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One could use any source of electricity to power a laser at the exact frequency need for molecular bonding. This would raise the efficiency of the system.
This does seem like what the future of energy storage should look like. Not sure how this would work with portable devices but anything like a car/motorcycle or larger could easily make use of something like this.
It would be good to plan for '1 Year later' or 'several years later' videos on some of these technologies. It would show which of these technologies did or will break through.
was just about to comment the same thing. More follow up videos would be good, even if occasionally there was a top 10 biggest flops of covered topics video.
I agree, but I am not sure whether one year is enough. It can take quite a while from a successful lab experiment to economic viable mass production. Take the lithium-ion battery, for example. It was developed in the 1970s. But it took until 1991 until you could buy one. Nevertheless, updates from time to time would be nice.
The problem unfortunately with these "meta stable" isomers that are high energy, is there is a substantial decay rate generally speaking. I wouldn't be surprised if that "shipped liquid" had lost at least 3/4s of it's "high energy" isomer. High energy states aren't really that metastable if they were easy to get to, versus say a redox reaction like reducing CO2 to methane, where substantial energy is involved, any oxidation/energy release would be completely insignificant. This is just an isomerization, granted a pretty good one but easy come easy go, it's not as if we have carbons being reduced here. Redox reactions generally just release more energy too, if you put it on par with Lithium I'd say head to head good ol' Lithium batteries would probably outdo this in energy density, couldn't say by how much, but guesstimate 50%. Even if the conversion is higher energy than I think, say extreme UV wavelengths, most of that energy is filtered out by our ozone layer. This would make sense to me if it's decay rate is reallllllly small. This isn't a jug of gasoline you can use years later. Similar to a nuclear isotope (or evaporation of gasoline from a lackluster container) there will be decay, and likely very very significant. Anything to stabilize it will invariably lower efficiency further by pushing the envelope of bond breaking higher. Also.... catalysts are generally not cheap, what they are using really matters here (is it Nickel mesh on carbon? is it palladium?). I always thought photo switching was a cool concept, but after a Master's on this shit, it's still too much of a gimmick for real world high energy processes. I know it seems Im shitting all over it...I kind of am....it does have some pretty neat applications, as a SWITCH...not as an energy medium. You would likely have much higher efficiencies with concentrated solar simply heating a material engineered to have ungodly heat capacity, versus a single bond based conversion of isomers. Capturing photons is best left to large conjugated bonds or metals chelated complexes with lots of happy d orbital electrons to do the jumping states.
This idea needs to be shit on. It doesn't have much potential at all. Someone in the comments said the energy density is about 1/3 of lithium, and the real issue is the efficiency of 3%... That's 6-7x less than a normal PV panel! Think about the size of a whole house panel system( about 400sqft) now multiply that by 6-7x! That is absolutely not practical.. How many gallons of this liquid would you need? A few hundred or more? 2500 sqft of double pane glass outside of your house? This is just never going to go anywhere unless they somehow max out the theoretical efficiency of 16% like he said, but that's doubtful
Thank you for putting the detailed scientific refutation here! I had a gut feel this process didn’t make a lot of sense but without the chemistry background to dispute it, I was left with only a question of whether it was possible to be a good storage mechanism. Truly appreciate the insight!
Smart points but I'm going to assume the pros and investors involved in this project are aware of everything you mentioned *and still* see enough promise to continue R&D. Let's hope you're wrong and we get another useful tech 🤞✌️
Aww man, I had a feeling about it with similar reasoning, but I really wanted to believe that this could be a big thing. But you're the one with the Masters on the subject. Thanks for the heads up, bro.
@@randybobandy9828 I think you mistake energy efficiency for energy density. 3% efficiency does not necessarily mean more liquid. Just means to store 3J of energy you need 100J of solar. The video does not say if the solar receivers have been taken into account or not. But if they have not been taken into account, then a 20% efficient panel it will have to soak in 500J of solar for it to store 3J in the liquid. Please correct me where I am wrong. I am not all that good at math.
You didn't specify the energy density of the MOST fluid, so I found it for you. It's 396kJ/kg, which is 110Wh/kg. Lithium ion batteries are almost 3 times that. Volumetric density is 359 kJ/L (100 Wh/L), compared to more than 730 Wh/L for Lithium ion batteries. Maximum theoretical specific density is "966 kJ kg−1 = 268 W h kg−1 (unsubstituted norbornadiene)" from the paper. I don't know if links are permitted. Anyway, they're using derivatives to increase the energy collection efficiency, and possibly stability, so you can have 3%, 18 years or 268 Wh/kg, not all at once. The idea of using this to power headphones and mobile phones is ridiculous, "both" from the energy density, the flammability, the toxicity, the heat generation, and the fact you need a TEG or a Stirling engine generator in the device. The chemistry is based on Norbornadiene-Quadricyclane photoisomerization. Norbornadiene is flammable, Quadricyclane is flammable and toxic. It might be useful as a way to extract/store energy from short wavelength sunlight (~300nm) as an addition to other technologies that doesn't perform well with those wavelengths. E.g. as a thin layer of fluid channels on top of solar cells. In that case it could probably cool the PV cells, increasing its efficiency. If it blocks too much of the useful light this would be useless of course.
A thin layer backing the solar cells might be a better idea; less heat absorption, but it'd act as a cooling loop that also uses the heat generated for power. I still think this is way less interesting as a concept than kerosene generation from solar energy.
Okay. Given your complementary informations, I think this is not going to be usefull. Honnestly, storing energy that long is not really the whole point. We only need like 1-2 years storage span (summer to winter). 3% collection is really really small, and energy density/volumetric density is awfull. Thus the only way to use it is in fixed storages, not on mobile devices. And the toxicity/flammability of the produc just make it worse. Interesting to know, but I think it's doomed to fail. Tech is interesting though, maybe with another compounds.
@@KainYusanagi the MOST fluid can't be used for that. Its isomerization requires light in the 300nm to 400nm range. Those would be turned to heat in the solar cell. Well, it could be used same as water, I guess 🙂
@@phizc Oh jeez, that makes it pretty useless then, since the gained efficiency in absorbing those light waves would end up being losses for the solar panel below, plus the isomer would heat up itself and thus heat up the panel, lowering its efficiency further, wouldn't it? Yeah, I'm just going to stick with solar kerosene; it removes CO2 from the air and gives a concentrated liquid fuel storage that is vastly superior for energy return, too. Combine that with better offgas capture from combustion, and we could have plants producing some of their own power from what would otherwise be their waste, in a virtuous cycle of reclamation and less pollution.
@@KainYusanagi I don't know how much the "fluid solar collector" would block the cells below. I was thinking it might be possible to use the MOST fluid as a coolant. Flow cool MOST fluid (NBD) in thin channels. It cools the panel and absorb blue light, coming out the other side converted to its charged isomer (QC). You're right it's probably not going to be worth it, but that's the only hope I see for it at all.
I had heard that the CSP tower plant you referenced had closed and was not currently active. This was mainly due to corrosion in the pipes, lowered output than predicted and an accident. It’s good to see they got it back up and running. Thank you for mentioning it, as I thought this project had been abandoned after this accident.
Aaron Schuck: Sir, a systematic design for easy and practical cleaning of the tube INTERIOR for such solar plant- should be provided during its construction stage.. A system of "threaded plug" on every corner of concerned tube- was enough to do a regular a regular cleaning of tube interior- against clogs, dirt, minerals, etc.. Any man. made inventions, designs, system, etc ALWAYS NEED a maintenance action- to maintained its peak efficiency level... Crisis Management was one of the MOST INTERESTING topic in Management Arts & Science!... To be ABLE TO SEE PROBLEM BEFORE ITS OCCURRENCE- and DOING AN EFFECTIVE REMEDY AGAINST IT IN ADVANCE- thats the AWESOME FEAT of a group leader, of a corporate president, military generals, etc..
@@arielhermoso4262 you can avoid all these problems with Fresnel Reflectors, a different type of power plant. No rare materials needed like Solar Panels. Longer lifetime, cheaper to install and maintain. CNIM CSP Fresnel technology: an efficient and environmentally friendly solution 1. Patented mirror support design for an easy local construction 2. Standard dimensions, easily available mirrors with easy handling 3. Boiler type receiver tube. Easy handling and maintenance 4. No heavy civil works, no concrete. Easy rehabilitation after dismantling 5. Common motorization with low electrical consumption 6. Standard steel structure with easy adjustment
Not sure if I missed it in the video, but do we know the storage density of this liquid? How much would be required in a closed loop to provide X amount of heat energy?
I did a quick search and Wikipedia says that MOST can achieve 559kJ/kg which is about the same as LiFePo4 on a good day. Their minimum target is 300kJ/kg which is also the same as a low grade LiFePo4 cell.
When you release the energy in the fluid then it will heat up by around 60°C. That sounds way too low to me. Unless it has specific heat capacity comparable to water or higher (I doubt it) then it will be less capable than lithium ion. And I doubt it will be cheap to compensate that. But assuming that the fluid has heat capacity comparable to water (4180 J/°C/kg) and the temperature difference is 60°C then 60*4180=250800 J/kg = 70 Wh/kg and lithium batteries have between 100 and 265 Wh/kg. Then you also have to remember that the energy is in the form of heat and quite small temperature difference so if you want to convert it to electricity then it will probably have low efficiency.
@@tomaspecl1082 Actually is not low at all. the water in many central heating systems comes to less than 50C, and goes back to room temperature. now, if you add to that 60 C, you make it 80. is over what my radiator ever had. Now we have heating solar panels that works at temperatures close to water boiling point, and works even in winter in the version with vacuum tubes. but storing the hot water does not work for longer periods of time, Good for sunny days, but when is blizzard that goes for a week, you need alternatives. so that system, combined with this having capacity for about two months may be a great solution. BUUUT. something that they did not mentioned is the cost. For example these vacuum tubes are pretty expensive too. But they work many years so the cost is recovered. Those interested could build an underground insulated tank, And store heat in the summer and use it in the winter. Even half of it is lost, the other half does its job. And the technology is here. This alternative can be useful by preserving that half of energy lost in a regular insulated tank. But if this system costs more than the energy lost in traditional way, obviously, does not work. As for the possibility of transforming the stored heat in electricity... hmm. Already the efficiency of capture is low, and conversion not so good either.. that direction is a long shot. Interesting from academic point, but practicality... who know if ever.. So... my question, it will be cheap? Expensive solutions are plenty.
