

Regards,
Bill Ghrist



A lot of energy breakthroughs devolve to bad calorimetry.

John

Is this not the same school that discovered Resonate Energy Tunneling
(Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Big hat, no cattle!
Harry

Around here, it's Big Hat, No Horse.

John

 

[James Arthur]

Bill Ghrist wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
...


Sure. He misspoke. Or was misquoted. He meant apply PV output
to his electrolysis cell, and make gasses.

IOW, take an already inefficient source, toss away perhaps
2/3rds of that output to make something that you'll later
burn, tossing away yet another 50-60%.

12% x .5 x .5 = 3%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the
thing's overall efficiency exceeded 2%.

Cheers,
James Arthur

Whether that is accurate or not, it misses the main point, which is the
question of how you use solar energy when then sun goes down (or the
equivalent: how you use wind energy when the wind stops blowing). Solar
and wind will remain minor contributors to our energy supply until we
have an inexpensive means of addressing that issue. Storing some of the
energy for later use is one obvious approach. Efficiency is only one
factor in the expense of storing energy. The lower the capital and
operating costs are (as well as the environmental impact, if you include
that as a "cost"), the less efficiency is required in order to be
economically feasible. Whether the MIT discovery will eventually lead
to a cost effective solution is unknown at this point, but its potential
contribution appears to be the lowering of capital costs more than any
increase in efficiency. I don't have access to the Nature paper,
however, so it is a bit difficult to tell from the (as others have
noted) rather poorly written press releases.

Regards,
Bill Ghrist

If it's 2% efficient, it's not economic.

Photovoltaic systems (including inverters, installation,
wiring, battery, backup, etc.) aren't economic to the
consumer above about $3/watt, or about $1.50-2.00/watt
for the panels all by themselves. That's about 1/3rd
the current price.

With this new-fangled innovation you'd have to quadruple
your PV array, plus buy and maintain storage and
generation-from-gas facilities to make up for the storage
losses. These increase your system cost perhaps 6- to
10-fold. More for a fuel cell.

If you're going to use a very expensive power source,
you can't afford to waste 3/4 of it.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Eeyore]

John Larkin wrote:

Bill Ghrist wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

Sure. He misspoke. Or was misquoted. He meant apply PV output
to his electrolysis cell, and make gasses.

IOW, take an already inefficient source, toss away perhaps
2/3rds of that output to make something that you'll later
burn, tossing away yet another 50-60%.

12% x .5 x .5 = 3%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the
thing's overall efficiency exceeded 2%.

Cheers,
James Arthur

Whether that is accurate or not, it misses the main point, which is the
question of how you use solar energy when then sun goes down (or the
equivalent: how you use wind energy when the wind stops blowing). Solar
and wind will remain minor contributors to our energy supply until we
have an inexpensive means of addressing that issue. Storing some of the
energy for later use is one obvious approach. Efficiency is only one
factor in the expense of storing energy. The lower the capital and
operating costs are (as well as the environmental impact, if you include
that as a "cost"), the less efficiency is required in order to be
economically feasible. Whether the MIT discovery will eventually lead
to a cost effective solution is unknown at this point, but its potential
contribution appears to be the lowering of capital costs more than any
increase in efficiency. I don't have access to the Nature paper,
however, so it is a bit difficult to tell from the (as others have
noted) rather poorly written press releases.

A lot of energy breakthroughs devolve to bad calorimetry.

John

Interesting you should say that.

I'm convinced that the supposed efficiency of the 'water car' as promoted by
Meyer was based on incorrect readings of pulse waveforms by primitive meters.

Graham

 

[Sevenhundred Elves]

On Sun, 3 Aug 2008 18:11:46 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Aug 1, 5:07 pm, "Bob Eld" <nsmontas...@yahoo.com> wrote:

When I first heard about this, I thought they had come up with a cheap
method to directly split water with sun light. Unfortunately that is NOT the
case.

No, FORTUNATELY that is not the case. To directly split water
to H2 gas and O2 gas would make an explosive gas mixture at
the active site. With separated electrodes, one can collect
H2 gas bubbling from one electrode, and collect (or discard)
the O2 gas from the other electrode.

The 'use' of the catalyst doesn't use it up, so expense is low.
Mainly, efficiency of the electrolysis is higher than with untreated
electrodes, which is important if you want to scale the process
up. It's extremely important if you want to scale
the process 'way up'

It's disadvantageous, however, to form small bubbles (the
surface tension makes a high back-pressure which translates
to gas generation inefficiency). It would be good to find some way
around that step entirely.

Then the vanadium redox flow battery seems to be a better way of
storing electric energy. Energy density is low, so those batteries are
useless for powering vehicles, but since they can be built very large,
they seem ideally suited for fields of wind generators, solar panels
and such.

