"Personalized solar energy" a movement to global sustainable energy

Personalized energy (PE) is a transformative idea that provides a new modality for the planet’s energy future. By providing solar energy to the individual, an energy supply becomes secure and available to people of both legacy and nonlegacy worlds and minimally contributes to an increase in the anthropogenic level of carbon dioxide. Because PE will be possible only if solar energy is available 24 h a day, 7 days a week, the key enabler for solar PE is an inexpensive storage mechanism. HY (Y = halide or OH−) splitting is a fuel-forming reaction of sufficient energy density for large-scale solar storage, but the reaction relies on chemical transformations that are not understood at the most basic science level. Critical among these are multielectron transfers that are proton-coupled and involve the activation of bonds in energy-poor substrates. The chemistry of these three italicized areas is developed, and from this platform, discovery paths leading to new hydrohalic acid- and water-splitting catalysts are delineated. The latter water-splitting catalyst captures many of the functional elements of photosynthesis. In doing so, a highly manufacturable and inexpensive method for solar PE storage has been discovered.
Top of PageIntroductionA Chemist’s Toolbox for Catalysis of Consequence to Renewable EnergyWater Splitting CatalysisConcluding RemarksReferences1 Introduction
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Global energy need will roughly double by midcentury and triple by 2100 because of the rising standards of living of a growing world population.(1) Most of that demand is driven by 3 billion low-energy users in the nonlegacy world and by 3 billion people yet to inhabit the planet over the next half-century. To hold atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels to even twice their preanthropogenic values and at the same time to meet the increased energy demand of these 6 billion additional energy users will require invention, development, and deployment of carbon-neutral energy on a scale commensurate with, or larger than, the entire present-day energy supply from all sources combined.(2-4) The capture and storage of solar energy at the individual level—personalized solar energy—drives inextricably toward the heart of this energy challenge by addressing the triumvirate of secure, carbon-neutral, and plentiful energy.(5) Because energy use scales with wealth,(1) point-of-use solar energy will put individuals, in the smallest village in the nonlegacy world and in the largest city of the legacy world, on a more level playing field. Moreover, personalized energy (PE) is secure because it is highly distributed and the individual controls the energy on which she/he lives. Finally, the possibility of generating terawatts of carbon-free energy may be realized by making solar PE available to the 6 billion new energy users by high-throughput manufacturing. Notwithstanding, current options to harness and store solar energy at the individual level are too expensive to be implemented, especially in a nonlegacy world. The imperative to science is to develop new materials, reactions, and processes that enable the capture, conversion, and storage of solar energy to be sufficiently inexpensive to penetrate global energy markets.(3) Most, if not all, of these materials and processes entail a metallic element. Accordingly, the subject of inorganic chemistry is especially germane to delivering solar PE to our planet.(6)

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