@@ehombane The problem with this liquid is that it needs light of a specific wavelenght. It stores the energy of that specific wavelength. If you have vacuum tubes I think going paraffin might be good. It stores heat at a temperature around 70...96 as a phase change material. You can buy it for the correct temperature. It's not the same, but it's more dense than storing hot water, and hence you can do with a smaller good insulated tank.
I find the concept of light directly converted to chemical storage then converted straight to heat in a closed loop system very interesting. The conversion efficiency of light to doesn't need to be real high if you can collect for 8 months to get you through 4 months of heating during the winter especially since you would be collecting during the long days of summer to use during the short days of winter. Appropriate sizing of the system with long term storage would be easier also as you wouldn't have to over build your system in summer to insure enough in winter. I like the idea of having a 120 degree F heat source on winter days with a high of -10 degree F when even air - air heat pumps don't operate efficiently. It would be important to know life span expectancy of this system as I am disappointed in compressor life in heat pumps.
Yes it is interesting but think of the volume of this liquid needed to store, for that 4 months of winter heating. Since there was no data on the volume required in this video we are left to just guess. And mine is that it couldn't be done in an individual house level. You would need an infrastructure piping this liquid to each house, much like we do with gas.
I share this sentiment. The ability to storage energy in this molecular fluid and then release the energy as heat at any time up to so many years later would be ideal for warming homes and cities, both on the surface, and below, such as the eventual prospect of building a city at the bottom of the ocean and warming it internally with the heat released by this fluid. or warming underground cities on other planets. definitely a technology worth investment.
@@innosam123 I produce 3MW of excess electricity in summer and I'm missing 1.5MW for my heatpump in winter, I calculated saving this with hydrogen, it amounts to an enormous very dangerous tank and huge energy losses. But with a stable liquid molecule I imagine the tank being a fraction of it, and for a heat exchange system it would be perfect. The molecule must be very stable and safe if it can be stored for 18 years unlike the exploding gas counterpart. But yes, I would also like to have more details on the liquids stability and the energy density.
This is cool because it is a new technological concept I haven’t seen before, rather than just a refinement of an existing concept. The isomer + catalyst approach is fundamentally different from producing a liquid fuel that requires later combustion (and needs careful handling from combustion dangers), or straight thermal storage. And because it’s liquid, it could theoretically be made in sunnier areas and shipped to less sunny areas, if the energy density makes shipping worthwhile.
What excites me the the most is the solar “rechargeable” fuel is tailored to a certain spectrum meaning if you make other molecules Tailored to the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum (and they don’t react negatively to each other) you may be able to mix different spectrum fluids together to get a ton of coverage. So stacking these different tailored fluids in the same receiver may be interesting.
Hi Matt - I’ve been a loyal subscriber from almost the very beginning of your channel (you had something like 7.5 thousand subs at the time), and I’ve really enjoyed the way you present new tech and ideas in an easy to understand way, but I also love trying to catch all of the puns you sneak in throughout…..Anyway, I just happened to notice today that you reached the AMAZING 1 million subscriber threshold!!! CONGRATS! That’s a truly awesome accomplishment! As long as you keep making your great content (and clever puns), I’m sure you’re going to keep growing even faster! Keep up the great work! N.S.
@@UndecidedMF Congrats on 1 millions subs! You cover a lot of interesting content on here. Someone else brought up, and I think it's a really good idea (could even be a central theme your channel, if you wanted it to), is doing some recap videos on past topics you've covered, which ones went big, which ones failed, and which ones are still progressing. I know you occasionally re-cover a topic, but a video covering a quick breakdown of various projects would be really interesting.
Congratulations Matt. There are now well over 1 million people on this world who are directly benefiting from your efforts. Not many of us ever reach that level of global contribution and you can be rightly proud. Your product is directly encouraging us to change our ways and improve our use of the fragile planet Earth. Many, many thanks from those of us who enjoy your work.
@@kindlinI really like that idea. I have been trying to revisit a topic or company when I think there’s enough “new” to share, but I need to do that more. I’ll rethink that strategy to do more revisits and updates.
Concept is interesting but 3% efficiency for storing thermal energy is amazingly poor. Consider that photosynthesis can be 6% efficient, takes CO2 out of the air, and cellulose can retain that stored energy for a very ling time.
Well, burning wood is the traditional energy source for humanity. Wood pellet stoves and heating is fairly economical in some areas. I wouldn't recommend a widespread return to that though with all the localized side effects like carbon monoxide and smoke pollution affecting air quality to worry about.
I'm not so concerned about efficiency ratings when the source of the energy is a gazillion-degree ball of fire floating in space that can't be monetized by any corporation. 3% of a gazillion is still more than what we need.
@@MrStrizver But you should be. Because the efficiency determines the amount of raw materials and embodied carbon you need per unit energy. It's why nuclear is still better than solar or wind, even excluding batteries. You need so much more material and during the process you create so much waste, including dangerous, chemical waste, that nuclear energy has both a lower carbon, environmental and toxicity footprint than solar or wind per energy produced. Without even counting storage.
@@patrikgubeljak9416 Yes and no. It's a matter of scale. There is so much solar energy hitting the earth that we don't necessarily need a high efficiency, just an environmentally friendly way to collect it. Again, 3% of a bazillion is a lot. Sure, it may be considered "wasteful" by conventional thinking, but it's not like we use up the sun faster by "wasting" it....it's literally free energy.
@@HermanVonPetri chimneys should make use of the smoke to generate a turbine generator.. also we can capture carbon and put it into use before it makes smog
I wonder if this could also be an alternative for long distance transmission via existing or converted pipelines. Wired power transmission typically has a 5% loss. How efficient would be the conversion be if you used a laser diode tuned to the best absorption frequency?
Cold climate heating during winter for residential. Here in Canada a large portion of our carbon release is for heating, a system like this that could harvest and store heat in the warm months for winter use would be great but as always cost will matter.
I wonder if you could bury large tanks (like water cisterns) below the basement of the home. Gather your heat during the warm months, use it during the winter months.
@@car0lm1k3 I live in Canada it takes about 5 cord of firewood a year for a smallish house. Then there is splitting, stacking, keeping it going day and night, cleaning ash. … not as romantic as it sounds
Matt. Totally off topic, but, I have to say one of the strengths to your channel that I appreciate the most, is your ability to allow people to disagree with you, without you taking it personal, or turning it into some sort of battle of insults. You have impressed me over the years, with your responses to various commentors who disagreed with you.
7:36 - Whenever I hear that something mechanical is controlled by machine learning and AI, I'm skeptical of it. That's entirely marketing speak. Why is there a need to adjust things 30 times a second? The sun moves half an arcsecond in the sky in that time. What mechanical system is going to have that accuracy? Also "While most systems usually" -> "this system is capable of" sounds like this system has not yet been optimised and so they're throwing around big numbers to make it sound impressive. The point of the current systems heating to ~500C is because that's the operating point for the working fluid (salt). They could heat up much higher than that if they weren't cooled by the working fluid.
I like it! It sounds like a trade-off between efficiency and convenience/affordability. The fluid doesn't capture a large amount of solar energy, but the energy it does capture is rendered into a stable, portable form that can be piped around and used in countless different ways. I don't think anyone will be storing it for years when the sun will still be shining tomorrow, but there's definitely a case to be made for storing sunlight in the summer and using it in the winter.
I’m quite convinced we all need to capture as much of solar heat we can get and store it in materials that can stand the heat. Only non toxic materials should be used for underground storage where leaks may occur. Earth is a good keeper of heat which can free this energy during winter. Low temperature but mass heating (like floors) during winter is best for small energy losses. You don’t need 18 years of storage. And of course insulation counts.
I have been storing the sun’s power in the trees in my backyard…every once in a while one needs cutting, and I burn the wood to make fire, which makes my family room toasty warm in the middle of a cold snowy winter night. I then reflect how great the sun and trees are to give me such warmth when I need it.
They had some CSP plants in the Kramer Junction/Harper Lake area of California. Spent billions and they are no longer operating. Any idea why they shut them down?
My first thought on this is using it to cool the photovoltaic panels so they'll work more efficiently. Then use a combination of battery storage and this to provide power when the sun isn't shining.
MY LARGE SUV IS 100% SOLAR POWERED It works like this: The sun (solar power) causes certain plants to grow, these plants decay naturally and turn into an “All Natural” Energy source that can be easily converted into different forms. One form, called “gasoline” is easily transported and stored until the solar energy is needed. I can drive straight through from Maine to California and recharge my solar powered SUV in less than 4 minutes by conveniently located charging stations. The solar power, (in liquid form) is pumped into my vehicle in a couple of minutes, and I'm back on the road again. If you doubt me, ask any geologist. If there was no sun, there would be no fossil fuels. You should try a solar powered vehicle, they’re great!
There was a great program called Tomorrow's World in the UK and unfortunately, they canceled it. You are doing a very good job of keeping that spirit alive with much more scientific detail.
Just discovered your channel 4 weeks ago, have been watching all the new video's that came out, really liking it. Happy I discovered it. Also happy to see a lot of development is going on to help us deal with current world problems. Good to see that not all is a crisis here and crisis there. Really like the topic you select and the clear explanation. All the best creating all the future video's.
Very cool topic! I remember thinking in college that storing excess renewable electricity in chemical bonds could be useful. My senior project in my chemical engineering undergrad was to study and present on the process of catalytic methanation, or turning CO2 and H2 into methanol, which could be burned later to recover some energy. Excess electricity is used to perform electrolysis of water, producing pure H2, and then it is reacted with CO2, preferably obtained through carbon capture technologies, over a metal catalyst. The process may not be the most efficient, but it was a useful learning opportunity and opened my eyes to possible alternatives to battery storage.
