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Is it possible to transform EU energy without fossil fuels?
The growing crisis in the energy sector of Europe is forcing the authorities to look for a solution to the problem of energy supply both for the current winter and subsequent ones. Already, half of new homes in the EU are commissioned with solar panels, and the European Commission (EC) is making plans to equip all commercial and public buildings with solar panels, and from 2029 it is planned to install them in all new residential buildings. According to Bloomberg, the EC estimates the cost of these activities at 565 billion euros, although practice shows that any estimated cost figures can be safely doubled.
But even a non-specialist understands that in winter the efficiency of solar panels is sharply reduced due to the short daylight hours and a large number of cloudy days a year. Does this mean that it will be necessary to install an increased number of solar panels for sufficient electricity generation in winter? And what to do with the excess power generation from these solar panels during the summer months? You will have to either turn off some of them, or give excess generated energy to a centralized system. But during the summer months for several years in Europe, repeatedly observed negative electricity prices, which indicates an excess of it in the market, and this is due to the work of already installed solar panels and wind turbines.
The lack of necessary electricity in the winter months can be compensated by the operation of wind turbines, because. they give the highest output in winter, and lower in summer. But there are a number of problems here, because. the most favorable locations for wind turbines are already in use, and the installation of additional wind turbines in not very favorable locations reduces the installed capacity utilization factor. So in Germany, for example, the most favorable places for installing windmills are in the north, and industrial consumers are mainly located in the south. Even now, when there is an abundance of sunlight and wind, existing power lines cannot cope with energy flows from north to south.
Last summer showed that the lack of rain led to a sharp decrease in hydroelectric power generation, while rising water temperatures and low water levels led to a decrease in generation and even the shutdown of some nuclear power plants, for example in France. All of the above calls into question the possibility of building power generation only from renewable sources of electricity (RES), or, at least, building an efficient power supply system. Building a power supply system based on technologies that depend on weather conditions is hardly reasonable and expedient.
The economic component of the electricity supply system built on RES is very important, since the population will not be able to pay the growing bills for energy supply in the very near future, the business becomes uncompetitive, which will inevitably lead to an increase in bankruptcies, unemployment and a reduction in tax revenues to the budget. The beginning of this process can already be observed in Germany, where energy-intensive industries are moving to the United States and other countries, where the cost of gas and electricity is several times lower than in Europe. If this situation continues for several years, then the process of industrial destruction will become irreversible, and Europe will face deindustrialization, which will eventually mean a serious decline in living standards, and the main winners in this process will be the United States and China, in the first place. The first sign of emerging problems in the European economy was a significant depreciation of the euro against the US dollar. The authorities of European states and the European Commission, of course, understand the current most difficult situation in the EU economy, but they are not really able to change anything for ideological and political reasons. "Partly it's just a smoldering fire, and partly the hut is already on fire. In any case, the future viability of our economy is at risk, there is a risk of irreversible damage," German Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Robert Habeck told DPA on September 27, 22.
The crisis in the energy sector has given additional acceleration to scientific and technological work on the creation and implementation of new alternative technologies in the field of power generation, energy storage systems and the creation of new materials.Particular progress is noticeable in the creation of batteries, which is important for expanding the production of electric vehicles.However, close attention should also be paid to the development of new technologies in the field of power generation related to the use of so-called "free energy".
Many people believe that "free energy" is the appearance of a mythical perpetual motion machine, which is a delusion. The law of conservation and transformation of energy states that energy does not arise from nowhere and does not disappear anywhere, it only passes from one form to another or from one body to another. It is this principle that underlies the work of the Neutrinovoltaic technology developed by the Neutrino Energy Group. The appearance of graphene and the study of its properties allowed the president of the company, mathematician Holger Thorsten Schubart and his colleagues to create a multilayer material from alternating layers of graphene and doped silicon, which converts the thermal Brownian motion of graphene atoms, as well as the kinetic energy of particles of surrounding radiation fields, including neutrinos, into electricity .
Why exactly graphene has become the nanomaterial that allows you to generate electricity, and why other nanomaterials do not have this ability? The answer lies in the very features of the graphene crystal lattice, in which the carbon atoms are in sp² hybridization and are connected via σ- and π-bonds into a hexagonal two-dimensional crystal lattice. It has been proven that graphene cannot exist in the 2D plane, but only in the 3D plane. A group of scientists from the University of Arkansas conducted a study of graphene deposited on a copper plate. They observed changes in the position of atoms using a scanning tunneling microscope. At the same time, a very significant discovery was made - a wave appeared in graphene, like waves on the surface of the sea, arising from a combination of small spontaneous movements and leading to the appearance of larger spontaneous movements. The thermal displacement (Brownian motion of atoms) of one atom, enhanced by the action of particles of the surrounding radiation fields, summing up with the displacements of other atoms, causes the appearance of surface waves with horizontal polarization, known in acoustics as Love waves. Due to the peculiarities of the graphene crystal lattice, its atoms vibrate as if in tandem, which distinguishes such movements from the spontaneous movements of molecules in liquids.
In an interview with Research Frontiers, Professor Thibado (University of Arkansas) stated: “This is the key to using the movement of 2D materials as a source of inexhaustible energy.The tandem vibrations cause ripples in the graphene sheet, which makes it possible to extract energy from the surrounding space using the latest nanotechnology.”
Holger Thorsten Schubart repeatedly noted in his speeches that it was the ability of graphene to respond to the effects of temperature and ambient radiation fields by increasing the amplitude of vibrations of graphene atoms that go into resonance, which allowed Neutrino Energy Group to solve the technological problem of generating electricity from "free energy". The use of graphene with practically no impurities, the selection of alloying elements and the developed technology for deposition of graphene and silicon on metal foil made it possible to achieve an effect that physicists call "oblique scattering", when electron clouds deviate their movement in one direction, i.e. . an electric current appears. Industrial licensed production of power sources with a capacity of 5-10 kW using Neutrinovoltaic technology is planned to begin in Switzerland at the end of next year or the beginning of 2024.
This event will undoubtedly begin the process of creating an autonomous and distributed power generation system, although it will take many years for Neutrinovoltaic power sources to have an impact on the overall balance of energy production, but this decision can be considered as the first real and practical step towards creating CO2 - neutral energy generation.
