Why This Liquid That Stores Solar Energy for Years Matters

[@UndecidedMF]

Do you think molecular bonding sounds like a promising direction? To start comparing quotes and simplify insurance-buying, check out Policygenius: policygenius.com/undecidedwithmatt Thanks to Policygenius for sponsoring this video! If you liked this, check out Exploring Solar Panel Efficiency Breakthroughs in 2022 kzbin.info/www/bejne/o2nGo52rgZ15fNU

[@CUBETechie]

It would be interesting for thermal storage

[@faica]

Hi Matt, kindly cover solar thermal cooling, it's very important.

[@brianrcVids]

Matt, look up Polar Night Energy. They're using plain old sand to store energy which can get up to 600-1000 degrees Celsius. Cheap. Simple. Effective.

[@ShawnHCorey]

One could use any source of electricity to power a laser at the exact frequency need for molecular bonding. This would raise the efficiency of the system.

[@Myrddnn]

This does seem like what the future of energy storage should look like. Not sure how this would work with portable devices but anything like a car/motorcycle or larger could easily make use of something like this.

[@daedalusdreamjournal5925]

It would be good to plan for '1 Year later' or 'several years later' videos on some of these technologies. It would show which of these technologies did or will break through.

[@sirmiles1820]

He did just like this one. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qajHqnp-q9KLrZI

[@zoulzopan]

Yes this is a great idea

[@DTinkerer]

Would whatch

[@Babarudra]

was just about to comment the same thing. More follow up videos would be good, even if occasionally there was a top 10 biggest flops of covered topics video.

[@mrm7058]

I agree, but I am not sure whether one year is enough. It can take quite a while from a successful lab experiment to economic viable mass production. Take the lithium-ion battery, for example. It was developed in the 1970s. But it took until 1991 until you could buy one. Nevertheless, updates from time to time would be nice.

[@mykeprior3436]

The problem unfortunately with these "meta stable" isomers that are high energy, is there is a substantial decay rate generally speaking. I wouldn't be surprised if that "shipped liquid" had lost at least 3/4s of it's "high energy" isomer. High energy states aren't really that metastable if they were easy to get to, versus say a redox reaction like reducing CO2 to methane, where substantial energy is involved, any oxidation/energy release would be completely insignificant. This is just an isomerization, granted a pretty good one but easy come easy go, it's not as if we have carbons being reduced here. Redox reactions generally just release more energy too, if you put it on par with Lithium I'd say head to head good ol' Lithium batteries would probably outdo this in energy density, couldn't say by how much, but guesstimate 50%. Even if the conversion is higher energy than I think, say extreme UV wavelengths, most of that energy is filtered out by our ozone layer. This would make sense to me if it's decay rate is reallllllly small. This isn't a jug of gasoline you can use years later. Similar to a nuclear isotope (or evaporation of gasoline from a lackluster container) there will be decay, and likely very very significant. Anything to stabilize it will invariably lower efficiency further by pushing the envelope of bond breaking higher. Also.... catalysts are generally not cheap, what they are using really matters here (is it Nickel mesh on carbon? is it palladium?). I always thought photo switching was a cool concept, but after a Master's on this shit, it's still too much of a gimmick for real world high energy processes. I know it seems Im shitting all over it...I kind of am....it does have some pretty neat applications, as a SWITCH...not as an energy medium. You would likely have much higher efficiencies with concentrated solar simply heating a material engineered to have ungodly heat capacity, versus a single bond based conversion of isomers. Capturing photons is best left to large conjugated bonds or metals chelated complexes with lots of happy d orbital electrons to do the jumping states.

[@randybobandy9828]

This idea needs to be shit on. It doesn't have much potential at all. Someone in the comments said the energy density is about 1/3 of lithium, and the real issue is the efficiency of 3%... That's 6-7x less than a normal PV panel! Think about the size of a whole house panel system( about 400sqft) now multiply that by 6-7x! That is absolutely not practical.. How many gallons of this liquid would you need? A few hundred or more? 2500 sqft of double pane glass outside of your house? This is just never going to go anywhere unless they somehow max out the theoretical efficiency of 16% like he said, but that's doubtful

[@sjsomething4936]

Thank you for putting the detailed scientific refutation here! I had a gut feel this process didn’t make a lot of sense but without the chemistry background to dispute it, I was left with only a question of whether it was possible to be a good storage mechanism. Truly appreciate the insight!

[@jayarmstrong]

Smart points but I'm going to assume the pros and investors involved in this project are aware of everything you mentioned *and still* see enough promise to continue R&D. Let's hope you're wrong and we get another useful tech 🤞✌️

[@GoodBalak]

Aww man, I had a feeling about it with similar reasoning, but I really wanted to believe that this could be a big thing. But you're the one with the Masters on the subject. Thanks for the heads up, bro.

[@Frendh]

@@randybobandy9828 I think you mistake energy efficiency for energy density. 3% efficiency does not necessarily mean more liquid. Just means to store 3J of energy you need 100J of solar. The video does not say if the solar receivers have been taken into account or not. But if they have not been taken into account, then a 20% efficient panel it will have to soak in 500J of solar for it to store 3J in the liquid. Please correct me where I am wrong. I am not all that good at math.

[@phizc]

You didn't specify the energy density of the MOST fluid, so I found it for you. It's 396kJ/kg, which is 110Wh/kg. Lithium ion batteries are almost 3 times that. Volumetric density is 359 kJ/L (100 Wh/L), compared to more than 730 Wh/L for Lithium ion batteries. Maximum theoretical specific density is "966 kJ kg−1 = 268 W h kg−1 (unsubstituted norbornadiene)" from the paper. I don't know if links are permitted. Anyway, they're using derivatives to increase the energy collection efficiency, and possibly stability, so you can have 3%, 18 years or 268 Wh/kg, not all at once. The idea of using this to power headphones and mobile phones is ridiculous, "both" from the energy density, the flammability, the toxicity, the heat generation, and the fact you need a TEG or a Stirling engine generator in the device. The chemistry is based on Norbornadiene-Quadricyclane photoisomerization. Norbornadiene is flammable, Quadricyclane is flammable and toxic. It might be useful as a way to extract/store energy from short wavelength sunlight (~300nm) as an addition to other technologies that doesn't perform well with those wavelengths. E.g. as a thin layer of fluid channels on top of solar cells. In that case it could probably cool the PV cells, increasing its efficiency. If it blocks too much of the useful light this would be useless of course.

[@KainYusanagi]

A thin layer backing the solar cells might be a better idea; less heat absorption, but it'd act as a cooling loop that also uses the heat generated for power. I still think this is way less interesting as a concept than kerosene generation from solar energy.

[@feuby8480]

Okay. Given your complementary informations, I think this is not going to be usefull. Honnestly, storing energy that long is not really the whole point. We only need like 1-2 years storage span (summer to winter). 3% collection is really really small, and energy density/volumetric density is awfull. Thus the only way to use it is in fixed storages, not on mobile devices. And the toxicity/flammability of the produc just make it worse. Interesting to know, but I think it's doomed to fail. Tech is interesting though, maybe with another compounds.

[@phizc]

@@KainYusanagi the MOST fluid can't be used for that. Its isomerization requires light in the 300nm to 400nm range. Those would be turned to heat in the solar cell. Well, it could be used same as water, I guess 🙂

[@KainYusanagi]

@@phizc Oh jeez, that makes it pretty useless then, since the gained efficiency in absorbing those light waves would end up being losses for the solar panel below, plus the isomer would heat up itself and thus heat up the panel, lowering its efficiency further, wouldn't it? Yeah, I'm just going to stick with solar kerosene; it removes CO2 from the air and gives a concentrated liquid fuel storage that is vastly superior for energy return, too. Combine that with better offgas capture from combustion, and we could have plants producing some of their own power from what would otherwise be their waste, in a virtuous cycle of reclamation and less pollution.

[@phizc]

@@KainYusanagi I don't know how much the "fluid solar collector" would block the cells below. I was thinking it might be possible to use the MOST fluid as a coolant. Flow cool MOST fluid (NBD) in thin channels. It cools the panel and absorb blue light, coming out the other side converted to its charged isomer (QC). You're right it's probably not going to be worth it, but that's the only hope I see for it at all.

[@Kevin_Street]

I like it! It sounds like a trade-off between efficiency and convenience/affordability. The fluid doesn't capture a large amount of solar energy, but the energy it does capture is rendered into a stable, portable form that can be piped around and used in countless different ways. I don't think anyone will be storing it for years when the sun will still be shining tomorrow, but there's definitely a case to be made for storing sunlight in the summer and using it in the winter.

[@davestagner]

This is cool because it is a new technological concept I haven’t seen before, rather than just a refinement of an existing concept. The isomer + catalyst approach is fundamentally different from producing a liquid fuel that requires later combustion (and needs careful handling from combustion dangers), or straight thermal storage. And because it’s liquid, it could theoretically be made in sunnier areas and shipped to less sunny areas, if the energy density makes shipping worthwhile.

[@wastelesslearning1245]

What excites me the the most is the solar “rechargeable” fuel is tailored to a certain spectrum meaning if you make other molecules Tailored to the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum (and they don’t react negatively to each other) you may be able to mix different spectrum fluids together to get a ton of coverage. So stacking these different tailored fluids in the same receiver may be interesting.

[@anydaynow01]

Exactly, this breakthrough alongside some breakthroughs in thermocouple electric generators would be a true storage solution.

[@itoibo4208]

could be the new oil, but reusable

[@Humbulla93]

LOHC Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers do something similar, good thing about it it uses existing petrol infrastructure

[@Commenter2001]

I have been storing the sun’s power in the trees in my backyard…every once in a while one needs cutting, and I burn the wood to make fire, which makes my family room toasty warm in the middle of a cold snowy winter night. I then reflect how great the sun and trees are to give me such warmth when I need it.

[@FlesHBoX]

Not sure if I missed it in the video, but do we know the storage density of this liquid? How much would be required in a closed loop to provide X amount of heat energy?

[@BobHannent]

I did a quick search and Wikipedia says that MOST can achieve 559kJ/kg which is about the same as LiFePo4 on a good day. Their minimum target is 300kJ/kg which is also the same as a low grade LiFePo4 cell.

[@garrettmillard525]

@@BobHannent That's pretty damn good...

[@tomaspecl1082]

When you release the energy in the fluid then it will heat up by around 60°C. That sounds way too low to me. Unless it has specific heat capacity comparable to water or higher (I doubt it) then it will be less capable than lithium ion. And I doubt it will be cheap to compensate that. But assuming that the fluid has heat capacity comparable to water (4180 J/°C/kg) and the temperature difference is 60°C then 60*4180=250800 J/kg = 70 Wh/kg and lithium batteries have between 100 and 265 Wh/kg. Then you also have to remember that the energy is in the form of heat and quite small temperature difference so if you want to convert it to electricity then it will probably have low efficiency.