I'd be curious to know how this compares to the original chemical method for storing solar energy: photosynthesis. Years ago I read about a project that was growing algae in tubes that had CO2 bubbling through them. The CO2 came from electricity generation (ideally, a solid oxide fuel cell) that used the algae as feedstock in a semi-closed-loop system. It doesn't seem to have gone anywhere, so maybe it didn't really work? But it sounded promising at the time.
Very interesting tech! Engineered storage in molecular bonds makes a lot of sense long term. It is, after all, why traditional fuels have been so successful. It strikes me that the efficiency does not have to be terribly high if it is cheap to deploy a lot of surface area. Certainly a square meter of glaze red glass with a fluid flowing through it would be far cheaper than square meter of polycrystalline silicon.
Something to consider is using different storage methods to their particular advantages. Like you mentioned, MOST could be paired with photovoltaics to harvest some of the heat of the panels. Sure it's not the most efficient for electricity generation, but we often use our electricity to generate heat. Skipping a few conversion processes makes it inherently more efficient, and there should also be a way to qualify the ability to capture waste energy from other processes.
Wondering about encasing methane gas in two different lens type, one infrared point at solar panel...but the encased methane can trap some solar radiation to feed the panels.
Forty years ago, we manufactured solar panels that collected hot air and ducted them to a closet or attic space where the hot air heated up plastic trays full of a salt solution. The salt trays stored the heat which a circulating blower would pass air across the trays at night to heat the building. Very simple system
now that is cool and i mean that it's fantastic for thermal storage it means you can easily bunker heat for the winter on a relatively small plot of land BUT it still don't solve the real issue of making that thermal energy easily converted to electrical energy that is and has always been the main issue as most such systems are either horribly inefficient or very bulky and require very high temperatures to operate SO while this is very usefull and solves the storage aspect now we just have the HERCULEAN task of making low temperature THERMAL->ELECTRICAL efficient
low temperature differential conversion to electricity is inefficient fundamentally by thermodynamics. the higher the temp differential and lower the sink temperature, the better is the efficiency
This type of storage would replace a certain amount of electrical energy currently used for heating in the winter anyway. None of these needs to be the solution for all problems. It can solve just the problem it is best at solving, and use something else for the rest.
Nine minutes in and we finally hear about a new chemical for ... heat pads that can be recharged by leaving them outside. I'm sure IcyHot is excited. They must be targeting some really high latitudes if their home heating system had the fluid being sent back to a central plant rather than being re-energized on the houses' rooftops.
open your mind to some possibilities. a heat differential also means the possibility of using something like a sterling engine to produce electricity. what matters is that we can store energy and release it at will, and reuse the storage medium.
Love your channel! This technology looks really promising. Now I'm curious... how toxic is the solution/waste after the 18 year storage capacity has passed?
It is very clear from your videos that you enjoy discussing the details of technical developments, especially those with green credentials. You also show the same enthusiasm for the established versus the novel. However, what is missing is some comment on the inevitable slow progress from concept to a working model. Also on the possible time scale to reach commercial energy production at the megawatt level. I also take issue with you on the viability of solar energy, particularly those installations which intensify sunlight. In order to maximise production, they are all located in dry, and therefore dusty, locations. Unfortunately dust on mirrors is bad news and frequent cleaning is essential. But these mirrors are large and quite delicate, especially the focusing mechanism. Cleaning, and maintenance, has turned out to be a much more complicated and expensive exercise than expected and enough to affect the financial viability of such schemes.
I love the idea of a single home dish style concentrated solar. Also, combining steam generator and water desalination. Just imagine, a home with water catchment system where some is used as grey water (flushing toilets) and the rest is made potable by a solar still/ concentrated solar steam generator
@@Daniel-yy3ty Maybe if you live in the Sahara, but given that the average rainfall in the US is 30 inches a year, a 1,000 sq ft water catch (your roof) can capture almost 19,000 gallons of water a year. Enough for three (and a quarter) people to shower every single day of the year
@@darkfur18 well, as I said it rained 4 times, so take that average and go play in the rain you are getting since I got 5 inches since the start of the year plus, don't go assume that people live in the US and have a big house all for them, our roof is half of that at best and there are 5 families under it
@@Melethasgar so whats grey water? My understanding was black (wouldn't want to use in home), typically smells, grey, and potable. But am admittedly ignorant in this area
Very cool idea! And your recap added a lot of good perspective. Thanks. So a 63 degree C temperature change is about 145 F for us Americans. Cycling that past a low speed fan would be plenty of heat for your home, and probably enough for most home water heaters. I can't wait to see this as a commercial product in a few years.
Wouldn't solar vacuum tubes be more efficient at producing heat? BTW, this would make a great subject matter for a video, this tech is rarely mentioned.
Harvesting ? for sure. Storing ? no way. There is no viable economic solution at the moment, that store the energy we can capture during the summer in using during the winter. Just imagine this for 18 years!
@@maurorossi8708 Not needed... Wave, hydro, and wind can easily power all the global needs as it is forever. Batteries will advance soon, he shows he here monthly as battery tech advances yearly now. The Solution Project Map details it, using good data
@@cd4683 Yeah, I am looking at them for winter next year (wood stove this year). €700-800 each panel though. I am renovating an old house and will add pipes for low temp floor heating, maybe wall heating too in some rooms, so these panels combined with an extra large tank could be perfect. Still running the maths on them, as I'd like to use these pipes for cooling too, maybe from the ice cold condensed water from the heat pump, and I'd like to use them for hot sanitary water too. When renovating, it seems that whatever you do, you need to "invent" everything. Not many people are specialized in low temp floor heating, for instance, even less use cellular glass floor insulation, etc.
Solar Trough concentrator systems use the vacuum sealed tubes. The problem isn't the collection of solar energy its the working fluids that limit the efficiency. CSP systems just arent economical and several CSP companies ended up going bankrupt.
Does the absorption of solar energy have a cooling effect? If so that may be an added beneficial effect as it could help to prevent heat from entering a building, reducing the electrical cost of cooling.
As mentioned in your video, the efficiency of the system depends critically on the max-min temperature differential. IIRC, the chemical goes through about a 60 deg C change when it encounters the catalyst, which means it is useful only for direct heat, like heating water or warming a house, not for electricity generation. The comment that it could be used to power headphones really says it all -- such applications are 0.0000001% of the energy budget. We need solutions for generation of GW levels of power, not mW levels of power.
Storing solar energy directly into a boiler is from far the MOST efficient and cheap solution. Even if it is only for warm water generation, it should be used much more as it is. The only missing element is a good brand that provide hardware that require almost no maintenance and cover all operation automaticaly (including protection in case of very low temp).
insulation is the key; the higher the temperature, the greater is the heat loss. At high temperature, loss by radiation is the largest and you will need a dewar flask that can hold at 500-700C
I don't believe so. Panels, generating electricity for a heat pump, making hot water, makes for a better solution. That's what most people are installing right now anyway. Together with low temp floor heating in a thick concrete slab you are almost optimizing it, at reasonable cost.
This seems like a very promising idea, even if it only helps with heating (and not electricity in general). But so many questions remain. How much does the fluid cost? What is the energy storage density? What are the environmental risks (biodegradability, health impacts, side effects of production, corrosion of pipes, etc). I wonder how stable the fluid is. Is there potential for a fiery runaway reaction like with batteries? Would it really be cost effective to pipe or truck this stuff around, or would it need to be produced and used onsite, and thus only applicable to a niche target like food and beverage factories? I feel it could easily take another 10 years of intensive research to find a mix of chemicals to achieve reasonably wide band sunlight utilization and still meet all the other requirements. And that's if they're lucky.
I hear the wavelength issue mentioned. Is it possible to convert a wavelength of light to another? Could that make the efficiency of overall light received greater?
Congratulations on 1M Subs, for a tech channel that provides information on experimental and cutting edge of technology, 1M subs is like 20M. Thank for everything so far.
I run my truck on one which is collected by the sun. I use biodiesel produced by locally sourced food waste. All solar power, no new water or land use required, abundant and practically free. NESTE produces billions of gallons of it, Shell, Exxon, and others are getting in the game, too. And in doing so, we take oils and greases out of landfills which eventually become methane (the worst greenhouse gas) or leach into our waterways and kill off algae and other O2 producing biomass. We can supplement our push to EV's with green energy fuels for existing vehicles. But when Matt had the chance to cover it, he shit all over it, instead, failing to understand the waste stream source of biofuels and only focusing on the cost of growing food for fuel. Shameful.
One minute into your video : Your solar panel do not transform "sunlight" into electron, it use the energy of the photon to create a difference in electric potential aka a voltage. Let me explain : "Light is electricly neutral, the electron is not, you have to conserve charge". And again 10 secondes after : Electron are not "store" in a battery, a Battery has an entropy. Low entropy, all electron are move on the anode side, leaving a depleted positive side on the cathode. You have a potential between them, your battery is charged. High entropy electron are on both side, both side are electricly neutral, no more potential, battery depleted. Charging a battery is moving electron inside the battery to a low entropy state with an external supply of energy. A battery is more like a spring than a can. You don't need an IA to align mirrors at 30Hz, you just need to track the sun and do trigonometry to reoriente the mirrors. We do it for almost 50 Years. A raspberry pi could handle this. An isolate container of pure steel to hold rocks, except steel have a very good thermal conduction propriety. About the magic golden liquid that replace solar panel and battery, it's smell like manure. 1 - You don't mofify a molecule, you create a new ones if you change compositions or structure 2 - Molecule don't change shape with heat, they form or brake. 3 - When nitrate and silver ions receive photons above red, they combine to AgNO3. It cost you more energy to break the molecule, because this state is more stable. If your special liquide have 18 years of retention, must be very stable. 4 - It will be better, if we have a hint of what it's made of. The CGI structure look fishy chemicly speaking. Is this unicorn pee ? 5 - Molecules would be sensible to a specific frequency of light (not a range) corresponding to an electron orbital, enegy is quantize (you know quantum physic ?). By changing the electron orbit, it will be able to be share in a bond. To retrieve energy you need to break the bond. Buzz words and as much science as in an Avengers movies. Clearly you and your "team" need to research the Dunning-Kruger effect.