Quoting the Wikipedia,

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

: Currently installed vanadium batteries include:
:
: * A 1.5MW UPS system in a semiconductor fabrication plant in Japan
:
: * A 275 kW output balancer in use on a wind power project in the Tomari Wind Hills of Hokkaido
:
: * A 200 kW, 800kWh output leveler in use at the Huxley Hill Wind Farm on King Island, Tasmania
:
: * A 250 kW, 2MWh load leveler in use at Castle Valley, Utah
:
: * A 12 MWh flow battery is also to be installed at the Sorne Hill wind farm, Donegal, Ireland

This is proven technology, currently in use (except for the projected
last one). I think the numbers above speak for themselves.

S.

 

[whit3rd]

On Aug 1, 5:07 pm, "Bob Eld" <nsmontas...@yahoo.com> wrote:

When I first heard about this, I thought they had come up with a cheap
method to directly split water with sun light. Unfortunately that is NOT the
case.

No, FORTUNATELY that is not the case. To directly split water
to H2 gas and O2 gas would make an explosive gas mixture at
the active site. With separated electrodes, one can collect
H2 gas bubbling from one electrode, and collect (or discard)
the O2 gas from the other electrode.

The 'use' of the catalyst doesn't use it up, so expense is low.
Mainly, efficiency of the electrolysis is higher than with untreated
electrodes, which is important if you want to scale the process
up. It's extremely important if you want to scale
the process 'way up'

It's disadvantageous, however, to form small bubbles (the
surface tension makes a high back-pressure which translates
to gas generation inefficiency). It would be good to find some way
around that step entirely.

 

[Eeyore]

Rob Dekker wrote:

"Flark" <flarkino@yahoo.com> wrote in message
Could this be duplicated by anyone with basic electronics knowledge
and the right metals?

From the article:

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and
it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to
work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

Seems that everyone agrees that Nocera presents a lot of fluff and very little beef.
There is now even a $25 price set on a translation in plain English of what on Earth he is talking about :

http://infiniflux.blogspot.com/2008/07/daniel-noceras-big-secret-paper.html

Note the responses. It seems that his 'idea' has nothing to do with storing anything (let alone storing solar energy).
It is simply electrolysis, as we already suspected, but it seems to be a pretty efficient form of electrolysis.

Wikipedia (with references) reports :
The efficiency is a measure of what fraction of electrical energy used is actually contained within the hydrogen. Some of the
electrical energy is converted to heat, a useless by-product. Some reports quote efficiencies between 50% and 70%[1] This efficiency
is based on the Lower Heating Value of Hydrogen. The Lower Heating Value of Hydrogen is total thermal energy released when hydrogen
is combusted minus the latent heat of vaporisation of the water. This does not represent the total amount of energy within the
hydrogen, hence the efficiency is lower than a more strict definition. Other reports quote the theoretical maximum efficiency of
electrolysis as being between 80% and 94%.[2]

So it seems that at best he could have increased efficiency a few dozen percent, but he uses rare and expensive metals (Cobalt and
Platinum).
And too bad he says nothing about storing Hydrogen. Which is off course where the real magic should happen.

Maybe enough for a nich-market startup, but certainly useless as a way to 'store' solar energy on a large scale as he 'claims'.

It's a drop in the ocean.

Seeing as how the 'hydrogen economy' is so farcical in the first place a couple of 10% improvement isn't going to help much.

Incidentally, seen what highly pressurised gas bottles can do recently ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWrqACSpnms&feature=related


Graham

 

[JosephKK]

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:36:48 +0100, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

Flark wrote:

Could this be duplicated by anyone with basic electronics knowledge
and the right metals?

Not only that but it could be "duplicated" by the original discoverers
of electrolysis of water over 250 years ago - shortly after the first
primitive batteries were invented by Volta.

Not invented by Volta, used by the ancient Egyptians 2500 years ago.
Do bother to learn your science history properly, please.

Reported to the UK Royal Society around 1800 by William Nicholson and
Anthony Carlisle. Humphrey Davy went on to isolate all sorts of metals
from molten salts by electrolysis in later experiments.

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2003/August/electrolysis.asp

Electrolysis of water (with a condutive salt added - usually sodium
sulphate) to make hydrogen and oxygen is a classical high school
experiment.

The MIT hyped up press release and subsequent reporting of it in the
media is pathetic. They should report what they have done and how much
of an improvement it is over state of the art (if any).

A true stable man made photosynthetic catalyst would be very impressive
but this is just an improvement in electrolytic cell efficiency.

A couple of carbon rods, some wire and a battery is all you need.

From the article:

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and
it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to
work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

There may be a breakthrough here in that one electrode can now be made
much cheaper and with higher efficiency. But it is impossible from the
press release to be anything other than totally underwhelmed.

Regards,
Martin Brown
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **