Posted on 06/11/2010 4:31:30 PM PDT by Faketan
Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a new solar cell that they hope will cost a tiny fraction of current production. The new cells consist of tiny silicon wires that measure a mere 1-micron in diameter. These wires are embedded lengthwise and perpendicular into plastic plates where they convert light into electricity at an exceptional rate of efficiency. Any light that is leftover bounces around inside the wire matrix until it finds another wire that can absorb it, thus nearly all the light is captured and converted into electricity.
Professor Harry Atwater at his namesake research group at Caltech explains the new solar material made of tiny silicon wires could “dramatically reduce the cost of making a silicon solar cell. Instead of the expensive process of making a wafer and slicing it up with a saw, throwing away two thirds of it,” says Atwater, “We grow the material and literally peel it off. The plastic sheet is peeled off like scotch tape off a tape dispenser.” Full article at: Solar Energy
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
Invented in USA, green jobs produced in India and China .... Just saying...
is that plastic made from oil?
bookmark.
Thanks for posting this article.
I'm about 90% certain that I've seen this headline every single year since 1975.
Ditto- what you said.
You Betcha!
Solar energy doesn’t make any sense at all at its current price. Why invest 10-20+ thousand dollars (AFTER rebates and other incentives) in a house whose value is likely to continue falling and when you won’t break even on that investment for something like 8-10 years? My husband has customers who want to go solar, but unless they have major “green guilt” and plenty of money, it’s a hard sell. The other market is people who want to go completely off the grid, but that’s a small market. I’d love to see solar become more affordable.
File this under “Too good to be true” and cross index with “we’ll never hear another word about it”.
Part of the problem with solar power is that only 1/3 of the cost is solar cells, the other 2/3 is installation and other electronic and electric parts, so even if the cost of solar cells goes to zero you’re still paying 2/3 of the cost.
And of course you still have the minor problem of “night”.
Were using up all the sun, save the sun tax. /s
It is a long way from lab to market. Promising yes and I’d be happy to see it hit the market but I’m not holding my breath.
I think they made a technical error in the story. There is a big difference between capturing light, which it does quite efficiently, and converting it to electricity.
“So why the fuss, if these devices are no more efficient than what went before? The key is that although these cells are merely as efficient as conventional devices, they use only about a hundredth of the (silicon) material.” Pure silicon is extremely expensive.
It’s important to realize that solar energy is having several different breakthroughs, each of which contribute a great deal to their viability as a producer of useful electricity.
Here is another, this time from M.I.T.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html
This uses the equivalent of synthetic photosynthesis during the day, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, which can be recombined for energy at night. Likewise overcoming a major problem of solar cells.
Importantly, this may be more important in producing those two gases than it is using them to make electricity. Raw oxygen, one of the two gases, is a great *alternative* sanitizer and cleaner to chlorine.
Already the US Olympic team purifies their practice pool by bubbling oxygen through it, instead of chlorine. Chlorine is very expensive and toxic. Oxygen, created this way, is not.
So, every little breakthrough helps across the board.
Are there power generation methods that do not require installation and other electrical components???? Miles of heavy gauge copper wire, transformers, and poles ain't cheap.
Flying cars coming in five years!
This is the same material that is used to make carburators that allow your car to run on water. Pretty exciting, I’d say...
It doesn’t really matter how “cheap” it gets, because:
IT IS INEFFICIENT!!!!!!
The Libtard’s and DiFi shut down a 500MW plant in the desert, because of the “ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT”!!!
These clowns don’t want a solution!!!!
From the article: The point is that while these cells are merely as efficient as very good photovoltaic panels, they use only about a hundredth of the material. Also the new design is highly flexible: built on a bed of silicon, Atwater’s micrwire arrays can simply be peeled off and stuck pretty much wherever you want. “They could even be integrated into buildings, as components that match the shape of roof tiles,” says Atwater.
Solar panels can lure aquatic insects to their doom by mimicking the appearance of water.
Large solar arrays in the desert could have particularly far-reaching effects on insects and the animals that feed on them.
Heavens...what’s a lib to do?
“Are there power generation methods that do not require installation and other electrical components???? Miles of heavy gauge copper wire, transformers, and poles ain’t cheap.”
Of course not! But taking everything into account solar is on the order of 2-5 times more expensive than conventional, so even if you reduce the cost by 1/3 (0 cost for the panels), rooftop solar would still cost more than conventional.
http://www.solarbuzz.com/statsCosts.htm
By the way, I’m not against solar - I’m just stating facts.
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