@@dsloop3907 Have said and have nothing againt Tower with molten salts It's a old but proven technology to store heat based on the solar hoven ( late 18 century ? ). Wathever medium you use, you can store heat and retrieve it with a simple sterling engine. You can use oil, water, gaz, concrete, water even magic sci-fi liquid. What's matter is the heat capacity. Best one is water. But you only store energy as heat and it can be more efficient than Chemical storage. But thermodynamic won't let you keep this energy forever, even in a vacuum, energy is lost throught radiation. (see black body radiation ) Plant use sunlight energy to create sugar from CO2 and Water. Sugar store around 10-20 KJoules/g, if you fermente it ethanol give you 30 KJoules/g or feed it to an animal lipides are almost at 40kJ/g. Water store around 4KJ/g/K. And a battery Li 900J/g FIY.
@@vincentvoillot6365 The salt cooled and destroyed many things. I saw a video about that place on here. It would have been a great thing if it had worked. Cost more to run than it made.
@@dsloop3907 It's exactly what i said, molten salt are corrosive ( it's destroy "thing" ), salt are generaly high Ph, like caustic soda . Oils are chemicly neutral but have a lower heat capacity. Water can stay liquid at high temperature and high pressure, but it's highly corrosive in this state. This is why it's feed into a turbine and not store in a pressurize container. But still, if you want to collect solar energy with basic mirrors , molten salt in a limestone structure, will do the job. It will not be efficient, but it will be cheap, better in a place with low humidity. You can find it where it make sense, like in hot desert, solar panel don't handle heat very well.
Something I usually don't see addressed is the land displacement of these projects. The Gemini Project in Nevada when completed is supposed to occupy 7100 acres and will produce 690 megawatts. In contrast, the modest sized Chehalis, WA natural gas power plant produces approximately the same amount of power on 30 acres. A larger 850 MW solar plant in another area of Nevada has already been shot down by local opposition. It seems much easier to locate a 30 acre power plant closer to population centers that could operate 24/7 regardless of weather than a multiple square mile facility that requires virtually perfect weather for optimum efficiency.
The whole renewable energy industry is a scam. Newer rich people wanted to take a cut from older established rich people who made tons on money using coal and gas. So they funded Greenpeace to bring in renewables and got some market share. It is far better to make coal and gas more efficient and hopefully the government will have to release the Tesla free energy one day as pollution gets out of control. Free seems illogical but it is just like hydro, it is free, it just converts gravitational energy into electricity. There is e-m and gravitational energy everywhere around us.
There is little to no advantage to long-distance heating, since you still have to insulate all the tubing in the cycle presented by Chalmars University. A spill of that chemical into the environment would be very bad for the environment, probably also poisonous for living organisms. Btw, that 18yrs shelf life of the energized molecule only applies when the substance is 100% free of contaminants. If you want to store energy for a long time, Hydrogen, alcohols, fats, sugars or batteries are still your best bet - on geological timescales, it's the formation of crude oil. Also "the liquid's temperature rises by 63°C" is useless information, since it only applies to an exact, unstated quantity. There is a reason why reaction enthalpies are stated in kJ/mol, kJ/kg or kJ/l. You and your writing team lack the fundamental knowledge required for doing proper science communication. All you do is spreading unfounded hype and promoting unsustainable ideas, which directly results in more poorly informed people turning into science deniers due to most of these "breakthroughs/ideas/whatever" never getting realized on a large scale.
The 63 degree is useful information because the energy released is proportional to the mass of the liquid. Assuming the specific heat of the fluid is also fixed, the 63 degree increase in temperature will be a constant regardless of the quantity of fluid.
Super interesting. Kind of like an industrial version of the reusable heat pads but it can still flow. Crazy that they thought to take advantage of the molecular structure change.
Reminds me of reading many science journals in z library of all these new promising ideas that stayed in the library. Need fully comprehensive data including long term testing, cost analysis, real world efficiency studies Etc.
I'm so happy to know we have these brilliant and various innovations on clean energy. Most of us only know of the basic ones so knowing that they have been innovating hard so we have a chance at reaching a sustainable future.
How do they protect all those mirrors, in the desert, from dust and sand storms? Do they have to keep changing them out everytime theyre sand blasted to the point they dont reflect anything anymore? Just curious.
MOST interesting! I’d like to learn more about their molecular gymnastics, and whether they would consider working with kinetic architecture modeling groups, etc?
How does this compare to Hydrogen for energy storage? Also if this is used to move energy internationally etc won’t some areas be drenched with spent liquid that they would have to spend energy shipping back to re fill? Like hydrogen u can just turn to water and drink, irrigate or clean with let a lot throw down the drain.
Hi Matt I have a question. While riding My motorcycle in the desert last summer I came upon a CSP tower. My question is with all those mirrors pointed at the tower aren't a lot of birds getting killed or do they start feeling the heat before it gets to hot and turn away? If it's killing birds what's an acceptable kill rate, and do they have mitigation devices? I've been pondering those question since last year. Thought maybe you might have some insight into that.
Love your videos. Very informative. With this particular video discussion liquid energy storage, I couldn't believe you didn't make reference to 1980's Transformers and "Energon Cubes"!! LoL. (You are younger than I am, so perhaps a pop-culture reference before your time? LoL). Looking forward to hearing about your future endeavors.
I am really glad that the molecular storage of solar energy is a thing now, I've been trying to figure out if it would have been effective for over 10 years and now it's already in testing phase.
Another thermochemical energy storage solution are salt hydrates. You add the heat to dehydrate them, where they can be stored stabily for long periods, then add water back where it generated heat exothermically. The big hangup is that to do it efficiently you need really high temperatures, but that computer learning driven CSP might work.
At 3:46 the first picture is not a Solar dish. It is the radio telescope system from ASTRON in the Netherlands. It is near Hooghalen or better known Westerbork. When you search for 'Melkwegpad Hooghalen' (Milkyway-explore Hooghalen), you find the pictures of these dishes.
@+①⑨④⑨⑦③⑨⑤④④⓪Whatsapp Did you find the location? Look more information at nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerbork_Synthese_Radio_Telescoop (for the best information, read in Duch Google translate) or for English en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerbork_Synthesis_Radio_Telescope .
Very Interesting indeed, this should stimulate university research for identifying other molecules as well. Good story, keep finding these diamonds in the rough.
As solar power has its peak during daylight(when people are consuming more power), is it really that necessary to store solar power? I would think that renewables such as wind power, where the peak is not matched by the demand, would be more relevant in what concerns energy storage.
How about those pads that you can put in boiling water. And then crack a little coin like crystal thingy. Which creates hot ice. Is that a similar system? Thanks for the videos!
How does the efficiency compare to a solar panel storing the energy in a battery? Very few losses in that storage so if the theoretical max efficiency is much lower than that of a solar panel PLUS storage in a battery then it would have to be very cheap to be worthwhile and only for niche applications where youd prefer heat to straight electricity
Do you think molecular bonding sounds like a promising direction? To start comparing quotes and simplify insurance-buying, check out Policygenius: policygenius.com/undecidedwithmatt Thanks to Policygenius for sponsoring this video!
If you liked this, check out Exploring Solar Panel Efficiency Breakthroughs in 2022 ruclips.net/video/m8crjuL8FFs/видео.html
It would be interesting for thermal storage
Hi Matt, kindly cover solar thermal cooling, it's very important.
Matt, look up Polar Night Energy. They're using plain old sand to store energy which can get up to 600-1000 degrees Celsius. Cheap. Simple. Effective.
One could use any source of electricity to power a laser at the exact frequency need for molecular bonding. This would raise the efficiency of the system.
This does seem like what the future of energy storage should look like. Not sure how this would work with portable devices but anything like a car/motorcycle or larger could easily make use of something like this.
It would be good to plan for '1 Year later' or 'several years later' videos on some of these technologies. It would show which of these technologies did or will break through.
He did just like this one. ruclips.net/video/swdyGHvmXw0/видео.html
Yes this is a great idea
Would whatch
was just about to comment the same thing. More follow up videos would be good, even if occasionally there was a top 10 biggest flops of covered topics video.
I agree, but I am not sure whether one year is enough. It can take quite a while from a successful lab experiment to economic viable mass production. Take the lithium-ion battery, for example. It was developed in the 1970s. But it took until 1991 until you could buy one. Nevertheless, updates from time to time would be nice.
The problem unfortunately with these "meta stable" isomers that are high energy, is there is a substantial decay rate generally speaking. I wouldn't be surprised if that "shipped liquid" had lost at least 3/4s of it's "high energy" isomer. High energy states aren't really that metastable if they were easy to get to, versus say a redox reaction like reducing CO2 to methane, where substantial energy is involved, any oxidation/energy release would be completely insignificant. This is just an isomerization, granted a pretty good one but easy come easy go, it's not as if we have carbons being reduced here. Redox reactions generally just release more energy too, if you put it on par with Lithium I'd say head to head good ol' Lithium batteries would probably outdo this in energy density, couldn't say by how much, but guesstimate 50%.
Even if the conversion is higher energy than I think, say extreme UV wavelengths, most of that energy is filtered out by our ozone layer. This would make sense to me if it's decay rate is reallllllly small.
This isn't a jug of gasoline you can use years later. Similar to a nuclear isotope (or evaporation of gasoline from a lackluster container) there will be decay, and likely very very significant. Anything to stabilize it will invariably lower efficiency further by pushing the envelope of bond breaking higher. Also.... catalysts are generally not cheap, what they are using really matters here (is it Nickel mesh on carbon? is it palladium?).
I always thought photo switching was a cool concept, but after a Master's on this shit, it's still too much of a gimmick for real world high energy processes. I know it seems Im shitting all over it...I kind of am....it does have some pretty neat applications, as a SWITCH...not as an energy medium.
