Reply To: turn heat into electricity

[emmetb]

Tulse wrote: I’d be careful about touting lack of toxins — decaborane is poisonous. It should be relatively easy to handle such a substance in a standard industrial setup like a running FF reactor, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t toxicity concerns.

As you say these are concerns, not problems, in contrast for photovoltaics:

During normal operation, photovoltaic (PV) power systems do not emit substances that may
threaten human health or the environment. In fact, through the savings in conventional
electricity production they can lead to significant emission reductions. There are, however,
several indirect environmental impacts related to PV power systems that require further
consideration. The production of present generation PV power systems is relatively energy
intensive, involves the use of large quantities of bulk materials and (smaller) quantities of
substances that are scarce and/or toxic. During operation, damaged modules or a fire may lead
to the release of hazardous substances. Finally, at the end of their useful life time PV power
systems have to be decommissioned, and resulting waste flows have to be managed.
Environmental Aspects of PV Power Systems, IEA PVPS Task 1 Workshop, 1997

There are far reaching ideas around to overcome all of these problems by switching to sophisticated, self-replicating, nanotechnological systems otherwise known as plants 😉