Natural Fusion recap

It has been a very busy semester at Penn State. I've served as the faculty director for the Solar Decathlon 2009 effort (Natural Fusion project), I'm developing a course in solar energy conversion, I'm establishing my materials research laboratory, and I'm the outreach and recruiting coordinator for my department. Even so, one of the fun aspects of my job is that so many things overlap each other, and there seems to be an unusually high rate of "moments of synchronicity". The class overlaps with the project, and the project helps with recruiting, and I've gotten to know more people on campus than I ever would have hoped for in my first year at University Park. What a blast!

In the Natural Fusion project, I have 15 amazing students serving as project managers from multiple colleges. They all have the vision and energy to turn this competition into a brilliant learning experience for integrated design, green building, and entrepreneurship. We also already have a team of over 100 (!) students that are helping in our design and marketing process.

I am also fortunate to have two other experienced faculty members deeply involved in the mentoring experience, and several more faculty available for support in the future. The team has been out to several industries seeking support in mentoring, materials, and direct funding--and things are looking very good. Even in the first four months, it appears that we will be testing and deploying many new technologies in photovoltaics and energy efficient materials. It's not without its stressful periods, but I feel that we have a really great thing going that will be both memorable and valuable to all of our futures.

Solar Decathlon...ho!

The Solar Decathlon is a progressive competition, offered to selected universities across the nation and outside of the USA every other year, in which students from multiple disciplines design and build a home completely powered by the sun. The focus of the competition is to combine BIPV (Building Integrated PhotoVoltaics) with new energy efficient architecture and its engineering systems. The competition was initiated in 2002 by NREL/DOE in conjunction with major sponsorship by British Petroleum, and the official two-year cycle was continued as of 2005 (SD2005).

The Decathlon operates within the general goals of the Solar America Initiative of the DOE, to make photovoltaic solar energy cost-competitive with conventional energy forms by 2015 (levelized costs of $0.10/kWh for PV). A major focus is to encourage relations between Academia and Industry for integrated design of photovoltaics within standard building practices. However, it includes the incorporation of the project into the curriculum of the students, as well as their involvement with industry. The Decathlon is projected to continue until 2015.

The winner of SD2007 was: Technische Universität Darmstadt. That’s correct; Germany won the USA solar home competition on their first try (why shouldn’t the biggest PV player in Europe be a strong competitor?). Perhaps this was an appropriate challenge to wake up integrated PV education in the states.

My own new home, Penn State University, took 4th place on their first attempt, Morningstar Pennsylvania. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to return and improve upon that standing in SD2009. It’s a great opportunity for students and faculty alike, and all products displayed in the Solar Decathlon homes are commercially available, which will make the project pretty interesting as the competitions progress to 2015.

Goals in Interdisciplinary Research

In today’s research society, there is value in we. I don’t really know that this premise has changed over the years, but the message seemed to have been lost or mixed up in the pressures for making an independent name of your research in university life. Young researchers are fed information from senior researchers that they need to stay focused—and maybe it gets misinterpreted as staying isolated.

We’ve been told that “once upon a time”, someone starting out into the academic world was open to develop one’s personal, independent ideas. Funding was talked about as plentiful (or at least more probable to acquire by writing a grant proposal than today). But now we know, those of us trying to break upward into a stable research program. It’s just not a good strategy for a newcomer in grant writing and fund-seeking. Today’s research is cut-throat competitive, and even more so if you try to go it on your own. Working alone is an invitation to blow out your tire before you even get rolling.

You can’t know everything, even regarding a particular subject like solar energy (especially with solar energy). Help from others is needed to strengthen your research. It is important to build a network of skeptical, critical thinking colleagues who can look at your goals from unusual angles. You want a collective of shared interests, because there is power in numbers. They have the same urgent goals for support as you do.

So how does one make unique contributions while maintaining a source of funding? Work in bigger circles. Be open to defining your colleagues by a broader set of criteria. Communicate outside of your discipline and be positive of your own abilities.

It’s scary to look out across that void between disciplines, to reach out and communicate with someone you don’t know when you’re not even remotely an expert. But in order to support modern research, we need to span that void as another form of exploration. Because it very possible that we’re not even aware of the potential from the expert on the other side.

On a road to somewhere!

Greetings all. My delay in contributing to these posts was for a very good reason. After many years of graduate school, and after experiencing the transient life of a postdoc, moving from Wisconsin to France and then back to Wisconsin for positions as a research scientist, I believe I will be staying put for a while.

We're in the process of relocating the whole family to State College, Pennsylvania for my new position as an assistant professor at Penn State, in the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering. I will be pursuing my dream of environmentally aware materials science in the pursuit of new photovoltaic devices. I admit, I'm excited and terribly nervous at the same time. I plan to work hard and make progress in my research, and in extending my network of connections with academia, government, and industry. I also really want to be a good mentor to both undergraduates and graduate students. So much of this, you just have to do it rather than make the perfect plan. The system is dynamic and fun, and more like surfing than following a recipe.

