Posted on 02/16/2010 9:14:53 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
A team of US research scientists have made a startling breakthrough in solar-cell development, creating flexible wire-based cell substrates that use just one per cent of the silicon needed for brittle and comparatively heavy conventional cells.
Solar cells made from this material would not only be less expensive than current photovoltaics, but due to their low weight and bendable structure the could be used in a wide variety of applications. Solar curtains, anyone?
The new technique is described in a paper nimbly entitled "Enhanced absorption and carrier collection in Si wire arrays for photovoltaic applications" published in Nature Materials by a team of researches from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
The trick in this new method is to bundle one-micrometer-thick silicon wires and embed the resulting array vertically in a flexible polymer. Thus bundled, the paper claims, the array could capture and transmit up to 96 per cent of light in peak conditions while requiring only one per cent of the silicon needed by conventional cells.
What's more, the wire arrays would have work over "over a broad range of incidence angles," thus capturing light efficiently with less need to be reoriented.
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
I work from home full time. It has its pros and cons. My wife makes fun of me since the highlight of my day is checking the mail. The downside is the longer hours. I start at 6:00 a.m. and often work until 4, 5 or 6:00 p.m..
The perception from others is that since you are at home you should be available 24/7.
VPN has no love for Satellite broadband due to the latency.
There is almost no reason why anyone should have to work in an office. Work is work and can be done anywhere. Companies would get more out of their people if they were paid and judged by their deliverables not the raw amount of hours worked. I can spend 10 hours a day in the office surfing the internet or chatting with others.
Oh man, don’t get me started!
I did find out one of my new neighbors uses DSL and gets great results. I’m almost a mile closer to the source than him.
On a side note, there are no neighbors between us. Just a field with his cows in it. :)
Are you by any chance building on it. That size was just bought at auction about a mile from my house. It looks like they are building about 4,000 sq ft of home on it.
I’m a quarter mile between where two phone services declared a border. 440 yards away is DSL heaven, while where I live is barren dial up country.
My highspeed comes from a radio antenna on the roof. Not as good as a cable modem was but much better than POTS,
Thanks Ernest.
We won’t be building for several years and the 46 acre site is heavily wooded. We’ll have to save a year just to pay for the 1/4 mile driveway. ;-)
I put in a 1/2 mile drive a few years back. Start explaining to your wife now why you need a backhoe, seriously.
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