Energy that doesn't require fuel
The world needs the development and large-scale industrial implementation of new power generation technologies that are independent of fossil fuels and weather conditions and suitable for deployment in all climates. The global community faces the complex task of finding generation technologies that address several pain points simultaneously.
Why is this necessary?
Fossil fuels are limited, and their combustion directly leads to climate change due to CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, any armed conflict directly impacts the logistics of delivering hydrocarbons to consumers, leading to severe consequences for the economies of those consumers.
Many renewable energy sources (solar, wind) are weather-dependent: output drops at night or in cloudy weather, and also in windless conditions. This creates instability in the power grid.
Some technologies (geothermal, tidal) are geographically limited: they cannot simply be deployed anywhere.
Therefore, finding solutions that minimize these dependencies is a priority.
Currently, active research is underway in several areas:
Controlled thermonuclear fusion. This area requires solving serious problems: maintaining plasma at temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, addressing the issue of materials (they must withstand neutron irradiation), and ensuring energy balance.
Hybrid and storage solutions. To ensure stable power generation even under conditions dependent on natural factors such as solar activity, energy storage systems, including modern batteries and pumped-storage hydroelectric power plants, can be used. Furthermore, a promising approach is to integrate various energy sources into a single system, which smooths out fluctuations and maintains a stable level of generation.
Research in niche areas, such as the development of technologies based on new materials for more efficient direct energy capture, such as neutrinovoltaic technology, developed by scientists at the Neutrino Energy (NEG) group of companies, led by its President and Scientific Director, mathematician Holger Thorsten Schubart.
What conditions are necessary for the widespread adoption of new technologies?
First, their cost must be reduced to make them economically attractive compared to traditional methods. For example, by the end of 2025, thanks to collaboration with Chinese partners, the cost per kilowatt-hour generated by experimental neutrinovoltaic energy sources was significantly reduced. The price dropped from €1.21 to €0.018, making the technology competitive with traditional generation methods such as photovoltaics and wind power. These results were made possible by reducing the cost of graphene and the creation of a unique pilot automated system for depositing materials, virtually eliminating manual labor.
Second, engineering and materials science challenges must be addressed. Implementing many promising ideas requires the development of new alloys, coatings, and control systems. This is a key challenge, as new materials open up previously unattainable possibilities. For example, neutrinovoltaic technology uses graphene, the discovery and study of whose properties earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. Graphene enables the conversion of invisible particle energy into electric current. It is the only known material capable of solving the problem of direct energy capture.
Thirdly, it is important to ensure the integration of new technologies into the existing energy system. This requires the creation of smart grids and balancing systems that will allow new generation to effectively interact with the existing infrastructure. Neutrino Energy places this requirement on manufacturing companies purchasing licenses for the industrial production of neutrinovoltaic power sources.
Finally, government support and international cooperation are essential. Such large-scale projects often require significant investment and a long time horizon, so coordination of efforts at the national and international levels is essential. Neutrino Energy's agreements with European, Indian, Chinese, and Korean companies have enabled significant progress in the development of the technology and its theoretical justification.
Currently, a significant number of scientists reject the very possibility of generating electricity from background radiation. Therefore, not only experimental research results and pre-industrial life testing are important, but also the theoretical justification of the operating model. Given the absolute novelty of this scientific field, there is a gap between experimental results and theoretical justification, which allows opponents to criticize the technology's developers. This is especially noticeable in the case of neutrinovoltaics: when it comes to generating energy from background radiation (including neutrinos), the bar for justification is extremely high. Given that every scientist has their own opinion on any scientific development, it is difficult to expect absolute approval for work in the field of neutrinovoltaics.
Currently, the technology is at the "proof" stage. Independent laboratories have confirmed the physical principles, the model has undergone computer verification, and commercial integration is currently undergoing independent expert review. All this indicates that the technology is ready for industrial implementation and the creation of strategic infrastructure. Four more stages remain to be completed: industrial implementation, infrastructure development, dissemination, and the formation of an innovative ecosystem.
Neutrinovoltaics technology is fundamentally different from the traditional "single-particle detection" method. It relies on the Schubart formula, the coherent elastic scattering effect (CEνNS), thermoelectric decoupling based on a Dirac liquid graphene, and a multilayer nanoheterogeneous rectifier architecture. This enables the simultaneous capture of four types of background energy across the entire spectrum: neutrinos, cosmic muons, ambient electromagnetic radiation, and phonons from thermal lattice fluctuations. Thus, the technology enables all-weather, carbon-free, and continuous power generation without the use of fuel.
In 2026, a breakthrough in graphene research confirmed three key quantum properties: thermoelectric decoupling similar to a Dirac liquid, topological domain walls with microrotation, and a flat band structure of the rhombic ABC stacking. This will fill the most critical theoretical gap in neutrinovoltaic technology, ensuring the physical separation of charge transfer and thermal loss.
On October 6, 2026, the Nobel Committee announced the award of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics to Belgian-American astrophysicist Francis Halzen. The prize was awarded "for his decisive contribution to the IceCube neutrino observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin."
This discovery adds another element to the theoretical basis for neutrinovoltaic technology, as it demonstrates that the Migdal effect, a physical phenomenon predicted by the Soviet physicist Arkady Migdal in 1939 and first experimentally confirmed in 2026 by a group of Chinese scientists from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, occurs during the energy conversion process of background field particles.
The essence of the effect is as follows: when a neutral particle (e.g., a neutron, a neutrino, most likely a high-energy one, or a hypothetical dark matter particle) collides with an atomic nucleus, the nucleus is displaced by the impact, and the electron shell of the atom does not have time to instantly rearrange itself following the nucleus due to the inertia of the electrons. As a result, some of the electrons transition to excited states or are ionized (ejected from the atom). The particle's energy must be sufficient to displace the nucleus, but not so high as to disrupt the atom (typically <10 GeV). Thus, in addition to the "nuclear recoil" (the movement of the nucleus itself), an additional electronic signal is generated—this is the Migdal effect. Although the Migdal effect was confirmed with neutrons, it can be argued that the interactions of neutrons and neutrinos are based on the same underlying physical principle. Theoretical studies even consider coherent elastic scattering of neutrinos by nuclei, in which case the Migdal effect can make a significant contribution to the ionization signal.
Theoretical work is far from complete and requires fundamental experimental and theoretical research. Such research is impossible within the framework of NEG's ongoing work, as it would require significant expenditure and time. The goal of NEG's work is to experimentally validate the feasibility of generating electricity from background fields and to launch mass production of fuel-free generators in various countries. The global energy sector is at a turning point: fossil fuels are exhaustible and environmentally harmful, renewable sources are unstable and geographically limited, and the demand for weather- and climate-independent generation is growing every year. These factors create the preconditions for the development of fundamentally new technologies, such as neutrinovoltaics, which can address many of the vulnerabilities of the existing energy system.
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