Is the Future of Sustainable Energy Fool’s Gold?
Fool’s gold is an apt symbol for the future of sustainable energy, though not (we hope) in the obvious sense. It’s a case of less being more. There’s a growing recognition that many sustainable energy technologies are not always produced sustainably, particularly when it comes to key materials like platinum, lithium, indium and high-grade crystalline silicon. It comes down to scarcity, toxicity, costly processing or a combination. Researchers are beginning to look for less toxic, earth-abundant materials to generate and store energy. MIT’s Tonio Buonassisi is leading an effort to systematically search for safe, abundant semiconductor compounds for photovoltaics. Efforts like this aim to produce energy systems that have long-lasting supplies of raw materials, have minimal negative impacts on the environment, and lower the cost of producing clean energy. Researchers from UC Berkeley have taken the concept a step further. They’ve produced a study that shows that if our goal is to use phot
