IBM researchers have achieved a breakthrough in photovoltaics technology that could significantly reduce the cost of harnessing the Sun's power for electricity.
Application of technologies developed for computers in other areas.
I don’t get the advangage. Say you have a lense 20/20 cm. You concentrate the energy falling onto 400 sq cm into a smaller area. But then you throw away a lot of that energy with the “clever” cooling technology so, what’s the point?
IBM researchers have achieved a breakthrough in photovoltaics technology that could significantly reduce the cost of harnessing the Sun's power for electricity.
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IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!! Rosie told me that can't be done.
Google paid nine figures for the development of solar cells that cost only $1 a watt, IBM paid for the most concentrated cells ever, T. Boone is taking the largest wind farm in the world online with 4 GW in three years.
And the left says government is necessary to advance the state of the art in renewable energy to save us from Global Warming. What has the government given us? Economic waste, plans that hurt more than they help. What has private industry given us? See above.
American ingenuity rules.
The trick lies in IBM's ability to cool the tiny solar cell. Concentrating the equivalent of 2000 suns on such a small area generates enough heat to melt stainless steel, something the researchers experienced first hand in their experiments. But by borrowing innovations from its own R&D in cooling computer chips, the team was able to cool the solar cell from greater than 1600 degrees Celsius to just 85 degrees Celsius.Of course, this is done (mostly) at the expense of the other cells which would have received those rays and generated power. :')