(Image: University of Colorado Boulder)
Is this a peek at the future of energy? This artist鈥檚 impression shows a giant solar water-splitting array announced last week by a team from the University of Colorado Boulder.
The engineers鈥� plan uses a huge array of mirrors to focus the sun鈥檚 power like a giant magnifying glass and use it to split water into oxygen and hydrogen.
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Sunlight would be focused at a point atop a central tower that could be hundreds of metres tall, generating temperatures up to 1350聽掳C. That would heat a reactor containing metal oxides, causing them to release oxygen atoms and leaving them hungry to replace that lost oxygen. Steam 鈥� also generated by the sun鈥檚 heat 鈥� would then be pumped through the reactor. Oxygen from the water molecules bonds with the metal oxides, leaving behind precious hydrogen gas.
Some other water-splitting methods require alternating temperatures, making them less efficient. 鈥淥ne of the big innovations in our system is that there is no swing in the temperature,鈥� says , one of the project鈥檚 leaders. 鈥淭he whole process is driven by turning a steam valve either on or off.鈥�
It could be a while yet, though, before the technology and others like it get off the ground.
鈥淎re we going to see much within the next five years? No,鈥� says of Imperial College London, an expert in sustainable energy systems. 鈥淚s [a hydrogen-fuelled economy] a viable proposition? Absolutely. There are already a lot of nice ways to make hydrogen: what we need now is a way to integrate the system into our current electrical grid.鈥�
One example of such efforts to make the grid more flexible are community grids.
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