You would likely have much higher efficiencies with concentrated solar simply heating a material engineered to have ungodly heat capacity, versus a single bond based conversion of isomers. Capturing photons is best left to large conjugated bonds or metals chelated complexes with lots of happy d orbital electrons to do the jumping states.
This idea needs to be shit on. It doesn't have much potential at all. Someone in the comments said the energy density is about 1/3 of lithium, and the real issue is the efficiency of 3%... That's 6-7x less than a normal PV panel! Think about the size of a whole house panel system( about 400sqft) now multiply that by 6-7x! That is absolutely not practical.. How many gallons of this liquid would you need? A few hundred or more? 2500 sqft of double pane glass outside of your house? This is just never going to go anywhere unless they somehow max out the theoretical efficiency of 16% like he said, but that's doubtful
Thank you for putting the detailed scientific refutation here! I had a gut feel this process didn’t make a lot of sense but without the chemistry background to dispute it, I was left with only a question of whether it was possible to be a good storage mechanism. Truly appreciate the insight!
Smart points but I'm going to assume the pros and investors involved in this project are aware of everything you mentioned *and still* see enough promise to continue R&D. Let's hope you're wrong and we get another useful tech 🤞✌️
Aww man, I had a feeling about it with similar reasoning, but I really wanted to believe that this could be a big thing. But you're the one with the Masters on the subject. Thanks for the heads up, bro.
@@randybobandy9828 I think you mistake energy efficiency for energy density. 3% efficiency does not necessarily mean more liquid. Just means to store 3J of energy you need 100J of solar. The video does not say if the solar receivers have been taken into account or not. But if they have not been taken into account, then a 20% efficient panel it will have to soak in 500J of solar for it to store 3J in the liquid. Please correct me where I am wrong. I am not all that good at math.
You didn't specify the energy density of the MOST fluid, so I found it for you. It's 396kJ/kg, which is 110Wh/kg. Lithium ion batteries are almost 3 times that.
Volumetric density is 359 kJ/L (100 Wh/L), compared to more than 730 Wh/L for Lithium ion batteries.
Maximum theoretical specific density is "966 kJ kg−1 = 268 W h kg−1 (unsubstituted norbornadiene)"
from the paper. I don't know if links are permitted. Anyway, they're using derivatives to increase the energy collection efficiency, and possibly stability, so you can have 3%, 18 years or 268 Wh/kg, not all at once.
The idea of using this to power headphones and mobile phones is ridiculous, "both" from the energy density, the flammability, the toxicity, the heat generation, and the fact you need a TEG or a Stirling engine generator in the device.
The chemistry is based on Norbornadiene-Quadricyclane photoisomerization.
Norbornadiene is flammable, Quadricyclane is flammable and toxic.
It might be useful as a way to extract/store energy from short wavelength sunlight (~300nm) as an addition to other technologies that doesn't perform well with those wavelengths. E.g. as a thin layer of fluid channels on top of solar cells. In that case it could probably cool the PV cells, increasing its efficiency. If it blocks too much of the useful light this would be useless of course.
A thin layer backing the solar cells might be a better idea; less heat absorption, but it'd act as a cooling loop that also uses the heat generated for power. I still think this is way less interesting as a concept than kerosene generation from solar energy.
Okay. Given your complementary informations, I think this is not going to be usefull. Honnestly, storing energy that long is not really the whole point. We only need like 1-2 years storage span (summer to winter). 3% collection is really really small, and energy density/volumetric density is awfull. Thus the only way to use it is in fixed storages, not on mobile devices.
And the toxicity/flammability of the produc just make it worse. Interesting to know, but I think it's doomed to fail. Tech is interesting though, maybe with another compounds.
@@KainYusanagi the MOST fluid can't be used for that. Its isomerization requires light in the 300nm to 400nm range. Those would be turned to heat in the solar cell. Well, it could be used same as water, I guess 🙂
@@phizc Oh jeez, that makes it pretty useless then, since the gained efficiency in absorbing those light waves would end up being losses for the solar panel below, plus the isomer would heat up itself and thus heat up the panel, lowering its efficiency further, wouldn't it? Yeah, I'm just going to stick with solar kerosene; it removes CO2 from the air and gives a concentrated liquid fuel storage that is vastly superior for energy return, too. Combine that with better offgas capture from combustion, and we could have plants producing some of their own power from what would otherwise be their waste, in a virtuous cycle of reclamation and less pollution.
@@KainYusanagi I don't know how much the "fluid solar collector" would block the cells below. I was thinking it might be possible to use the MOST fluid as a coolant. Flow cool MOST fluid (NBD) in thin channels. It cools the panel and absorb blue light, coming out the other side converted to its charged isomer (QC).
You're right it's probably not going to be worth it, but that's the only hope I see for it at all.
I had heard that the CSP tower plant you referenced had closed and was not currently active. This was mainly due to corrosion in the pipes, lowered output than predicted and an accident. It’s good to see they got it back up and running. Thank you for mentioning it, as I thought this project had been abandoned after this accident.
Yes, I heard the same. I also believe it's running at a financial loss.
It amazes me that people fall for rumors.
Aaron Schuck: Sir, a systematic design for easy and practical cleaning of the tube INTERIOR for such solar plant- should be provided during its construction stage.. A system of "threaded plug" on every corner of concerned tube- was enough to do a regular a regular cleaning of tube interior- against clogs, dirt, minerals, etc.. Any man. made inventions, designs, system, etc ALWAYS NEED a maintenance action- to maintained its peak efficiency level... Crisis Management was one of the MOST INTERESTING topic in Management Arts & Science!... To be ABLE TO SEE PROBLEM BEFORE ITS OCCURRENCE- and DOING AN EFFECTIVE REMEDY AGAINST IT IN ADVANCE- thats the AWESOME FEAT of a group leader, of a corporate president, military generals, etc..
@@arielhermoso4262 you can avoid all these problems with Fresnel Reflectors, a different type of power plant.
No rare materials needed like Solar Panels.
Longer lifetime, cheaper to install and maintain.
CNIM CSP Fresnel technology:
an efficient and environmentally friendly solution
1. Patented mirror support design for an easy local construction
2. Standard dimensions, easily available mirrors with easy handling
3. Boiler type receiver tube. Easy handling and maintenance
4. No heavy civil works, no concrete. Easy rehabilitation after dismantling
5. Common motorization with low electrical consumption
6. Standard steel structure with easy adjustment
Not sure if I missed it in the video, but do we know the storage density of this liquid? How much would be required in a closed loop to provide X amount of heat energy?
I did a quick search and Wikipedia says that MOST can achieve 559kJ/kg which is about the same as LiFePo4 on a good day. Their minimum target is 300kJ/kg which is also the same as a low grade LiFePo4 cell.
@@BobHannent That's pretty damn good...
When you release the energy in the fluid then it will heat up by around 60°C. That sounds way too low to me. Unless it has specific heat capacity comparable to water or higher (I doubt it) then it will be less capable than lithium ion. And I doubt it will be cheap to compensate that.
But assuming that the fluid has heat capacity comparable to water (4180 J/°C/kg) and the temperature difference is 60°C then 60*4180=250800 J/kg = 70 Wh/kg and lithium batteries have between 100 and 265 Wh/kg. Then you also have to remember that the energy is in the form of heat and quite small temperature difference so if you want to convert it to electricity then it will probably have low efficiency.
@@tomaspecl1082 Actually is not low at all. the water in many central heating systems comes to less than 50C, and goes back to room temperature.
now, if you add to that 60 C, you make it 80. is over what my radiator ever had. Now we have heating solar panels that works at temperatures close to water boiling point, and works even in winter in the version with vacuum tubes. but storing the hot water does not work for longer periods of time, Good for sunny days, but when is blizzard that goes for a week, you need alternatives. so that system, combined with this having capacity for about two months may be a great solution.
BUUUT. something that they did not mentioned is the cost. For example these vacuum tubes are pretty expensive too. But they work many years so the cost is recovered. Those interested could build an underground insulated tank, And store heat in the summer and use it in the winter. Even half of it is lost, the other half does its job. And the technology is here. This alternative can be useful by preserving that half of energy lost in a regular insulated tank. But if this system costs more than the energy lost in traditional way, obviously, does not work. As for the possibility of transforming the stored heat in electricity... hmm. Already the efficiency of capture is low, and conversion not so good either.. that direction is a long shot. Interesting from academic point, but practicality... who know if ever..
So... my question, it will be cheap? Expensive solutions are plenty.
@@ehombane The problem with this liquid is that it needs light of a specific wavelenght. It stores the energy of that specific wavelength.
If you have vacuum tubes I think going paraffin might be good. It stores heat at a temperature around 70...96 as a phase change material. You can buy it for the correct temperature.
It's not the same, but it's more dense than storing hot water, and hence you can do with a smaller good insulated tank.
I find the concept of light directly converted to chemical storage then converted straight to heat in a closed loop system very interesting. The conversion efficiency of light to doesn't need to be real high if you can collect for 8 months to get you through 4 months of heating during the winter especially since you would be collecting during the long days of summer to use during the short days of winter. Appropriate sizing of the system with long term storage would be easier also as you wouldn't have to over build your system in summer to insure enough in winter. I like the idea of having a 120 degree F heat source on winter days with a high of -10 degree F when even air - air heat pumps don't operate efficiently. It would be important to know life span expectancy of this system as I am disappointed in compressor life in heat pumps.
Yes it is interesting but think of the volume of this liquid needed to store, for that 4 months of winter heating. Since there was no data on the volume required in this video we are left to just guess. And mine is that it couldn't be done in an individual house level. You would need an infrastructure piping this liquid to each house, much like we do with gas.
I share this sentiment. The ability to storage energy in this molecular fluid and then release the energy as heat at any time up to so many years later would be ideal for warming homes and cities, both on the surface, and below, such as the eventual prospect of building a city at the bottom of the ocean and warming it internally with the heat released by this fluid. or warming underground cities on other planets. definitely a technology worth investment.
