Thursday, August 14, 2008

Solar energy discovery

My letter today to Obama, Durbin :

Dear ________:

FYI... we should JUMP on THIS... NOW... can you pass this along to someone you know on the Energy Committee... Let's do it in 5 years, not 10. What can you do personally to accelerate development and deployment of 'home-grown' technological solutions for the Energy crisis?

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html" In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.


Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

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