[@ehombane]

@@tomaspecl1082 Actually is not low at all. the water in many central heating systems comes to less than 50C, and goes back to room temperature. now, if you add to that 60 C, you make it 80. is over what my radiator ever had. Now we have heating solar panels that works at temperatures close to water boiling point, and works even in winter in the version with vacuum tubes. but storing the hot water does not work for longer periods of time, Good for sunny days, but when is blizzard that goes for a week, you need alternatives. so that system, combined with this having capacity for about two months may be a great solution. BUUUT. something that they did not mentioned is the cost. For example these vacuum tubes are pretty expensive too. But they work many years so the cost is recovered. Those interested could build an underground insulated tank, And store heat in the summer and use it in the winter. Even half of it is lost, the other half does its job. And the technology is here. This alternative can be useful by preserving that half of energy lost in a regular insulated tank. But if this system costs more than the energy lost in traditional way, obviously, does not work. As for the possibility of transforming the stored heat in electricity... hmm. Already the efficiency of capture is low, and conversion not so good either.. that direction is a long shot. Interesting from academic point, but practicality... who know if ever.. So... my question, it will be cheap? Expensive solutions are plenty.

[@bloepje]

@@ehombane The problem with this liquid is that it needs light of a specific wavelenght. It stores the energy of that specific wavelength. If you have vacuum tubes I think going paraffin might be good. It stores heat at a temperature around 70...96 as a phase change material. You can buy it for the correct temperature. It's not the same, but it's more dense than storing hot water, and hence you can do with a smaller good insulated tank.

[@michiganengineer8621]

My first thought on this is using it to cool the photovoltaic panels so they'll work more efficiently. Then use a combination of battery storage and this to provide power when the sun isn't shining.

[@lynngreydanus-smith8816]

Cold climate heating during winter for residential. Here in Canada a large portion of our carbon release is for heating, a system like this that could harvest and store heat in the warm months for winter use would be great but as always cost will matter.

[@bigfatbaataed]

Yeah, just think of the possibilities up north where the sun shines for 18 to 20 hours in the summer, but, just a few in the winter...

[@hassleoffa]

I wonder if you could bury large tanks (like water cisterns) below the basement of the home. Gather your heat during the warm months, use it during the winter months.

[@car0lm1k3]

Jesus. Plant a tree, burn said tree for heat in a wood stove or steam burner

[@hassleoffa]

@@car0lm1k3 I live in Canada it takes about 5 cord of firewood a year for a smallish house. Then there is splitting, stacking, keeping it going day and night, cleaning ash. … not as romantic as it sounds

[@aquietwhyme]

My snark-o-meter went berserk at this, heh. A way to store solar energy as a liquid? Plants! Ba-dum-tss!

[@NS-YT1]

Hi Matt - I’ve been a loyal subscriber from almost the very beginning of your channel (you had something like 7.5 thousand subs at the time), and I’ve really enjoyed the way you present new tech and ideas in an easy to understand way, but I also love trying to catch all of the puns you sneak in throughout…..Anyway, I just happened to notice today that you reached the AMAZING 1 million subscriber threshold!!! CONGRATS! That’s a truly awesome accomplishment! As long as you keep making your great content (and clever puns), I’m sure you’re going to keep growing even faster! Keep up the great work! N.S.

[@UndecidedMF]

Appreciate that.

[@kindlin]

@@UndecidedMF Congrats on 1 millions subs! You cover a lot of interesting content on here. Someone else brought up, and I think it's a really good idea (could even be a central theme your channel, if you wanted it to), is doing some recap videos on past topics you've covered, which ones went big, which ones failed, and which ones are still progressing. I know you occasionally re-cover a topic, but a video covering a quick breakdown of various projects would be really interesting.

[@Ben-gm9lo]

Congratulations Matt. There are now well over 1 million people on this world who are directly benefiting from your efforts. Not many of us ever reach that level of global contribution and you can be rightly proud. Your product is directly encouraging us to change our ways and improve our use of the fragile planet Earth. Many, many thanks from those of us who enjoy your work.

[@UndecidedMF]

@@kindlinI really like that idea. I have been trying to revisit a topic or company when I think there’s enough “new” to share, but I need to do that more. I’ll rethink that strategy to do more revisits and updates.

[@kindlin]

@@UndecidedMF < 3 !

[@ThisRandomUsername]

7:36 - Whenever I hear that something mechanical is controlled by machine learning and AI, I'm skeptical of it. That's entirely marketing speak. Why is there a need to adjust things 30 times a second? The sun moves half an arcsecond in the sky in that time. What mechanical system is going to have that accuracy? Also "While most systems usually" -> "this system is capable of" sounds like this system has not yet been optimised and so they're throwing around big numbers to make it sound impressive. The point of the current systems heating to ~500C is because that's the operating point for the working fluid (salt). They could heat up much higher than that if they weren't cooled by the working fluid.

[@Alexander_Sannikov]

i don't see a reason to be skeptical when it's just obviously overhyped marketspeak bullshet carefully crafted to attract investors.

[@ThisRandomUsername]

@@Alexander_Sannikov Thanks, I needed a laugh.

[@nosmokingnl]

Just discovered your channel 4 weeks ago, have been watching all the new video's that came out, really liking it. Happy I discovered it. Also happy to see a lot of development is going on to help us deal with current world problems. Good to see that not all is a crisis here and crisis there. Really like the topic you select and the clear explanation. All the best creating all the future video's.

[@UndecidedMF]

Glad you're enjoying them.

[@kindlin]

If you just found Matt Ferrell, you may also enjoy Joe Scott. There is actually a deep well of amazing science KZbinrs right now.

