How a Single Water Bottle Could Power a House
By Brendan O.
With about $400 million in government funding The US Department of Energy’s ARPA-E was able to do something extraordinary.
ARPA-E stands for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. At their first conference ever an MIT chemist named Dan Nocera introduced his new technology that could enable a house to be powered on the energy produced from sunlight and a single bottle of water.
Nocera calls it his new photosynthetic process. He splits water into oxygen and hydrogen fuel using a particular energy catalyst and can produce enough to power a home. Similar to the photosynthesis used by plants, Nocera’s process uses sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and energy. Unlike plants, however, Nocera’s process produces energy in the form of free hydrogen, while plants create energy in the form of sugars.
This process is able to create 30 kilowatts of energy in about four hours. Nocera’s process is so cheap that he believes that one day it may be used to power houses around the world.
