Friday, November 15, 2013

Yet another possible solar/hydrogen "breakthrough"

Researchers create a low-cost, long-lasting water splitter made of silicon and nickel

New proposals for putting together solar power and hydrogen production from water seem to be cropping up all the time.   It would be good if one of them ever got to production scale.

I see this article suggests the hydrogen would be used in fuel cells to generate power overnight or when it is cloudy.   (Well, hot salt systems seem to work overnight anyway.)   I wonder if this is more efficient than just burning hydrogen under the salts to keep them hot?  

Some other article I read recently suggested that putting small nuclear reactors at solar power stations could work well too.  I can't find it right now, though...

1 comment:

TimT said...

So lose lots of the solar energy on splitting the water into oxygen and hydrogen and gain some of that energy back when you burn the hydrogen? The idea is completely batty; solar is already battling the idea that it's economically inefficient and this is just hooking it up with another inefficiency! That said, nuclear power plants in a solar power station sounds like a fun way to make some green heads explode.