[@MichaelJohnson-jt5cu]

Forty years ago, we manufactured solar panels that collected hot air and ducted them to a closet or attic space where the hot air heated up plastic trays full of a salt solution. The salt trays stored the heat which a circulating blower would pass air across the trays at night to heat the building. Very simple system

[@Outlandres]

Wait…a liquid that stores energy…over long periods of time. I can’t put my finger on it, but I have heard of something like this before.

[@coreyfro]

I run my truck on one which is collected by the sun. I use biodiesel produced by locally sourced food waste. All solar power, no new water or land use required, abundant and practically free. NESTE produces billions of gallons of it, Shell, Exxon, and others are getting in the game, too. And in doing so, we take oils and greases out of landfills which eventually become methane (the worst greenhouse gas) or leach into our waterways and kill off algae and other O2 producing biomass. We can supplement our push to EV's with green energy fuels for existing vehicles. But when Matt had the chance to cover it, he shit all over it, instead, failing to understand the waste stream source of biofuels and only focusing on the cost of growing food for fuel. Shameful.

[@selador11]

Matt. Totally off topic, but, I have to say one of the strengths to your channel that I appreciate the most, is your ability to allow people to disagree with you, without you taking it personal, or turning it into some sort of battle of insults. You have impressed me over the years, with your responses to various commentors who disagreed with you.

[@vincentvoillot6365]

One minute into your video : Your solar panel do not transform "sunlight" into electron, it use the energy of the photon to create a difference in electric potential aka a voltage. Let me explain : "Light is electricly neutral, the electron is not, you have to conserve charge". And again 10 secondes after : Electron are not "store" in a battery, a Battery has an entropy. Low entropy, all electron are move on the anode side, leaving a depleted positive side on the cathode. You have a potential between them, your battery is charged. High entropy electron are on both side, both side are electricly neutral, no more potential, battery depleted. Charging a battery is moving electron inside the battery to a low entropy state with an external supply of energy. A battery is more like a spring than a can. You don't need an IA to align mirrors at 30Hz, you just need to track the sun and do trigonometry to reoriente the mirrors. We do it for almost 50 Years. A raspberry pi could handle this. An isolate container of pure steel to hold rocks, except steel have a very good thermal conduction propriety. About the magic golden liquid that replace solar panel and battery, it's smell like manure. 1 - You don't mofify a molecule, you create a new ones if you change compositions or structure 2 - Molecule don't change shape with heat, they form or brake. 3 - When nitrate and silver ions receive photons above red, they combine to AgNO3. It cost you more energy to break the molecule, because this state is more stable. If your special liquide have 18 years of retention, must be very stable. 4 - It will be better, if we have a hint of what it's made of. The CGI structure look fishy chemicly speaking. Is this unicorn pee ? 5 - Molecules would be sensible to a specific frequency of light (not a range) corresponding to an electron orbital, enegy is quantize (you know quantum physic ?). By changing the electron orbit, it will be able to be share in a bond. To retrieve energy you need to break the bond. Buzz words and as much science as in an Avengers movies. Clearly you and your "team" need to research the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[@CodenTerse]

We need to more posts like this, This dude been oil snaking us with these far fetched ideas

[@dsloop3907]

Yeah, the tower with the molten salts kinda failed in a big way....

[@vincentvoillot6365]

@@dsloop3907 Have said and have nothing againt Tower with molten salts It's a old but proven technology to store heat based on the solar hoven ( late 18 century ? ). Wathever medium you use, you can store heat and retrieve it with a simple sterling engine. You can use oil, water, gaz, concrete, water even magic sci-fi liquid. What's matter is the heat capacity. Best one is water. But you only store energy as heat and it can be more efficient than Chemical storage. But thermodynamic won't let you keep this energy forever, even in a vacuum, energy is lost throught radiation. (see black body radiation ) Plant use sunlight energy to create sugar from CO2 and Water. Sugar store around 10-20 KJoules/g, if you fermente it ethanol give you 30 KJoules/g or feed it to an animal lipides are almost at 40kJ/g. Water store around 4KJ/g/K. And a battery Li 900J/g FIY.

[@dsloop3907]

@@vincentvoillot6365 The salt cooled and destroyed many things. I saw a video about that place on here. It would have been a great thing if it had worked. Cost more to run than it made.

[@vincentvoillot6365]

@@dsloop3907 It's exactly what i said, molten salt are corrosive ( it's destroy "thing" ), salt are generaly high Ph, like caustic soda . Oils are chemicly neutral but have a lower heat capacity. Water can stay liquid at high temperature and high pressure, but it's highly corrosive in this state. This is why it's feed into a turbine and not store in a pressurize container. But still, if you want to collect solar energy with basic mirrors , molten salt in a limestone structure, will do the job. It will not be efficient, but it will be cheap, better in a place with low humidity. You can find it where it make sense, like in hot desert, solar panel don't handle heat very well.

[@MrIamnoone]

Something I usually don't see addressed is the land displacement of these projects. The Gemini Project in Nevada when completed is supposed to occupy 7100 acres and will produce 690 megawatts. In contrast, the modest sized Chehalis, WA natural gas power plant produces approximately the same amount of power on 30 acres. A larger 850 MW solar plant in another area of Nevada has already been shot down by local opposition. It seems much easier to locate a 30 acre power plant closer to population centers that could operate 24/7 regardless of weather than a multiple square mile facility that requires virtually perfect weather for optimum efficiency.

[@prashobh216]

The whole renewable energy industry is a scam. Newer rich people wanted to take a cut from older established rich people who made tons on money using coal and gas. So they funded Greenpeace to bring in renewables and got some market share. It is far better to make coal and gas more efficient and hopefully the government will have to release the Tesla free energy one day as pollution gets out of control. Free seems illogical but it is just like hydro, it is free, it just converts gravitational energy into electricity. There is e-m and gravitational energy everywhere around us.

