Posted on 05/17/2024 1:22:17 AM PDT by Jonty30
Swiss researchers have developed a solar energy method using synthetic quartz to achieve temperatures above 1,000°C for industrial processes, potentially replacing fossil fuels in the production of materials like steel and cement.
Instead of burning fossil fuels to reach the temperatures needed to smelt steel and cook cement, scientists in Switzerland want to use heat from the sun. The proof-of-concept study uses synthetic quartz to trap solar energy at temperatures over 1,000°C (1,832°F), demonstrating the method’s potential role in providing clean energy for carbon-intensive industries. A paper on the research was published on May 15 in the journal Device.
The Need for Decarbonization
“To tackle climate change, we need to decarbonize energy in general,” says corresponding author Emiliano Casati of ETH Zurich, Switzerland. “People tend to only think about electricity as energy, but in fact, about half of the energy is used in the form of heat.”
Glass, steel, cement, and ceramics are at the very heart of modern civilization, essential for building everything from car engines to skyscrapers. However, manufacturing these materials demands temperatures over 1,000°C and relies heavily on burning fossil fuels for heat. These industries account for about 25% of global energy consumption. Researchers have explored a clean-energy alternative using solar receivers, which concentrate and build heat with thousands of sun-tracking mirrors. However, this technology has difficulties transferring solar energy efficiently above 1,000°C.
(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...
No such thing as a fossil fuel, but we have plenty of petroleum.
I prefer the term hydrocarbons myself.
Hard to mine iron and coal using solar too. Oh wait, we don’t like mining nor miners any more either.
What we really need is a war-like national movement ordered by the government to creat mining, drilling, refining, power plant building, farming, and ranching. We are in deep, deep trouble and are near the end of our national suicidal movement. Our cities are going to become caldrons of horror when things finally shut down.
It’s true that we cannot mine with solar. However, that doesn’t mean we have to spend carbon on lower energy uses that could be powered through other means.
Should we go back to the days when our primary sources of heat were wood that we chopped ourselves?
Does that mean all smelters have to use hydrocarbons, if a means can be created to not use them at a cost efficiency that meets the price of hydrocarbons or beats it?
Some here are sounding like a native who complains about oil being used to create heat when he needs to patch his canoe.
In the meantime it’s an environmental disaster touted as clean energy which is pure BS.
I’m all for clean energy but deploy it when it works. EVs are a disaster, the mining involved destroys the environment, the cats themselves are a toxic nightmare, all the plastic is from fossil fuels and now there’s indications of health hazards driving them.
Wind power is anything but cost effective, destroys the environment, kills birds, and the blades are all toxic materials and each one requires hundreds of gallons of oil to operate on each year..lubrication.
Clean energy as it’s pushed is a disaster. That’s reality.
I agree with you on the propaganda. I simply look at things from a point of cost efficiency, both short term and long term, not about virtue signaling.
I’m for renewables where they work, not for the sake of renewables themselves.
I personally would like to see more research into using hydrogen. I’d love to have a hydrogen powered hot rod or muscle car, could make some awesome horsepower! Hah! Seriously, there is plenty of it, and it’s clean.
And, theoretically, you can fill up your car the same way you can with diesel or gas.
I’d like a hydrogen powered bicycle. I think that would be cool.
Ok. Or motorcycle. Well, for that matter toys too, and drones. Damn! Anything with an engine!
That's a pretty darn big "if". Maybe you can do it in a laboratory, but on an industrial scale? We shall see.
>>And, theoretically, you can fill up your car the same way you can with diesel or gas.
No, you cannot. H2 is not a liquid at STP (standard temperature and pressure). Diesel and gasoline are. This matters, bigly. H2 is a light, devilishly small molecule that likes to leak and likes to embrittle steel. To have enough of it to do useful things, it needs to be in a tank at fairly high pressure. This is expensive/difficult
Additionally, there isn’t much of it, at least not in the form needed for a fuel. H2 must be manufactured. What is your input energy source?
H2 is a fake bill of goods only a government regulator could love.
Of course it changes...nothing stays the same.
And I believe the earth is self balancing....More people require more food and that requires more co2
I said you can fill it up the same way, theoretically. You plug in the nozzle into your tank and squeeze.
Using some the same way is not the same as being the same.
Consider for a moment, a generator for home.
Most of us laugh at the idea of a solar generator and batteries to store power, etc. Just get me a gas powered generator.
And that’s a reasonable approach. Until three days after power goes out, and you’re running out of gas along with everyone else. Fights erupt at gas stations. This leads to thieves who prowl the neighborhoods listening for generators so they can siphon gas. And worse.
It happened. I lived thru that in North Jersey during Superstorm Sandy. I had plenty of gas but I was standing guard at night.
Solar generators are silent and thus don’t surrender your position. They can make a big difference in a less-than-friendly power outage.
Having a well-diversified portfolio of energy sources is always prudent. Being bullish on solar or even EVs doesn’t make you a nut job. It’s when the govt FORCES you to choose one or the other that things get messed up. Indeed, if “renewables” ticked up a few notches it’d lower the “dependence” on oil from such liberty-loving nations as Russia and Saudi Arabia.
What’s it take to make synthetic quartz?
The elephant in the room?
I view solar and wind as passive sources to charge electric generators. It costs nothing and, when your generator is full, turn it on and use that instead of your commercial provider.
You could possibly get a months worth of free electricity over the course of the year without it costing you anything. Over time and you’ve paid for your setup.
Working with compressed gasses is pretty different from working with liquids in my world, but you do you.
Birds will love the new roasting temperatures ...
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