February 26, 2022

Weekend Reads: Harnessing Solar Power Without Direct Sunlight; The Year of Next-Generation Clean Tech

It's the weekend! Kick back and catch up with these must-read articles from around the web.

2022 Is The Year For Next-Generation Clean Energy Technologies (CleanTechnica) Next-generation clean energy technologies are reducing overall global energy demand and helping to make the energy supply side climate neutral. 2022, by all accounts, will be the year that makes the energy mix cleaner, more secure, and more competitive. To fulfill optimistic forecasts, energy investments this year will need to accentuate risk/reward performance ratios by demonstrating reliability across a broad portfolio of renewable energy solutions. In line with the “do no harm” principle for the environment, actions for all next-generation clean energy technologies must improve the environmental sustainability of the technologies, deliver products with reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and improve environmental performance regarding water use, circularity, pollution, and ecosystems.

How China dominates the electric vehicle supply chain (NPR) The entire auto industry is making a massive pivot to electric vehicles. The world is going to need a lot more batteries. And China dominates the supply chain.

Bitcoin mining as a grid resource? 'It's complicated.' (Utility Dive) Energy use by the Bitcoin network in the United States and globally could grow significantly in the next five years, adding many gigawatts of demand, according to some experts. With concerns increasing about utilities' carbon footprints, there is a growing push within the cryptocurrency industry to reimagine cryptomining systems as potential grid assets that can help balance demand and encourage renewable energy.  For those not up on cryptocurrencies, there are several, of which Bitcoin is the largest by market capitalization and energy use. "Mining" operations race to solve complex math problems, which allows them to validate new entries in a distributed ledger called a blockchain and, in turn, be rewarded with Bitcoin. The system is designed to make calculations increasingly difficult as demand for Bitcoin grows and the supply remains fixed. Solving the calculations requires growing amounts of energy consumed by large data farms.

The absurd Supreme Court case that could gut the EPA (Vox) West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency is a case about an environmental regulation that no longer exists, that never took effect, and that would not have accomplished very much if it had taken effect. If the plaintiffs prevail in their case, they will be in the exact same position they are in right now. It is a case about nothing. Yet West Virginia could also be the most consequential environmental case to reach the Supreme Court in a very long time. The plaintiffs in this case, and in three other consolidated cases, seek an opinion from the Supreme Court that would do considerable violence to the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to, well, protect the environment. And if the Court indulges them, the fallout from this decision could wreak havoc throughout the federal government.

Solar Power Without Direct Sunlight? This Researcher Says It's Possible. (The Debrief) A Philippine engineering student has created a solar panel that doesn’t require direct sunlight to generate power. Instead, his solar power collector can use indirect ultraviolet light to generate power on cloudy days, eliminating one of the most significant shortcomings of conventional solar panels. Solar power use is steadily increasing. Residential rooftop panels are becoming more widespread, and commercial use of solar power is also on the rise. However, conventional perovskite panels have one critical shortcoming; they require direct sunlight to generate power. This issue limits the surfaces panels can be mounted on and limits their use in regions that experience low sunlight. Last year, The Debrief reported on a type of “anti-solar” panel that uses stored heat to generate electricity at night, a process known as thermoradiative cooling. Now, a graduate student from the Philippines has developed an entirely new material that he believes may offer yet another way to gather power from the sun without direct sunlight.

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