[@thesupremekai1980s]

There was a great program called Tomorrow's World in the UK and unfortunately, they canceled it. You are doing a very good job of keeping that spirit alive with much more scientific detail.

[@munisakya4883]

An additional heat and storing it at no extra cost is something of a great free power makes a sensible proposition. Thanks to the propounded !

[@munisakya4883]

Propounded should be changed to propounder

[@mpoisot]

This seems like a very promising idea, even if it only helps with heating (and not electricity in general). But so many questions remain. How much does the fluid cost? What is the energy storage density? What are the environmental risks (biodegradability, health impacts, side effects of production, corrosion of pipes, etc). I wonder how stable the fluid is. Is there potential for a fiery runaway reaction like with batteries? Would it really be cost effective to pipe or truck this stuff around, or would it need to be produced and used onsite, and thus only applicable to a niche target like food and beverage factories? I feel it could easily take another 10 years of intensive research to find a mix of chemicals to achieve reasonably wide band sunlight utilization and still meet all the other requirements. And that's if they're lucky.

[@jayarmstrong]

One way to find out 👍

[@thetatek6634]

I worked on a chemical bond solar energy system while in graduate school back in the 1970s. Iceland was interested in it at the time because they were trying to find a way to export energy produced by their geothermal plants. Chemical system was Norbornadiene/Quadricyclane. The idea was to use UV lights and a photo-initiator to generate quadricyclane from norbornadiene and use silver to catalyze the decomposition of quadricyclane back to norbornadiene. Heat was produced by the exothermal process. Project ended because like any other chemical reaction a small amount of impurities are produced with each cycle. It does not take many cycles to cause the system to become inefficient. That was some 40 plus years ago. May be they have come up with better materials and processes. Personally, I would in vest in other alternatives.

[@TheFacelesssoul]

"Converting sunlight into electrons" Shame.

[@ryanreviews8566]

I'm so happy to know we have these brilliant and various innovations on clean energy. Most of us only know of the basic ones so knowing that they have been innovating hard so we have a chance at reaching a sustainable future.

[@Chimel31]

Wouldn't solar vacuum tubes be more efficient at producing heat? BTW, this would make a great subject matter for a video, this tech is rarely mentioned.

[@maurorossi8708]

Harvesting ? for sure. Storing ? no way. There is no viable economic solution at the moment, that store the energy we can capture during the summer in using during the winter. Just imagine this for 18 years!

[@cd4683]

There's a company in Europe doing solar vacuum tubes. It's brilliant!

[@dertythegrower]

@@maurorossi8708 Not needed... Wave, hydro, and wind can easily power all the global needs as it is forever. Batteries will advance soon, he shows he here monthly as battery tech advances yearly now. The Solution Project Map details it, using good data

[@Chimel31]

@@cd4683 Yeah, I am looking at them for winter next year (wood stove this year). €700-800 each panel though. I am renovating an old house and will add pipes for low temp floor heating, maybe wall heating too in some rooms, so these panels combined with an extra large tank could be perfect. Still running the maths on them, as I'd like to use these pipes for cooling too, maybe from the ice cold condensed water from the heat pump, and I'd like to use them for hot sanitary water too. When renovating, it seems that whatever you do, you need to "invent" everything. Not many people are specialized in low temp floor heating, for instance, even less use cellular glass floor insulation, etc.

[@guytech7310]

Solar Trough concentrator systems use the vacuum sealed tubes. The problem isn't the collection of solar energy its the working fluids that limit the efficiency. CSP systems just arent economical and several CSP companies ended up going bankrupt.

[@josephsebastian8499]

The joyous aspect of this video is the realization of same concept in the Movie Treasure Planet Disney made in 2002, coming to near reality in 2022.

[@connecticutaggie]

I wonder if this could also be an alternative for long distance transmission via existing or converted pipelines. Wired power transmission typically has a 5% loss. How efficient would be the conversion be if you used a laser diode tuned to the best absorption frequency?

[@Brrrap743]

This is awesome. Being able to store it in a liquid form would make it viable to transfer energy cheaper where and when needed at a reasonable cost.

[@nateb4543]

I love the idea of a single home dish style concentrated solar. Also, combining steam generator and water desalination. Just imagine, a home with water catchment system where some is used as grey water (flushing toilets) and the rest is made potable by a solar still/ concentrated solar steam generator

[@Daniel-yy3ty]

The hardest part for me to imagine right now is a water catchment system providing any value... It rained 4 times this year

[@Melethasgar]

Nate, it's "black" water.

[@darkfur18]

@@Daniel-yy3ty Maybe if you live in the Sahara, but given that the average rainfall in the US is 30 inches a year, a 1,000 sq ft water catch (your roof) can capture almost 19,000 gallons of water a year. Enough for three (and a quarter) people to shower every single day of the year

[@Daniel-yy3ty]

@@darkfur18 well, as I said it rained 4 times, so take that average and go play in the rain you are getting since I got 5 inches since the start of the year plus, don't go assume that people live in the US and have a big house all for them, our roof is half of that at best and there are 5 families under it

[@nateb4543]

@@Melethasgar so whats grey water? My understanding was black (wouldn't want to use in home), typically smells, grey, and potable. But am admittedly ignorant in this area

[@Albtraum_TDDC]

No rare materials needed like Solar Panels. Longer lifetime, cheaper to install and maintain. CNIM CSP Fresnel technology: an efficient and environmentally friendly solution 1. Patented mirror support design for an easy local construction 2. Standard dimensions, easily available mirrors with easy handling 3. Boiler type receiver tube. Easy handling and maintenance 4. No heavy civil works, no concrete. Easy rehabilitation after dismantling 5. Common motorization with low electrical consumption 6. Standard steel structure with easy adjustment

[@jordanlarson6488]

This fluid solar storage could also be great for home heating systems directly, not turning the energy into electricity at all.

