Copernican Ideas

Rather than systems based on ordinary solar photovoltaic cells, engineer Nico Hotz from Duke University suggests a new innovative alternative electricity system in which light from the sun heats a mixture of water and methanol in a network of glass tubes on your roof. The result is hydrogen that can be stored and used to power hydrogen fuel cells.

As it turns out Holtz’s new alternative electricity system is capable of achieving efficiencies of 28.5 percent during the summer months and 18.5 percent during the winter months, as compared to 5 to 15 percent for the conventional solar photovoltaic panel systems during the summer, and 2.5 to 5 percent during the winter.

Like other solar-based systems, the Holtz’s alternative electricity system starts with the collection of light from the sun. While the device may appear to be ordinary solar panels from a distance, it’s really a network of copper tubes covered with a delicate layer of aluminium and aluminum oxide and in some measure filled with catalytic nanoparticles. Finely a mixture of water and methanol flows thru the sealed vacuum tubes.

Allegedly  this alternative electricity system permits up to 95 percent of the light coming from the sun to be soaked up by the system with very little being lost as heat to the surrounding area. Essentially this means that the system is able to achieve temperatures well over 200 degrees Celsius inside the network of vacuum tubes. Once the evaporated solution achieves these higher temperatures, small amounts of a catalyst are added, and the result is a clean and efficient production of hydrogen. The ensuing hydrogen can then be instantly directed to a fuel cell to provide power to a building in the daytime, or compressed and stored in a tank to provide power later on.

The costs and efficiencies of this new alternative electricity system will vary dependent on where it is installed. A roof-mounted system that provides sufficient energy in the summer may not be adequate enough to cover all of ones needs in the winter. Furthermore a system large enough to supply alternative electricity in the winter would more than likely produce more energy than what is required in summer, thus creating a energy surplus that could possibly be sold back to the grid.