Directing solar photons to sustainably meet food, energy, and water needs
Abstract
As we approach a “Full Earth” of over ten billion people within the next century, unprecedented demands will be placed on food, energy and water (FEW) supplies. The grand challenge before us is to sustainably meet humanity’s FEW needs using scarcer resources. To overcome this challenge, we propose the utilization of the entire solar spectrum by redirecting solar photons to maximize FEW production from a given land area. We present novel solar spectrum unbundling FEW systems (SUFEWS), which can meet FEW needs locally while reducing the overall environmental impact of meeting these needs. The ability to meet FEW needs locally is critical, as significant population growth is expected in less-developed areas of the world. As a result, the proposed system presents a solution to harness the same amount of solar products (crops, electricity, and purified water) that could otherwise require ~60% more land if SUFEWS were not used—a major step for Full Earth preparedness.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1374885
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0000997; EE0004946
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Scientific Reports
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 7; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2045-2322
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 14 SOLAR ENERGY; Chemical engineering; Electrical and electronic engineering; Energy harvesting; Solar energy
Citation Formats
Gencer, Emre, Miskin, Caleb, Sun, Xingshu, Khan, M. Ryyan, Bermel, Peter, Alam, M. Ashraf, and Agrawal, Rakesh. Directing solar photons to sustainably meet food, energy, and water needs. United States: N. p., 2017.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-03437-x.
Gencer, Emre, Miskin, Caleb, Sun, Xingshu, Khan, M. Ryyan, Bermel, Peter, Alam, M. Ashraf, & Agrawal, Rakesh. Directing solar photons to sustainably meet food, energy, and water needs. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03437-x
Gencer, Emre, Miskin, Caleb, Sun, Xingshu, Khan, M. Ryyan, Bermel, Peter, Alam, M. Ashraf, and Agrawal, Rakesh. Fri .
"Directing solar photons to sustainably meet food, energy, and water needs". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03437-x. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1374885.
@article{osti_1374885,
title = {Directing solar photons to sustainably meet food, energy, and water needs},
author = {Gencer, Emre and Miskin, Caleb and Sun, Xingshu and Khan, M. Ryyan and Bermel, Peter and Alam, M. Ashraf and Agrawal, Rakesh},
abstractNote = {As we approach a “Full Earth” of over ten billion people within the next century, unprecedented demands will be placed on food, energy and water (FEW) supplies. The grand challenge before us is to sustainably meet humanity’s FEW needs using scarcer resources. To overcome this challenge, we propose the utilization of the entire solar spectrum by redirecting solar photons to maximize FEW production from a given land area. We present novel solar spectrum unbundling FEW systems (SUFEWS), which can meet FEW needs locally while reducing the overall environmental impact of meeting these needs. The ability to meet FEW needs locally is critical, as significant population growth is expected in less-developed areas of the world. As a result, the proposed system presents a solution to harness the same amount of solar products (crops, electricity, and purified water) that could otherwise require ~60% more land if SUFEWS were not used—a major step for Full Earth preparedness.},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-017-03437-x},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
number = 1,
volume = 7,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jun 09 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Fri Jun 09 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}
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