[@ThePhysics1234]

Looks very nice, just make a big shallow pool and let it circulate. Its basically a form of photosynthesis. Brilliant.

[@fudgesauce]

As mentioned in your video, the efficiency of the system depends critically on the max-min temperature differential. IIRC, the chemical goes through about a 60 deg C change when it encounters the catalyst, which means it is useful only for direct heat, like heating water or warming a house, not for electricity generation. The comment that it could be used to power headphones really says it all -- such applications are 0.0000001% of the energy budget. We need solutions for generation of GW levels of power, not mW levels of power.

[@trowawayacc]

Or we need more efficient ways to light a room.

[@KulibinX]

Not sure about details, but it could be ingenious solution for the car. Basically, you come to filling station, drain "discharged" liquid and refill will charged. Awesome 👍 isn't it?

[@dylanbrown5414]

What we need in Northern Europe is seasonal heat storage. We need to harvest solar energy as heat in summer to use to warm our homes in winter. Heating is the largest part of the domestic carbon footprint, currently powered by gas.

[@amzarnacht6710]

Probably the best application of this storage chemical would be for transport to a location where it's power is needed. So you set up huge collectors in a desert area to collect solar energy, capture it in the liquid, then pump or truck the liquid to a location far closer to where it's needed - such as a power generation plant. Rather than loosing efficiency along hundreds of kilometers of low efficiency transmission lines you just need to pay for the transportation method. Take Australia, for example. You set up hundreds of these collection facilities across the outback with pipelines to a port where the liquid can be loaded on ships and transported all over the globe.

[@rzquasar]

MOST is very interesting but I’d like to examine its environmental impact.

[@QESPINCETI]

High Efficiency Insulation is a Better method. To keep warm or cooler.

[@markpukey8]

Very cool idea! And your recap added a lot of good perspective. Thanks. So a 63 degree C temperature change is about 145 F for us Americans. Cycling that past a low speed fan would be plenty of heat for your home, and probably enough for most home water heaters. I can't wait to see this as a commercial product in a few years.

[@iglapsu88]

MOST is a tool in the toolbox. Hot Rocks seems more advanced and scalable in the nearer term. Great video. Thanks Matt!

[@kdm1234gmail]

even working with the heat. This could be quite helpful here in the winter. Store up excess energy in small amounts through the summer to have a tank of stored energy that could slowly be used in the cold months to increase home temps and reduce heating costs would be amazing.

[@larrybolhuis1049]

At least one large solar thermal system here in the U.S. has been abandoned because the cost to RUN it is higher than installing and utilizing PV panels! When it was 'sold' to investors to build it, PV was vastly more expensive, today that plant would never even be considered. While storage for ANY solar power system is absolutely key, the ability to save for longer durations rapidly becomes less important. Consider your home with PV solar and you have sun every day (e.g. Florida USA) then you really only care about 12 hours of storage as you only need to get to 'tomorrow.' In Michigan USA, however, you may need several days of storage. But the longer the energy is stored, the lower the chance and frequency that you will use it and thus lowers the return on investment for that storage.

[@freemanjackmsiradio]

"This Liquid That Stores Solar Energy for Years" No, no wait, hold on let me guess.......... Is it PETROL?

[@jhoughjr1]

so, like gasoline?

[@domalash]

I wonder if we could build kinetic batteries using massive round ice blocks at the north and south poles and run high voltage lines to them. Or generate that liquid and pipe it to us. All we need is a metal base with wheels on a metal track and motors/generators to store and retrieve energy. We could just keep pouring water on the base to build up the blocks. Maybe each ice block could be a thousand feet wide and a hundred feet tall. They could rotate relatively slowly and still store tons of energy. And we could have thousands or maybe millions of them. Or do it desert areas and use excess energy to melt sand into glass blocks so only a minimal frame is needed to connect them. Or maybe use the glass as the frame and large sand containers.

[@flyingmonkey3822]

I’m hoping someone will make a liquid that freezes near 55F so that air conditioning can store up cooling at night where heat rejection is more efficient and the system overall can be smaller and more efficient.

[@Alexander_Sannikov]

"storing solar energy in chemical bonds" is literally what green plants do. if you grow a plant in a greenhouse, you store the solar energy in the plant, when you burn the plant, you release it.

[@barriewright2857]

Anything and everything to do with solar energy too me is good, this new technology is another good example. In the long-term humanity will benefit from all of these innovation in solar energy production .

[@Psychx_]

There is little to no advantage to long-distance heating, since you still have to insulate all the tubing in the cycle presented by Chalmars University. A spill of that chemical into the environment would be very bad for the environment, probably also poisonous for living organisms. Btw, that 18yrs shelf life of the energized molecule only applies when the substance is 100% free of contaminants. If you want to store energy for a long time, Hydrogen, alcohols, fats, sugars or batteries are still your best bet - on geological timescales, it's the formation of crude oil. Also "the liquid's temperature rises by 63°C" is useless information, since it only applies to an exact, unstated quantity. There is a reason why reaction enthalpies are stated in kJ/mol, kJ/kg or kJ/l. You and your writing team lack the fundamental knowledge required for doing proper science communication. All you do is spreading unfounded hype and promoting unsustainable ideas, which directly results in more poorly informed people turning into science deniers due to most of these "breakthroughs/ideas/whatever" never getting realized on a large scale.

