YALE LOOKS TO HARNESS SUN

Got the Chemistry Department involved; now if we could only get the Skull and Bones boys.

Yale Chemists Funded for Research on Converting Solar Energy to Fuel
Janet Rettig Emanuel, June 11, 2007 (Yale Office of Public Affairs)

WHO
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Raymond L. Orbach, Under Secretary for Science; Yale University Department of Chemistry (Gary Brudvig, Professor/Chair, and professors Victor Batista, Charles Schmuttenmaer and Robert Crabtree)
Yale Chemistry Building

WHAT
DOE funds Yale chemists’ research into the direct conversion of solar energy into fuel. 12 other institutions will share the $12.8 million, 3-year “Solar Energy to Chemical Fuels initiative” grant.

WHEN
On-going

WHERE
- 27 DOE projects in 18 states
- Yale is in New Haven, Connecticut (which you would know if you were subjecting yourself to ABC’s latest mindless serial Traveler)

WHY
- Solar energy is abundant but intermittent. Finding a practical way to store it, especially as a vehicle fuel, would have profound economic and environmental implications.
- Yale project: Use solar energy to attach manganese complexes to titanium dioxide nanoparticles, developing a molecular-level perspective of structural/dynamic principles of photocatalytic devices.
a little NewEnergyNews solar research, no grant awarded (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Brudvig: “Development of cheap, robust and efficient photocatalytic cells for water cleavage with visible-light power will allow the production of chemical fuels using sustainable and economically viable resources…This has been a goal of photoelectrochemistry research for more than three decades. Our challenge is to improve efficiency of solar energy utilization…This focus on renewable energy will become an increasingly significant goal in future years…We hope to have an impact in this area.”
(NewEnergyNews wishes more Yalies had this attitude.)
- Orbach: “These projects are part of our aggressive basic research in the physical sciences--what I call ‘transformational science’--aimed at achieving a new generation of breakthrough technologies that will push the cost-effectiveness of renewable energy sources to levels comparable to petroleum and natural gas sources…”