So wish me luck, and keep an eye out for new posts from the bench of the new nanomech professor!

PV Documetaries: The Power of the Sun vs. Saved by the Sun

When making a science documentary, shouldn't a good science background be involved in the production?

Please note: The solar power of today is not the solar power of the 1970s (or the 80s, or the 90s...)!



I have viewed the two recent big documentaries on solar power: The Power of the Sun and Saved by the Sun. In comparison, my summary argument: a scientific background goes a long, long way to gelling the message of a science documentary.

For those short on time: watch The Power of the Sun and show it to all of your friends. You can purchase the DVD for US$10 +shipping (half price if you are a teacher!). It provides the scientific background of silicon photovoltaics (PV), as well as a future for solar power. The latter documentary is a highly-diluted and out-dated science commentary with a generous mix of 60s and 70s nostalgia to mask the lack of content and vision.

Both films are produced in the US, and deal with the recent boost in development and financial interest in solar power. The executive producer of The Power of the Sun was Nobel Laureate Walter Kohn, while Saved by the Sun was produced by Steven Latham, Larry Klein, and Evan I. Schwartz (scientific backgrounds unknown) under the NOVA series of PBS television.

While the NOVA special has some value in getting people aware of commercially available PV, there is a distinct lack of presentation of the science and the broad range of industries already involved in major PV businesses. They don't give credit where it is due, and misplace other credits by a lack of depth of inquiry. Instead of talking about the fact that PV in Japan is now unsubsidized, and many new Japanese homes have PV funding incorporated into home loans, the film implied how "curious" the Germans are for creating a heavily subsidized solar market and entire farms of PV. Skeptical economists are called in to reassure us that solar energy is still a long way off folks. That could never happen in the USA, economic analysts scoff. Except that it is happening in the rest of the world, and we've woven ourselves into a global economy. A market with a 37% cumulative growth rate (meaning a doubling time of 2.2 years), and a 2006 peak power output of ~2.5 GW (Gigawatts) is not an economic fringe commodity.

Following this disjoint, Prof. Nate Lewis of Cal Tech is interviewed for his contributions to photoelectrochemistry (which are very significant). However, instead of going into the new chemistry his group works on, he is essentially given credit for recently creating dye-sensitized solar cells (that were first developed by Brian O'Regan and Michael Grätzel in Switzerland and reported in Nature in 1991). Couldn't the filmmakers have asked Nate, so how long has this been around?

Add on top of all of this, a penchant for 1960s and 1970s counter cultural pop tunes including the word "sun" or "sunshine", and you have officially alienated the new generation of PV consumers. Thank you NOVA and PBS.

Prof. Kohn had informed us at the American Chemical Society's viewing of The Power of the Sun, that PBS turned down the opportunity to show this film. It was deemed too controversial, due to a comment by narrator John Cleese that the world was "dangerously dependent on fossil fuels, even addicted to them", and due to a suggestion that fossil fuel combustion may even be linked to "global warming". Curiously, one G. W. Bush did see The Power of the Sun in a personal viewing, and something of that phrase slipped into one of his speeches.

Hmm, I guess good science does have an influence on policy.

* Plot developed by JRSB from data by PVNews and the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development.

A change of scenery...

As a curious turn of events, I will be cross-posting my future blog entries at Nature Network.

I heard about this new science-based social network being established at the American Chemical Society conference in Chicago (Mar. 28, 2007), and I was determined to give it a try. I've been a member of the Connotea online publication reference program for a year now (approximately as long as it's been in public existence I believe). And while I admit that I haven't observed a major shift in the physical science-based links at Connotea, I am sure that social networks, tagging, and other aspects of Web 2.0 design will percolate through the science community soon enough.

So please, feel free to enjoy the site here. But with all good luck, Nanomech in Photovoltaics may see a migration in the future solely to Nature Network.

The Nature of David Suzuki

Last week I had the privilege of listening to a special lecture by Professor D. Suzuki for the Distinguished Lecturer series from the University of Wisconsin. Prof. Suzuki is a geneticist and ecologist from the University of British Columbia, and is very well know for his hosting of the television science show The Nature of Things, on the Candian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) since the late-1970s. He is also renowned for his strong support of the environmental movement and his activism toward influencing governmental policy regarding the environment. I can still remember watching his show in the 80s while living in North Dakota (as we received the CBC in our television line-up). He really did inspire a love for nature and science for me.

That evening, he did not disappoint (a few summary points that stuck with me):

ECO is derived from the Greek oikos, meaning “home”

Hence:
ecology is the study of the home

and

economy is the management of the home

“It’s time to put the ‘eco-’ back in economics.“ Exponential constant growth is unsustainable, and the ecology should guide the economy--not the reverse.