[@natedagrate227]

The 63 degree is useful information because the energy released is proportional to the mass of the liquid. Assuming the specific heat of the fluid is also fixed, the 63 degree increase in temperature will be a constant regardless of the quantity of fluid.

[@primozstanonik]

Humanity has so much potencial. I have big hopes in fusion reactors, hidrogen cells and with this combination would be a great leap in progress.

[@boltonky]

Energy storage is always complex, i have meet a few people you use water reservoirs and a mix of turbine and pumps electric + ram for there storage from solar instead of batteries it was interesting seeing the different designs and how they worked... Efficient maybe not but it worked for what they needed

[@Kallago]

Congratz with 1 million subs - great channel

[@jer3870]

There is a deep water fish that can create light on it's own. Maybe after some research this technique can be part of energy storage created by solar, wind ect something to do with certain type of bacteria.

[@jeremycrisp4488]

The dish collector facility here in AZ shut down years ago. I'd imagine if it worked well it would still be up and running.

[@finchisneat]

Title should be "Why This Liquid That Stores Solar Energy for Years Matters: If it can surpass 3% efficiency" Pretty big IF

[@Brurgh]

using this liquid as part of a solar panel cooling system would be very interesting!

[@shaun4950]

This is what the future looks like. This is it . This is amazing unbelievable 👏

[@bobbygetsbanned6049]

Converting light into heat instead of electricity, (since it's not hot enough to boil water) is a great idea. That way in all the cold, low sun, snowy, environments where you need heat you won't get it, and in the dessert where you don't need heat it will be plentiful.

[@davidc1961utube]

The ability to store energy for longer time periods would work well in sunny northern locations, such as Alberta. Layering over existing solar installations and then transporting the high energy state fluid to cities would allow 16 hours of summer sunshine to heat homes during 16 hours of dark in January. Cool!

[@davidc1961utube]

@@rogerstarkey5390 Southern AB has way more sunshine hours than Edmonton, and more room for large scale solar farms.

[@davidc1961utube]

@@rogerstarkey5390 Depends on what is cheaper.

[@hernandosegura4078]

I like it very much, thank you.

[@jamesgarlick4573]

The problem with solar and wind energy power stations is that it's not energy dense enough to justify the amount of waste it produces and the amount of land it needs to make an impact. Solar and wind works best on a decentralized scale of individual homes and businesses powering themselves with some extra for the grid on good days. We need to start thinking about optimization of existing technologies and implementing them where they are able to maximize usage while minimizing the land footprint.

[@chewmonkey89]

At 3:46 the first picture is not a Solar dish. It is the radio telescope system from ASTRON in the Netherlands. It is near Hooghalen or better known Westerbork. When you search for 'Melkwegpad Hooghalen' (Milkyway-explore Hooghalen), you find the pictures of these dishes.

[@chewmonkey89]

@+①⑨④⑨⑦③⑨⑤④④⓪Whatsapp Did you find the location? Look more information at nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerbork_Synthese_Radio_Telescoop (for the best information, read in Duch Google translate) or for English en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerbork_Synthesis_Radio_Telescope .

[@grindupBaker]

For the melting rocks one you get the latent heat, which can be a significant portion of the energy and there's no temperature increase at the fuse-solidify temperature so no extra energy loss through the insulation for that large extra energy. Find silicon statistics just as an example. Melts circa 1,400C & he say they propose 1,500C for the heater. Silicon looks to have fusion latent heat equivalent to a high number of degrees of warming but check it yourself because I just skimmed data for a few seconds. My point is latent heat, the extra energy stored when you fuse rather than just heating.

[@CNCmachiningisfun]

This sure does beat my idea of storing sunlight in hessian sacks - during the day, for use at night :) .

[@jasonisbored6679]

It seems like one of the most promising used for MOST I could think of is as a survival item - you can store it away in your pack for years and it'll be able to warm you up at night. Basically, a reusable hand warmer that doesn't require boiling it or any other difficult labor to reset.

[@gregorybergere]

It is very clear from your videos that you enjoy discussing the details of technical developments, especially those with green credentials. You also show the same enthusiasm for the established versus the novel. However, what is missing is some comment on the inevitable slow progress from concept to a working model. Also on the possible time scale to reach commercial energy production at the megawatt level. I also take issue with you on the viability of solar energy, particularly those installations which intensify sunlight. In order to maximise production, they are all located in dry, and therefore dusty, locations. Unfortunately dust on mirrors is bad news and frequent cleaning is essential. But these mirrors are large and quite delicate, especially the focusing mechanism. Cleaning, and maintenance, has turned out to be a much more complicated and expensive exercise than expected and enough to affect the financial viability of such schemes.

[@dzcav3]

I've heard of other fluids that store solar energy to release heat later. It all starts with an amazing chemical reaction called photosynthesis. Then you can process the plants to produce alcohol or biodiesel. Or you can compress the bio-matter to produce petroleum, which can then be processed into diesel and gasoline. And this petroleum can be stored for THOUSANDS of years! Is it too late to file for a patent on this amazing process? I've been running my cars on gasoline for many years. They can travel long distances between refueling and can be refueled in just a few minutes. Amazing!

