Silicon, the standard semiconducting material used in a host of applications—computer central processing units (CPUs), semiconductor chips, detectors, and solar cells—is an abundant, naturally occurring material. However, it is expensive to mine and to purify.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space firm, Blue Origin, announced it has developed a method for producing solar cells and transmission wire using only lunar regolith.
Blue Origin famously filed a legal complaint against NASA after it snubbed its lunar lander design in favor of awarding SpaceX a contract for a modified Starship lander.
Whether or not Blue Origin puts a lander on the Moon, it might play a key role in sustaining lunar operations. Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company has revealed that it can produce solar cells and transmission wire using simulated Moon regolith. The firm’s Blue Alchemist technique uses molten electrolysis to separate the lunar soil’s aluminum, iron and silicon from bound oxygen to extract key materials. The process can build solar cells, cover glass and aluminum wire using only sunlight and the reactor’s silicon.
This approach would not only save explorers the trouble of importing material, but would be kinder to both the Moon and Earth. There are no carbon-based emissions, no chemicals and no need for water. The resulting solar cells can operate on the Moon for over a decade despite a “harsh” environment, Blue Origin claims.
As Ars Technica explains, Blue Origin is pitching this as a solution for NASA’s Artemis program and missions to Mars. The space agency could establish bases or other long-term installations while minimizing the environmental impact. While the concept of using regolith to build outposts isn’t new, earlier efforts have largely focused on habitats rather than the power supplying those off-world facilities.
The design facilitates efficient land use and can even save water lost to evaporation.
Sunstall, a California-based company, has launched a vertical solar panel, Sunzaun, which can be used in existing fields and arable lands without sacrificing them for clean green energy. The installation is much like conventional solar systems, just that the system uses bifacial solar modules, and the entire array stands like a boundary wall in the field.
As countries look to move away from fossil fuels, the interest in solar energy has increased in recent years. Countries in Europe facing harsh winters are also finding new ways of tapping into solar energy, such as installing solar panels at high altitudes… More.
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It will produce three times more energy in winter months.
AlpinSolar, a joint venture between three Swiss companies, has successfully completed installing 5,000 solar panels on the Lake Muttsee Dam in Switzerland, Reuters.
Continue reading “Switzerland installs 5,000 solar panels on Europe’s highest dam” »
There are many ways to generate electricity—batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams, to name a few examples… and now, there’s rust.
New research conducted by scientists at Caltech and Northwestern University shows that thin films of rust—iron oxide—can generate electricity when saltwater flows over them. These films represent an entirely new way of generating electricity and could be used to develop new forms of sustainable power production.
Interactions between metal compounds and saltwater often generate electricity, but this is usually the result of a chemical reaction in which one or more compounds are converted to new compounds. Reactions like these are what is at work inside batteries.
A solar distillation device can purify brine from reverse osmosis plants with over 10 percent salinity, as well as water taken directly from the Red Sea. The technology offers double the freshwater production rate of existing salt-rejection solar stills.
Inspired by the floating solar still in “The Life of Pi” movie, KAUST professor Qiaoqiang Gan has developed several nanomaterials and thermal isolation processes to enhance the evaporation of brackish water into pure steam. In 2016 he launched a startup, Sunny Clean Water, that produces low-cost inflatable stills capable of generating 10–20 liters of fresh water per day.
A new solar cell breakthrough, an energy vault comes to Northern California, and Bill Gates talks about the U.S. bringing the grid into the 21st century.
UCLA invents enhanced perovskite solar cells, PG&E partners with Energy Vault on a storage project, and Bill Gates talks about power lines.
After solar power, it’s time we tried snow power.
Researchers from the Japanese city of Aomori have begun to study methods to create electricity from snow to provide a sustainable energy supply and meet any power shortages.
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Future smartphones, sensors, solar panels and wind turbines will contain electronics in which graphullerene is present.
