Fossil Fuels may soon become a thing of the past, thanks to this magic liquid! Written by Grace Yoon Edited by Dominique Samantha & Jason Liu Layout by Tristan Castro Art by Sahithi Lingampalli Many people are unaware of this magical liquid that can make fossil fuels a thing of the past; this fuel source is called solar thermal fuel. Solar thermal fuel is composed of nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon, that absorbs sunlight and stores the solar radiation for months or even years, which is ultimately released back as heat and energy. The sunlight required for the magic liquid, notably,only takes 5% of the available light to work. Jeffery Grossman stated, “A solar thermal fuel is like a rechargeable battery, but instead of electricity, you put sunlight in and get heat out, triggered on demand.” Solar energy has already been seen as one of the cleanest and renewable power sources. With further development of solar thermal fuel, the power source can be more practical
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since it can store solar energy for over a decade. What’s more, the fuel is reusable and releases energy without the emission of greenhouse gases. This fuel keeps developing in Professor Jeffrey Grossman’s laboratory and many other labs, as well as universities worldwide. Although this is not a fully developed technology, it has a wide usage range of heating and other possible appliances. Grossman stated, “You could use that thermal energy for your water heater, your dishwasher, or your clothes dryer. There could be lots of industrial applications as well.” The number of applications that can use this cleaner energy source is tremendous. The energy used by appliances for sterilization, cooking, distillation and other commercial uses accounts for 7% of the total energy usage in the