[@wisenber]

In April 2014, the USFWS reported that 141 dead birds, including peregrine falcon, barn owl and yellow-rumped warbler had been collected at Ivanpah in October 2013. Forty-seven of the birds' deaths were attributed to solar flux. In April 2015 The Wall Street Journal reported that "biologists working for the state estimated that 3,500 birds died at Ivanpah in the span of a year, many of them burned alive while flying through a part of the solar installment where air temperatures can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit [540 °C]".[76]

[@ukaszk.8305]

For the benefit of accuracy, photos are not converted into electrons, but are absorbed by electrons to boost the electrons' energy.

[@jeromemorris2700]

Neat! The MOST sounds wonderful.

[@bazzahill6182]

Sounds like a variation on eutectic mixtures. Generating hydrogen or methanol or ammonia is well understood and achieves the same end result at greater efficiency.

[@benlamprecht6414]

Thanks for yet another excellent video

[@jamesnnabeze687]

Congratulations on 1M Subs, for a tech channel that provides information on experimental and cutting edge of technology, 1M subs is like 20M. Thank for everything so far.

[@alhdlakhfdqw]

really amazing high quality videos thank you very much sir! :)

[@roberthicks1612]

Imagine if we had a plant in the desert where no one lives. It would absorb much of the sun's energy, making the ground below cooler, allowing workers to live their comfortably. Then you could ship it to distance cities where it is needed and they ship it back in the unenergized form.

[@dfamilymanbrown9883]

Love your videos. Very informative. With this particular video discussion liquid energy storage, I couldn't believe you didn't make reference to 1980's Transformers and "Energon Cubes"!! LoL. (You are younger than I am, so perhaps a pop-culture reference before your time? LoL). Looking forward to hearing about your future endeavors.

[@tablab165]

The best use of solar energy is to grow food (sun on crops), followed by mining uranium, and then powering gyrotron millimeter wave drills for geothermal power plants.

[@NinjaSimms]

One could argue that ethanol is a liquid that stores solar power for years.

[@ApertureSciEmployee]

hope the stuff isnt too toxic or that would really hamper some of the coolest use cases

[@yendorham1007]

I heard the Venezuelan oil fields produce a chemical used for energy storage. Charge it during the day which separates two different compounds. Recombinant the compounds produces electricity.

[@kirkreyes3368]

This shows that people are working on the issue of sustainable energy. Getting this through to some folks who continually deny that such technology can be used on an industrial scale is the biggest impediment. However, society doesn’t have 100 years to figure this out. Resources sh be marshaled to a wartime footing to make such technology available within this generation.

[@kaf2303]

Science is so cool for those interested in thinking!

[@hatac]

Have they looked at frequency shifting chemicals, wavelength shifter, to maximize the light in the right spectrum. You may have to use a prism to pull out the higher wave lengths and pump them back though a shifter.

[@onlineservices9354]

HLGN stock is going to the moon. Thanks for mentioning the tech.🙌

[@SnappySnapfire]

This is amazing! I can't wait till this goes full scale. This can save the planet!

[@MsRs232]

But wait while sitting or else you going to get tired

[@yeroca]

12-16% efficiency (at best) seems like the real problem here. In general, at least for domestic use, I don't see many applications for "stored heat", though it could be useful for hiking, camping, etc. where controllable heat is desired and fuel is hard to carry and somewhat dangerous.

[@StephanBuchin]

9:33 a sodium acetate hand warmer on steroids 😎

[@YoutubeSupportServices]

Methane "battery", BEAUTIFUL!.... I see NOTHING explosively wrong with this scenario! I wonder if increasing the surface-area of the atomic structure of this "energy storage" with some charcoal, potassium nitrate, and sulfur would increase the "yield"?.... I don't know... Maybe these experts should try it.

[@senselocke]

Ugh. If they'd have called it "Molecular Solar Thermal Energy Storage TECHNOLOGY", it could have been the MOSTEST cool acronym evar

[@davidlewiz4325]

I'd like someone to present a comparison between this solid-solid molecular rearrangement as a way to store energy, and solid-liquid molecular rearrangement, ie. Latent heat of fusion.

[@darroniverson3373]

Coal is the paradigm of solar energy storage.

[@onestoptechnologies7305]

I would like to add to the request for a FLOW BATTERY video. It seems to be an emerging tech with a shot at replacing fossil fuels in cars, by swapping the spent fluid for recharged fluid. This would allow remote filling stations to never need refueling. They simply extract 10 gal of spent fluid and replace it with 10 gal of recharged fluid... then recharge the spent fluid for the next customer. A similar cycle could be used for domestic electricity.

[@shaun4950]

Saving solar power for later is the key amazing

[@veritasvalere88]

Could you please do an episode on water production, potable Water production, especially in the area of distillation? How do we make fresh drinking water? Thank you

[@ttystikkrocks1042]

Energy storage efficiency is as yet very low but optimising the materials used to capture the energy holds huge promise. At the moment there isn't a use case but that can change quickly.

[@bobbutton8081]

This is very well presented and enlarges my view of Solar Energy development. Thanks!

[@EleneDOM]

Re: storing heat in rocks-- there was a lot of attention paid to traditional British home construction during the recent heat wave, which has been a kind of low-tech passive solar. It seems that stone houses have been great for the most part because they would absorb heat during the day and release it at night, but when the temperature is 100 F, this becomes a liability.

[@SerKBer]

Love your work. I preferred "I'm Matt Ferrell, welcome, to Undecided". It had more punch, and worked great with the intro music.

[@RJSoftware2000]

Petroleum is really the same. A gradual conversion stored as chemical energy. I am a believer in the accumulation of smalls. Like plant growth becomes a farm. Passive income building wealth. The longevity of storage is the whole trick. Like a farm growing gasoline

[@grahamdavidson6819]

Changing sunlight into high energy molecular products is happening in photosynthesis in plants and bacteria