People used to say think globally, and act locally. But "thinking globally" is too overwhelming, and people just throw up their hands and say, 'Well, there's nothing I can do about it. The problem is just too big.' Instead, we should really do as David Barry says: 'think locally, and act locally', because then the problem becomes more tangible, and people feel less intimidated by the prospect of bringing about change.

MY THOUGHTS: His suggestion to link the schools of economy with those of environmental studies and ecology really hit home. In that system, I believe there is a natural opportunity for linking materials science and technology into the process. In such a way, the materials produced are guided by with environmentally aware design and marketing of that product to an economy that understands the concept of a limited reservoir of energy, water, and materials on Earth's accessible crust. In an educational sense, this means incorporating coursework in ecology and geoscience into the fields of economics and materials science. I have a strong hunch that environmental engineering will be a passing term on the way to the next generation of modern society. Very soon, ALL engineers and scientists will be required to be environmental engineers in the context of their own discipline, just out of the influence of limited reserves.

Please note: Prof. Suzuki has a foundation to address sustainability and global climate change: the David Suzuki Foundation. This site is a wonderful tool for education on issues of sustainability. The site also contains simple, easy personal changes that will help diffuse the footprint of modern human society on Earth.

* Image copyright Ronica Skarphol Brownson (2006)

Are you Sustainable?

The looming question of sustainable practices in chemistry and materials was a central topic at the American Chemical Society this week in Chicago. There were several symposia related to chemical education of sustainability, sustainability in water resources, and (my particular favorite): sustainability and energy. The 2007 ACS president, Dr. Katie Hunt, has made sustainability one of her core issues, and you can hear (or read) all about her in this interview on Science and Society.

Prof. Art Nozik of Center for Basic Sciences at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) arranged a top notch session on Realizing the Full Potential of Solar Energy Conversion through Basic Research in Chemistry and Biochemistry on Tuesday (Mar. 26, 2007), with speakers Nathan Lewis, Michael Graetzel (of the dye-sensitized solar cell), A. Paul Alivisatos, and A. Nozik himself (speaking on quantum dots and multiple exciton generation from high energy photons). Prof. Nathan Lewis has presented this data to President Clinton in the past, and his talk on alternative energy was shocking, alarming, and invigorating all at once. In short, the only source of power that we have enough supply for is : solar. We don’t have enough wind, wave, geothermal, nuclear, biomass, etc. in our resources to cut our CO₂ levels and to create enough energy for only 2x the amount required to feed every human by 2050. You can find a link for the talk here.

Michael Graetzel’s talk was very interesting, and I’m delighted to hear progress has been made on dye stabiliy in UV, and new electrolytes have been developed using ionic liquids that remove the sealing problem encountered in acetonitrile-based electrolytes. In Graetzel’s words, dye-sensitized cells can be made now to withstand a 20 year life cycle (estimated), and have maximum performaces at 11% efficiency. Not too bad for an inexpensive alternative!

In addition, we were treated to a wonderful movie produced by Nobel Laureate Walter Kohn (UCSB) called The Power of the Sun. The short film is narrated by John Cleese, and can be obtained for only $10 from the University of California Santa Barbara website. The package includes an educational film for students as well. This film would be appropriate for high school science classes through college or university, and could be a very useful as an educational tool. It could be combined in an educational section on energy, or solar power, and the website has additional supplemental educational materials online.

I was disappointed in most of the other talks outside of the sustainablity symposia. Often the researcher/presenter did not gear the presentation toward a more general science audience. Hence, the context of the study was lost to the outside listener, and the importance that a study may have to a peripheral research topic.

For all of the hot talk about the importance of solar energy and the importance of third generation PV technologies, almost no mention was given of studying the interface between quantum dots and the electron/hole collectors necessary for doing work as a third generation photovoltaic cell. Considering that the interface is where the electron transfer occurs (aka: "chemistry"), I was quite surprised at the vacancy in that subsection of research.

The elephants of new PV technology were also in the room: the toxic heavy metal cadmium used in new solar materials (CdSe, CdS, CdTe by A. Paul Alivisatos), and the proposed superiority of CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) PV cells, despite the very relevant indium shortages from limited supplies and competitive markets in flat panel displays. I felt these topics were not properly addressed, or maybe the main scientists are just not aware of the environmental implications of their research. We should present these materials issues to international audiences such as the ACS conference--as they are being developed--to create an environmental and ecological awareness of the most probable impact of our materials research should they be implemented on a national or global scale.

However, the meeting was indeed a recharging event for me. I left with a lot of positive momentum from the discussions on sustainability and the surrounding research that photovoltaic solar cell materials research. Most definitely PV is a strong route of scientific pursuit, and has many opportunities for new lines of research. If Prof. Nathan Lewis is correct, it will become one of the largest industries of our generation, and we should need a considerable amount of minds working toward sustainable solutions.