Liquid battery could harness and store solar energy

[DarkSpider]

[quote]
[img]http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0134895c3aff970c-800wi[/img]
If solar power had a sound bite, a tagline, a motto, it would be "use it or lose it."

That's because technologies designed to harness solar energy -- for example, photovoltaics that capture photons or solar-thermal collectors that harvest heat -- are not designed to store it. The sun comes out and the electricity is generated on the spot. Any extra sunlight (and there's a lot of it) spills over the edge like too much milk in a glass, forever wasted.

But don't cry. MIT's Jeffrey Grossman and his colleagues have done some initial research that could lead to an entirely new method for capturing and storing sunlight, and it has the potential to make this renewable energy indefinitely storable and transportable.
[/quote]
[url]http://news.discovery.com/tech/liquid-battery-could-harness-and-store-solar-energy.html[/url]

Sounds like it would be expensive since it is derived from rare ruthenium.

[DesolateGrun]

Infinite batteries you say?
Interesting...

[Spidermn]

[QUOTE=DarkSpider;26415449]
Sounds like it would be expensive since it is derived from rare ruthenium.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE] But now that Grossman and his team understand the fundamental mechanism, they think they can find other, cheaper molecules that exhibit the same characteristics. [/QUOTE]

[implaying8]

Better bet a battery company will come along and buy this research, and lock it away so they can continue to make millions from alkaline batteries.

[Fatman55]

Solar batteries would be cool, no need for battery chargers anymore if this becomes widespread.

[imadaman]

Query: Why didn't you put the whole article in the OP?
Anyway, very nice.

[DarkSpider]

[QUOTE=imadaman;26422167]Query: Why didn't you put the whole article in the OP?
Anyway, very nice.[/QUOTE]

Because it would have been a giant wall of text that 90% of the thread viewers would have just skipped over. Anyone truly interested would have just clicked the source anyways.