But how much of the liquid you need to store?
How is this much better than hydrogen though of the conversion efficiency sucks?
@@innosam123 I produce 3MW of excess electricity in summer and I'm missing 1.5MW for my heatpump in winter, I calculated saving this with hydrogen, it amounts to an enormous very dangerous tank and huge energy losses. But with a stable liquid molecule I imagine the tank being a fraction of it, and for a heat exchange system it would be perfect. The molecule must be very stable and safe if it can be stored for 18 years unlike the exploding gas counterpart. But yes, I would also like to have more details on the liquids stability and the energy density.
This is cool because it is a new technological concept I haven’t seen before, rather than just a refinement of an existing concept. The isomer + catalyst approach is fundamentally different from producing a liquid fuel that requires later combustion (and needs careful handling from combustion dangers), or straight thermal storage. And because it’s liquid, it could theoretically be made in sunnier areas and shipped to less sunny areas, if the energy density makes shipping worthwhile.
What excites me the the most is the solar “rechargeable” fuel is tailored to a certain spectrum meaning if you make other molecules Tailored to the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum (and they don’t react negatively to each other) you may be able to mix different spectrum fluids together to get a ton of coverage. So stacking these different tailored fluids in the same receiver may be interesting.
Exactly, this breakthrough alongside some breakthroughs in thermocouple electric generators would be a true storage solution.
could be the new oil, but reusable
LOHC Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers do something similar, good thing about it it uses existing petrol infrastructure
Hi Matt - I’ve been a loyal subscriber from almost the very beginning of your channel (you had something like 7.5 thousand subs at the time), and I’ve really enjoyed the way you present new tech and ideas in an easy to understand way, but I also love trying to catch all of the puns you sneak in throughout…..Anyway, I just happened to notice today that you reached the AMAZING 1 million subscriber threshold!!! CONGRATS! That’s a truly awesome accomplishment! As long as you keep making your great content (and clever puns), I’m sure you’re going to keep growing even faster! Keep up the great work! N.S.
Appreciate that.
@@UndecidedMF Congrats on 1 millions subs! You cover a lot of interesting content on here.
Someone else brought up, and I think it's a really good idea (could even be a central theme your channel, if you wanted it to), is doing some recap videos on past topics you've covered, which ones went big, which ones failed, and which ones are still progressing. I know you occasionally re-cover a topic, but a video covering a quick breakdown of various projects would be really interesting.
Congratulations Matt. There are now well over 1 million people on this world who are directly benefiting from your efforts. Not many of us ever reach that level of global contribution and you can be rightly proud. Your product is directly encouraging us to change our ways and improve our use of the fragile planet Earth. Many, many thanks from those of us who enjoy your work.
@@kindlinI really like that idea. I have been trying to revisit a topic or company when I think there’s enough “new” to share, but I need to do that more. I’ll rethink that strategy to do more revisits and updates.
@@UndecidedMF
< 3 !
Thanks!
Concept is interesting but 3% efficiency for storing thermal energy is amazingly poor. Consider that photosynthesis can be 6% efficient, takes CO2 out of the air, and cellulose can retain that stored energy for a very ling time.
Well, burning wood is the traditional energy source for humanity. Wood pellet stoves and heating is fairly economical in some areas. I wouldn't recommend a widespread return to that though with all the localized side effects like carbon monoxide and smoke pollution affecting air quality to worry about.
I'm not so concerned about efficiency ratings when the source of the energy is a gazillion-degree ball of fire floating in space that can't be monetized by any corporation. 3% of a gazillion is still more than what we need.
@@MrStrizver But you should be. Because the efficiency determines the amount of raw materials and embodied carbon you need per unit energy. It's why nuclear is still better than solar or wind, even excluding batteries. You need so much more material and during the process you create so much waste, including dangerous, chemical waste, that nuclear energy has both a lower carbon, environmental and toxicity footprint than solar or wind per energy produced. Without even counting storage.
@@patrikgubeljak9416 Yes and no. It's a matter of scale. There is so much solar energy hitting the earth that we don't necessarily need a high efficiency, just an environmentally friendly way to collect it. Again, 3% of a bazillion is a lot. Sure, it may be considered "wasteful" by conventional thinking, but it's not like we use up the sun faster by "wasting" it....it's literally free energy.
@@HermanVonPetri chimneys should make use of the smoke to generate a turbine generator.. also we can capture carbon and put it into use before it makes smog
I wonder if this could also be an alternative for long distance transmission via existing or converted pipelines. Wired power transmission typically has a 5% loss. How efficient would be the conversion be if you used a laser diode tuned to the best absorption frequency?
Cold climate heating during winter for residential.
Here in Canada a large portion of our carbon release is for heating, a system like this that could harvest and store heat in the warm months for winter use would be great but as always cost will matter.
Yeah, just think of the possibilities up north where the sun shines for 18 to 20 hours in the summer, but, just a few in the winter...
I wonder if you could bury large tanks (like water cisterns) below the basement of the home. Gather your heat during the warm months, use it during the winter months.
Jesus. Plant a tree, burn said tree for heat in a wood stove or steam burner
@@car0lm1k3 I live in Canada it takes about 5 cord of firewood a year for a smallish house. Then there is splitting, stacking, keeping it going day and night, cleaning ash. … not as romantic as it sounds
Matt. Totally off topic, but, I have to say one of the strengths to your channel that I appreciate the most, is your ability to allow people to disagree with you, without you taking it personal, or turning it into some sort of battle of insults. You have impressed me over the years, with your responses to various commentors who disagreed with you.
7:36 - Whenever I hear that something mechanical is controlled by machine learning and AI, I'm skeptical of it. That's entirely marketing speak. Why is there a need to adjust things 30 times a second? The sun moves half an arcsecond in the sky in that time. What mechanical system is going to have that accuracy?
Also "While most systems usually" -> "this system is capable of" sounds like this system has not yet been optimised and so they're throwing around big numbers to make it sound impressive. The point of the current systems heating to ~500C is because that's the operating point for the working fluid (salt). They could heat up much higher than that if they weren't cooled by the working fluid.
i don't see a reason to be skeptical when it's just obviously overhyped marketspeak bullshet carefully crafted to attract investors.
@@Alexander_Sannikov Thanks, I needed a laugh.
I like it! It sounds like a trade-off between efficiency and convenience/affordability. The fluid doesn't capture a large amount of solar energy, but the energy it does capture is rendered into a stable, portable form that can be piped around and used in countless different ways. I don't think anyone will be storing it for years when the sun will still be shining tomorrow, but there's definitely a case to be made for storing sunlight in the summer and using it in the winter.
I’m quite convinced we all need to capture as much of solar heat we can get and store it in materials that can stand the heat. Only non toxic materials should be used for underground storage where leaks may occur. Earth is a good keeper of heat which can free this energy during winter. Low temperature but mass heating (like floors) during winter is best for small energy losses. You don’t need 18 years of storage. And of course insulation counts.
I have been storing the sun’s power in the trees in my backyard…every once in a while one needs cutting, and I burn the wood to make fire, which makes my family room toasty warm in the middle of a cold snowy winter night. I then reflect how great the sun and trees are to give me such warmth when I need it.
They had some CSP plants in the Kramer Junction/Harper Lake area of California. Spent billions and they are no longer operating. Any idea why they shut them down?
My first thought on this is using it to cool the photovoltaic panels so they'll work more efficiently. Then use a combination of battery storage and this to provide power when the sun isn't shining.
MY LARGE SUV IS 100% SOLAR POWERED
It works like this: The sun (solar power) causes certain plants to grow, these plants decay naturally and turn into an “All Natural” Energy source that can be easily converted into different forms. One form, called “gasoline” is easily transported and stored until the solar energy is needed. I can drive straight through from Maine to California and recharge my solar powered SUV in less than 4 minutes by conveniently located charging stations. The solar power, (in liquid form) is pumped into my vehicle in a couple of minutes, and I'm back on the road again. If you doubt me, ask any geologist. If there was no sun, there would be no fossil fuels.
You should try a solar powered vehicle, they’re great!
underrated comment, made me laugh lol
There was a great program called Tomorrow's World in the UK and unfortunately, they canceled it. You are doing a very good job of keeping that spirit alive with much more scientific detail.
An additional heat and storing it at no extra cost is something of a great free power makes a sensible proposition.
Thanks to the propounded !
Propounded should be changed to propounder
Just discovered your channel 4 weeks ago, have been watching all the new video's that came out, really liking it. Happy I discovered it. Also happy to see a lot of development is going on to help us deal with current world problems. Good to see that not all is a crisis here and crisis there. Really like the topic you select and the clear explanation. All the best creating all the future video's.
Glad you're enjoying them.
If you just found Matt Ferrell, you may also enjoy Joe Scott. There is actually a deep well of amazing science RUclipsrs right now.
Very cool topic! I remember thinking in college that storing excess renewable electricity in chemical bonds could be useful. My senior project in my chemical engineering undergrad was to study and present on the process of catalytic methanation, or turning CO2 and H2 into methanol, which could be burned later to recover some energy. Excess electricity is used to perform electrolysis of water, producing pure H2, and then it is reacted with CO2, preferably obtained through carbon capture technologies, over a metal catalyst. The process may not be the most efficient, but it was a useful learning opportunity and opened my eyes to possible alternatives to battery storage.
I'd be curious to know how this compares to the original chemical method for storing solar energy: photosynthesis. Years ago I read about a project that was growing algae in tubes that had CO2 bubbling through them. The CO2 came from electricity generation (ideally, a solid oxide fuel cell) that used the algae as feedstock in a semi-closed-loop system. It doesn't seem to have gone anywhere, so maybe it didn't really work? But it sounded promising at the time.
Very interesting tech! Engineered storage in molecular bonds makes a lot of sense long term. It is, after all, why traditional fuels have been so successful. It strikes me that the efficiency does not have to be terribly high if it is cheap to deploy a lot of surface area. Certainly a square meter of glaze red glass with a fluid flowing through it would be far cheaper than square meter of polycrystalline silicon.
