Super Soaker Inventor Aims to Cut Solar Costs in Half

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4243793.html

Super Soaker Inventor Aims to Cut Solar Costs in Half

By Logan Ward
Published on: January 8, 2008

Solar energy technology is enjoying its day in the sun with the advent of innovations from flexible photovoltaic (PV) materials to thermal power plants that concentrate the sun’s heat to drive turbines. But even the best system converts only about 30 percent of received solar energy into electricity—making solar more expensive than burning coal or oil. That will change if Lonnie Johnson’s invention works. The Atlanta-based independent inventor of the Super Soaker squirt gun (a true technological milestone) says he can achieve a conversion efficiency rate that tops 60 percent with a new solid-state heat engine. It represents a breakthrough new way to turn heat into power.

Johnson, a nuclear engineer who holds more than 100 patents, calls his invention the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion System, or JTEC for short. This is not PV technology, in which semiconducting silicon converts light into electricity. And unlike a Stirling engine, in which pistons are powered by the expansion and compression of a contained gas, there are no moving parts in the JTEC. It’s sort of like a fuel cell: JTEC circulates hydrogen between two membrane-electrode assemblies (MEA). Unlike a fuel cell, however, JTEC is a closed system. No external hydrogen source. No oxygen input. No wastewater output. Other than a jolt of electricity that acts like the ignition spark in an internal-combustion engine, the only input is heat.

Here’s how it works: One MEA stack is coupled to a high- temperature heat source (such as solar heat concentrated by mirrors), and the other to a low-temperature heat sink (ambient air). The low-temperature stack acts as the compressor stage while the high-temperature stack functions as the power stage. Once the cycle is started by the electrical jolt, the resulting pressure differential produces voltage across each of the MEA stacks. The higher voltage at the high-temperature stack forces the low-temperature stack to pump hydrogen from low pressure to high pressure, maintaining the pressure differential. Meanwhile hydrogen passing through the high-temperature stack generates power.

“It’s like a conventional heat engine,” explains Paul Werbos, program director at the National Science Foundation, which has provided funding for JTEC. “It still uses temperature differences to create pressure gradients. Only instead of using those pressure gradients to move an axle or wheel, he’s using them to force ions through a membrane. It’s a totally new way of generating electricity from heat.”

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[Hydra]

1. Cool!

"More power!"

[Canuckistanian]

2. It looks like a passive solar/hydrogen fuel cell

From what I can gather.

Regardless, if this device can demonstrably utilize solar energy at an efficiency of 60%, this may be a whole new way of looking at solar energy collection.

I'm skeptical as of now, but if this is verified and sustainable, it may be the dawn of a whole new technology.

[tinrobot]

3. It doesn't even need solar energy - just heat.

This engine, Johnson says, can operate on tiny scales, or generate megawatts of power. If it proves feasible, drastically reducing the cost of solar power would only be a start. JTEC could potentially harvest waste heat from internal combustion engines and combustion turbines, perhaps even the human body. And no moving parts means no friction and fewer mechanical failures.

I wonder if it could harvest all the hot air in Congress?

[NNadir]

4. We'll just add this to the long list of people who "aim" to cut solar prices in half.

I have always said that the "solar will save us" cult is primarily made up of people who play with toys.

Meanwhile, on planet earth: http://www.solarbuzz.com/

It is interesting to note that the graph begins at almost precisely the point I started blogging.

For the entire time I've been blogging, I've been hearing how solar costs would soon be cut in half.

[Zachstar]

5. Its all about economics NNadir

As long as few people buy these systems they will remain expensive.

For good reason before today! at 30 MABYE 40 percent you were going to spend a decade or more for a return on your investment. Because of the control systems and batteries.

I think you need to distinguish between the already partially successful heat solar (Ala the giant solar farm near Los Vegas), and direct solar.

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Oh on a side note NNadir I think you are a tad too harsh on these solar systems. I think you need to keep your efforts homed in on people who call for existing Fission plants to be shut down.

Think of it this way. In 10 years we will be in an energy depression thanks to the lack of fission reactors and attention to the warnings during 1970. I do not think it will be "Solar will save us" anymore but more along the lines of "Solar will help us"

Oh and btw your Solar and toys comment was low...

Remember Zach will go against anyone that screws with ideas that can help with our future... Even the great NNadir is fair game.

[malakai2]

6. I think "Solar will save us" will give way to something else...

Something more like "Get out of my way, I'm taking that tree for firewood." Sorta like Haiti, except in a much cooler, temperate climate, with a much larger population.

[Zachstar]

7. You speak of the much feared "Steam Economy"

If that happens with upwards of 6 billion people then the Earth will likely become extremely inhospitable.

IE if that happens worldwide then it is "Endgame"


That is why serious alternatives like Fusion are so important and need support now!