jamius.com

Researchers at MIT have found a new way to store solar energy using carbon nanotubes. It stores the sun's energy in chemical form instead of converting it to electricity or heat, it can store the energy almost indefinitely, and can release the energy after a catalyst is added to the equation. It's much denser than previous ways to store solar energy as well.

Of course this is no where near being available to consumers, but breakthroughs like this are refreshing!

Here's the original article:
http://web.mit.edu/press/2011/update-en ... orage.html

I like it, but the only thing that worries me is "releases the energy in a quick burst of heat." Sure, it can store it, but if it can't release it in a controlled, useable manner, it's useless. It's like using a capacitor as a means of storing energy for later use. Sure it can be done, but how are you going to harness it?

corrado33 wrote:I like it, but the only thing that worries me is "releases the energy in a quick burst of heat." Sure, it can store it, but if it can't release it in a controlled, useable manner, it's useless. It's like using a capacitor as a means of storing energy for later use. Sure it can be done, but how are you going to harness it?

I agree it's not very practical for a lot of uses. But it is a step forward, and heat storage up until now has been very elementary in a lot of aspects. It's nice to see a game changer on the horizon. Storing energy is important moving forward.

On another note, the guys at MIT are also printing solar cells on almost any kind of paper or fabric:
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/mit- ... -20110713/

Being able to gradually release the energy from individual cells wouldn't seem like that difficult of a concept to come up with.

sjvsworldtour wrote:Being able to gradually release the energy from individual cells wouldn't seem like that difficult of a concept to come up with.

I dunno, it seems like it's a chemical reaction with a VERY low activation energy. Once those things get going... they're hard to stop. I mean sure there are ways to do it, but it'd end up costing more.