A Solar Power Breakthrough, Courtesy of the fellow Who Invented the Super Soaker [Energy]

Lonnie Johnson did risk assessment for the Atlantis space shuttle. He helped get the B-2 stealth bomber off the ground. He gave us the Super Soaker. And now, along with his latest invention, he might just make solar power viable.

Johnson, a ” self-invented inventor,” is profiled within the November issue of the Atlantic, and while his Super Soaker revolutionized backyard shenanigans, his latest project, a singular heat engine called the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Converter or JTEC, could revolutionize the energy industry. And that’s got some important people very excited.

Today’s run-of-the-mill solar cells convert around 20% of the solar energy they gather into electricity. The most effective solar systems we’ve can do about 30%. The JTEC, which has no moving parts and produces no waste, could double that efficiency, making it competitive with coal. Paul Werbos, director of the National Science Foundation, says ” It has a darn good chance of being the easiest thing in the world.”

So how does the JTEC do what it does? an overly elegant design and the second law of themodynamics:

Simply put, the law says that temperature differences are likely to even out-working example, when a hot mug of coffee disperses its heat into the cool air of a room. As the heat levels of the mug and the room come into balance, there is a transfer of energy.

Work is usually extracted from that transfer. The commonest way of doing here’s with some variety of heat engine…

…Johnson’s latest JTEC prototype, which appears like a desktop model for a next-generation moonshine still, features two fuel-cell-like stacks, or chambers, stuffed with hydrogen gas and connected by steel tubes with round pressure gauges. Where a steam engine uses the heat generated by burning coal to create steam pressure and move mechanical elements, the JTEC uses heat (from the sun, for example) to expand hydrogen atoms in one stack. The expanding atoms, each made of a proton and an electron, split apart, and the freed electrons travel through an external circuit as electric current, charging a battery or doing some other useful work. Meanwhile the positively charged protons, also called ions, squeeze through a specially designed proton-exchange membrane (one of many JTEC elements borrowed from fuel cells) and combine with the electrons on the opposite side, reconstituting the hydrogen, that is compressed and pumped back into the hot stack. So long as heat is provided, the cycle continues indefinitely.

Johnson’s currently wading during the swamp of bullshit that surrounds the act of inventing-getting research grants, filing patents, trudging through peer review, etc.-but energy experts conversant in the JTEC agree that’s definitely something to get eager about. Read more in regards to the JTEC and the fellow who invented it at the Atlantic. [ Atlantic ]

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This post is tagged: atlantis space shuttle, b 2 stealth bomber, mechanical elements, national science foundation, temperature differences