Something to consider is using different storage methods to their particular advantages. Like you mentioned, MOST could be paired with photovoltaics to harvest some of the heat of the panels. Sure it's not the most efficient for electricity generation, but we often use our electricity to generate heat. Skipping a few conversion processes makes it inherently more efficient, and there should also be a way to qualify the ability to capture waste energy from other processes.
Wondering about encasing methane gas in two different lens type, one infrared point at solar panel...but the encased methane can trap some solar radiation to feed the panels.
Forty years ago, we manufactured solar panels that collected hot air and ducted them to a closet or attic space where the hot air heated up plastic trays full of a salt solution. The salt trays stored the heat which a circulating blower would pass air across the trays at night to heat the building. Very simple system
now that is cool and i mean that it's fantastic for thermal storage it means you can easily bunker heat for the winter on a relatively small plot of land BUT it still don't solve the real issue of making that thermal energy easily converted to electrical energy that is and has always been the main issue as most such systems are either horribly inefficient or very bulky and require very high temperatures to operate SO while this is very usefull and solves the storage aspect now we just have the HERCULEAN task of making low temperature THERMAL->ELECTRICAL efficient
low temperature differential conversion to electricity is inefficient fundamentally by thermodynamics. the higher the temp differential and lower the sink temperature, the better is the efficiency
Yup. In the video the device they used in China looked like a Seebeck effect TEG. Not very efficient.
You can't. If you want effeciency you need very high temperatures.
That Is a fundamental law of nature.
This type of storage would replace a certain amount of electrical energy currently used for heating in the winter anyway. None of these needs to be the solution for all problems. It can solve just the problem it is best at solving, and use something else for the rest.
@@rdizzy1 yeah that's what i said although with more sarcasm but this is indeed a step forward for thermal management during winter times
Nine minutes in and we finally hear about a new chemical for ... heat pads that can be recharged by leaving them outside. I'm sure IcyHot is excited. They must be targeting some really high latitudes if their home heating system had the fluid being sent back to a central plant rather than being re-energized on the houses' rooftops.
You don't want to use this highly toxic chemical as a heat pad filler…
open your mind to some possibilities. a heat differential also means the possibility of using something like a sterling engine to produce electricity. what matters is that we can store energy and release it at will, and reuse the storage medium.
My snark-o-meter went berserk at this, heh. A way to store solar energy as a liquid? Plants! Ba-dum-tss!
Love your channel! This technology looks really promising. Now I'm curious... how toxic is the solution/waste after the 18 year storage capacity has passed?
It is very clear from your videos that you enjoy discussing the details of technical developments, especially those with green credentials. You also show the same enthusiasm for the established versus the novel. However, what is missing is some comment on the inevitable slow progress from concept to a working model. Also on the possible time scale to reach commercial energy production at the megawatt level.
I also take issue with you on the viability of solar energy, particularly those installations which intensify sunlight. In order to maximise production, they are all located in dry, and therefore dusty, locations. Unfortunately dust on mirrors is bad news and frequent cleaning is essential. But these mirrors are large and quite delicate, especially the focusing mechanism. Cleaning, and maintenance, has turned out to be a much more complicated and expensive exercise than expected and enough to affect the financial viability of such schemes.
I love the idea of a single home dish style concentrated solar. Also, combining steam generator and water desalination.
Just imagine, a home with water catchment system where some is used as grey water (flushing toilets) and the rest is made potable by a solar still/ concentrated solar steam generator
The hardest part for me to imagine right now is a water catchment system providing any value... It rained 4 times this year
Nate, it's "black" water.
@@Daniel-yy3ty Maybe if you live in the Sahara, but given that the average rainfall in the US is 30 inches a year, a 1,000 sq ft water catch (your roof) can capture almost 19,000 gallons of water a year. Enough for three (and a quarter) people to shower every single day of the year
@@darkfur18 well, as I said it rained 4 times, so take that average and go play in the rain you are getting since I got 5 inches since the start of the year
plus, don't go assume that people live in the US and have a big house all for them, our roof is half of that at best and there are 5 families under it
@@Melethasgar so whats grey water? My understanding was black (wouldn't want to use in home), typically smells, grey, and potable. But am admittedly ignorant in this area
Very cool idea! And your recap added a lot of good perspective. Thanks.
So a 63 degree C temperature change is about 145 F for us Americans. Cycling that past a low speed fan would be plenty of heat for your home, and probably enough for most home water heaters. I can't wait to see this as a commercial product in a few years.
Wouldn't solar vacuum tubes be more efficient at producing heat?
BTW, this would make a great subject matter for a video, this tech is rarely mentioned.
Harvesting ? for sure. Storing ? no way.
There is no viable economic solution at the moment, that store the energy we can capture during the summer in using during the winter. Just imagine this for 18 years!
There's a company in Europe doing solar vacuum tubes. It's brilliant!
@@maurorossi8708 Not needed... Wave, hydro, and wind can easily power all the global needs as it is forever. Batteries will advance soon, he shows he here monthly as battery tech advances yearly now. The Solution Project Map details it, using good data
@@cd4683 Yeah, I am looking at them for winter next year (wood stove this year). €700-800 each panel though. I am renovating an old house and will add pipes for low temp floor heating, maybe wall heating too in some rooms, so these panels combined with an extra large tank could be perfect. Still running the maths on them, as I'd like to use these pipes for cooling too, maybe from the ice cold condensed water from the heat pump, and I'd like to use them for hot sanitary water too. When renovating, it seems that whatever you do, you need to "invent" everything. Not many people are specialized in low temp floor heating, for instance, even less use cellular glass floor insulation, etc.
Solar Trough concentrator systems use the vacuum sealed tubes. The problem isn't the collection of solar energy its the working fluids that limit the efficiency. CSP systems just arent economical and several CSP companies ended up going bankrupt.
Does the absorption of solar energy have a cooling effect? If so that may be an added beneficial effect as it could help to prevent heat from entering a building, reducing the electrical cost of cooling.
As mentioned in your video, the efficiency of the system depends critically on the max-min temperature differential. IIRC, the chemical goes through about a 60 deg C change when it encounters the catalyst, which means it is useful only for direct heat, like heating water or warming a house, not for electricity generation. The comment that it could be used to power headphones really says it all -- such applications are 0.0000001% of the energy budget. We need solutions for generation of GW levels of power, not mW levels of power.
Or we need more efficient ways to light a room.
Storing solar energy directly into a boiler is from far the MOST efficient and cheap solution. Even if it is only for warm water generation, it should be used much more as it is. The only missing element is a good brand that provide hardware that require almost no maintenance and cover all operation automaticaly (including protection in case of very low temp).
insulation is the key; the higher the temperature, the greater is the heat loss. At high temperature, loss by radiation is the largest and you will need a dewar flask that can hold at 500-700C
I don't believe so. Panels, generating electricity for a heat pump, making hot water, makes for a better solution. That's what most people are installing right now anyway. Together with low temp floor heating in a thick concrete slab you are almost optimizing it, at reasonable cost.
Whats better for using solar heat transfer, using mirror or magnifying glass?
This seems like a very promising idea, even if it only helps with heating (and not electricity in general). But so many questions remain. How much does the fluid cost? What is the energy storage density? What are the environmental risks (biodegradability, health impacts, side effects of production, corrosion of pipes, etc). I wonder how stable the fluid is. Is there potential for a fiery runaway reaction like with batteries? Would it really be cost effective to pipe or truck this stuff around, or would it need to be produced and used onsite, and thus only applicable to a niche target like food and beverage factories? I feel it could easily take another 10 years of intensive research to find a mix of chemicals to achieve reasonably wide band sunlight utilization and still meet all the other requirements. And that's if they're lucky.
One way to find out 👍
I hear the wavelength issue mentioned. Is it possible to convert a wavelength of light to another? Could that make the efficiency of overall light received greater?
This fluid solar storage could also be great for home heating systems directly, not turning the energy into electricity at all.
Congratulations on 1M Subs, for a tech channel that provides information on experimental and cutting edge of technology, 1M subs is like 20M. Thank for everything so far.
Wait…a liquid that stores energy…over long periods of time. I can’t put my finger on it, but I have heard of something like this before.
I run my truck on one which is collected by the sun. I use biodiesel produced by locally sourced food waste. All solar power, no new water or land use required, abundant and practically free.
NESTE produces billions of gallons of it, Shell, Exxon, and others are getting in the game, too.
And in doing so, we take oils and greases out of landfills which eventually become methane (the worst greenhouse gas) or leach into our waterways and kill off algae and other O2 producing biomass.
We can supplement our push to EV's with green energy fuels for existing vehicles.
But when Matt had the chance to cover it, he shit all over it, instead, failing to understand the waste stream source of biofuels and only focusing on the cost of growing food for fuel.
Shameful.
Very interesting. I am always fascinated by the developments that are made almost on a daily basis. Great video!
One minute into your video : Your solar panel do not transform "sunlight" into electron, it use the energy of the photon to create a difference in electric potential aka a voltage.
Let me explain : "Light is electricly neutral, the electron is not, you have to conserve charge".
And again 10 secondes after : Electron are not "store" in a battery, a Battery has an entropy.
Low entropy, all electron are move on the anode side, leaving a depleted positive side on the cathode. You have a potential between them, your battery is charged.
High entropy electron are on both side, both side are electricly neutral, no more potential, battery depleted. Charging a battery is moving electron inside the battery to a low entropy state with an external supply of energy. A battery is more like a spring than a can.
You don't need an IA to align mirrors at 30Hz, you just need to track the sun and do trigonometry to reoriente the mirrors. We do it for almost 50 Years. A raspberry pi could handle this.
An isolate container of pure steel to hold rocks, except steel have a very good thermal conduction propriety.
About the magic golden liquid that replace solar panel and battery, it's smell like manure.
1 - You don't mofify a molecule, you create a new ones if you change compositions or structure
2 - Molecule don't change shape with heat, they form or brake.
3 - When nitrate and silver ions receive photons above red, they combine to AgNO3. It cost you more energy to break the molecule, because this state is more stable. If your special liquide have 18 years of retention, must be very stable.
4 - It will be better, if we have a hint of what it's made of. The CGI structure look fishy chemicly speaking. Is this unicorn pee ?
5 - Molecules would be sensible to a specific frequency of light (not a range) corresponding to an electron orbital, enegy is quantize (you know quantum physic ?). By changing the electron orbit, it will be able to be share in a bond. To retrieve energy you need to break the bond.
Buzz words and as much science as in an Avengers movies. Clearly you and your "team" need to research the Dunning-Kruger effect.
We need to more posts like this, This dude been oil snaking us with these far fetched ideas
Yeah, the tower with the molten salts kinda failed in a big way....
@@dsloop3907 Have said and have nothing againt Tower with molten salts
It's a old but proven technology to store heat based on the solar hoven ( late 18 century ? ).
Wathever medium you use, you can store heat and retrieve it with a simple sterling engine. You can use oil, water, gaz, concrete, water even magic sci-fi liquid.
What's matter is the heat capacity.
Best one is water.
But you only store energy as heat and it can be more efficient than Chemical storage.
But thermodynamic won't let you keep this energy forever, even in a vacuum, energy is lost throught radiation. (see black body radiation )
Plant use sunlight energy to create sugar from CO2 and Water. Sugar store around 10-20 KJoules/g, if you fermente it ethanol give you 30 KJoules/g or feed it to an animal lipides are almost at 40kJ/g.
Water store around 4KJ/g/K.
And a battery Li 900J/g FIY.
@@vincentvoillot6365 The salt cooled and destroyed many things. I saw a video about that place on here. It would have been a great thing if it had worked. Cost more to run than it made.
@@dsloop3907 It's exactly what i said, molten salt are corrosive ( it's destroy "thing" ), salt are generaly high Ph, like caustic soda .
Oils are chemicly neutral but have a lower heat capacity.
Water can stay liquid at high temperature and high pressure, but it's highly corrosive in this state. This is why it's feed into a turbine and not store in a pressurize container.
But still, if you want to collect solar energy with basic mirrors , molten salt in a limestone structure, will do the job. It will not be efficient, but it will be cheap, better in a place with low humidity.
You can find it where it make sense, like in hot desert, solar panel don't handle heat very well.
how well does molecular bonding work in January at -20C?
"Converting sunlight into electrons" Shame.
Thanks. Love innovation and those of you who are willing to share it. The best to you always innovators
I wish you would include some criticisms and or doubts in your video.
Something I usually don't see addressed is the land displacement of these projects. The Gemini Project in Nevada when completed is supposed to occupy 7100 acres and will produce 690 megawatts. In contrast, the modest sized Chehalis, WA natural gas power plant produces approximately the same amount of power on 30 acres. A larger 850 MW solar plant in another area of Nevada has already been shot down by local opposition. It seems much easier to locate a 30 acre power plant closer to population centers that could operate 24/7 regardless of weather than a multiple square mile facility that requires virtually perfect weather for optimum efficiency.
The whole renewable energy industry is a scam. Newer rich people wanted to take a cut from older established rich people who made tons on money using coal and gas. So they funded Greenpeace to bring in renewables and got some market share. It is far better to make coal and gas more efficient and hopefully the government will have to release the Tesla free energy one day as pollution gets out of control. Free seems illogical but it is just like hydro, it is free, it just converts gravitational energy into electricity. There is e-m and gravitational energy everywhere around us.
MOST is very interesting but I’d like to examine its environmental impact.
This is very well presented and enlarges my view of Solar Energy development. Thanks!
so, like gasoline?
This is awesome. Being able to store it in a liquid form would make it viable to transfer energy cheaper where and when needed at a reasonable cost.
There is little to no advantage to long-distance heating, since you still have to insulate all the tubing in the cycle presented by Chalmars University. A spill of that chemical into the environment would be very bad for the environment, probably also poisonous for living organisms. Btw, that 18yrs shelf life of the energized molecule only applies when the substance is 100% free of contaminants.
If you want to store energy for a long time, Hydrogen, alcohols, fats, sugars or batteries are still your best bet - on geological timescales, it's the formation of crude oil. Also "the liquid's temperature rises by 63°C" is useless information, since it only applies to an exact, unstated quantity. There is a reason why reaction enthalpies are stated in kJ/mol, kJ/kg or kJ/l.
You and your writing team lack the fundamental knowledge required for doing proper science communication. All you do is spreading unfounded hype and promoting unsustainable ideas, which directly results in more poorly informed people turning into science deniers due to most of these "breakthroughs/ideas/whatever" never getting realized on a large scale.
The 63 degree is useful information because the energy released is proportional to the mass of the liquid. Assuming the specific heat of the fluid is also fixed, the 63 degree increase in temperature will be a constant regardless of the quantity of fluid.
Congrats on the million subscribers Matt!
At 13:10 you mentioned domestic heat with PV....can this molecule then cool solar panels on hot days?
Super interesting. Kind of like an industrial version of the reusable heat pads but it can still flow. Crazy that they thought to take advantage of the molecular structure change.
Reminds me of reading many science journals in z library of all these new promising ideas that stayed in the library. Need fully comprehensive data including long term testing, cost analysis, real world efficiency studies Etc.
I'm so happy to know we have these brilliant and various innovations on clean energy. Most of us only know of the basic ones so knowing that they have been innovating hard so we have a chance at reaching a sustainable future.
2:26 Weren't these in Gattaca?
Congratz with 1 million subs - great channel
MOST is a tool in the toolbox. Hot Rocks seems more advanced and scalable in the nearer term. Great video. Thanks Matt!
How do they protect all those mirrors, in the desert, from dust and sand storms? Do they have to keep changing them out everytime theyre sand blasted to the point they dont reflect anything anymore? Just curious.
Just found your channel. Very much enjoy your attention to detail. Looking forward to more videos. Thank you.
Awesome production as always thanks so very much
Into Solar Su
MOST interesting! I’d like to learn more about their molecular gymnastics, and whether they would consider working with kinetic architecture modeling groups, etc?
They mentioned adding a catalyst, but how is that catalyst then removed? Is the catalyst reusable, or does that become a potential pollutant?
Wonderful Video. Thank you Matt.
What is the stored energy by weight compared to 'hot hands' hand warmers?
Looks very nice, just make a big shallow pool and let it circulate. Its basically a form of photosynthesis. Brilliant.
Could a sterling engine do double duty a be used to compress air?
How does this compare to Hydrogen for energy storage?
Also if this is used to move energy internationally etc won’t some areas be drenched with spent liquid that they would have to spend energy shipping back to re fill?
Like hydrogen u can just turn to water and drink, irrigate or clean with let a lot throw down the drain.
Hi Matt I have a question. While riding My motorcycle in the desert last summer I came upon a CSP tower. My question is with all those mirrors pointed at the tower aren't a lot of birds getting killed or do they start feeling the heat before it gets to hot and turn away? If it's killing birds what's an acceptable kill rate, and do they have mitigation devices? I've been pondering those question since last year. Thought maybe you might have some insight into that.
Efficiency seems low now. What is the payback for producing this “super” liquid versus energy it stores? Thanks for the video.
all those vids are nice. some of them are pure dope.. keep up mate!!!
This gives the saying "A bottle of sunshine" a new meaning.
Great point on using to augment existing efficiencies. Looks neat
Shouldnt they use PEV and create laser diode with exact expected wavelenght to boost eficiency?
Love your videos. Very informative. With this particular video discussion liquid energy storage, I couldn't believe you didn't make reference to 1980's Transformers and "Energon Cubes"!! LoL. (You are younger than I am, so perhaps a pop-culture reference before your time? LoL).
Looking forward to hearing about your future endeavors.
Great episode (as always), thanks!
Please roam around thermochemical heat storage and tell me how I could keep summer heat for my home winter consumption.
I am really glad that the molecular storage of solar energy is a thing now, I've been trying to figure out if it would have been effective for over 10 years and now it's already in testing phase.
This is amazing! I can't wait till this goes full scale. This can save the planet!
But wait while sitting or else you going to get tired
Would it be possible to use alcohol as the steam for turning turbines since it has a much lower evaporation temperature
Could the byproduct brine salt from desalinization, be used in one of molten salt processes?
Neat! The MOST sounds wonderful.
Great work Matt!
Another thermochemical energy storage solution are salt hydrates. You add the heat to dehydrate them, where they can be stored stabily for long periods, then add water back where it generated heat exothermically.
The big hangup is that to do it efficiently you need really high temperatures, but that computer learning driven CSP might work.
At 3:46 the first picture is not a Solar dish. It is the radio telescope system from ASTRON in the Netherlands. It is near Hooghalen or better known Westerbork. When you search for 'Melkwegpad Hooghalen' (Milkyway-explore Hooghalen), you find the pictures of these dishes.
@+①⑨④⑨⑦③⑨⑤④④⓪Whatsapp Did you find the location? Look more information at nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerbork_Synthese_Radio_Telescoop (for the best information, read in Duch Google translate) or for English en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerbork_Synthesis_Radio_Telescope .
As always, a very informative video. Thanks!
The dish collector facility here in AZ shut down years ago. I'd imagine if it worked well it would still be up and running.
Very Interesting indeed, this should stimulate university research for identifying other molecules as well. Good story, keep finding these diamonds in the rough.
As solar power has its peak during daylight(when people are consuming more power), is it really that necessary to store solar power? I would think that renewables such as wind power, where the peak is not matched by the demand, would be more relevant in what concerns energy storage.
How about those pads that you can put in boiling water. And then crack a little coin like crystal thingy. Which creates hot ice. Is that a similar system? Thanks for the videos!
How does the efficiency compare to a solar panel storing the energy in a battery? Very few losses in that storage so if the theoretical max efficiency is much lower than that of a solar panel PLUS storage in a battery then it would have to be very cheap to be worthwhile and only for niche applications where youd prefer heat to straight electricity
I live this channel! Thanks Matt!!!
curious question,
Where can I get this 3D model used in the video?
pleas