Posted on 09/18/2008 10:25:13 AM PDT by pollwatcher
BEAVERTON, Ore. – A new invention could revolutionize solar energy – and it was made by a 12-year-old in Beaverton.
Despite his age, William Yuan has already studied nuclear fusion and nanotechnology, and he is on his way to solving the energy crisis.
It all started with Legos - after he learned nanotechnology to make robots take off. The seventh grader then got an idea inspired by the sun.
"Solar it seems underused, and there are only a few problems with it," Yuan said.
Encouraged by his Meadow Park Middle School science teacher, the 12-year-old developed a 3D solar cell.
"Regular solar cells are only 2D and only allow light interaction once," he said.
And his cell can absorb both visible and UV light.
"I started to realize I was actually onto something," Yuan said.
At first, he couldn't believe his calculations.
"This solar cell can't be generating this much electricity, it can't be absorbing this much extra light," he recalled thinking.
If he is right, solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells.
"Which would make solar energy actually a viable energy source for the Pacific Northwest," Yuan said.
While college students have come up with unusual solar cars and the state of Oregon recently unveiled solar panels to power highway lights, Yuan is thinking global.
"It'll have a really positive impact on society and the environment," he said.
His next step is to get a manufacturer and market it.
Yuan is flying out to Washington D.C. on Monday to accept a $25,000 scholarship for his research. He earned the Davidson Fellow award, which is for those 18 and under.
Feel free to read the article:
has already studied nuclear fusion and nanotechnology
Sounds like a typical "Govt School" kid to me...Wait, my "govt school" didn't offer fusion/nano classes until at least 9th grade...
Buy this kid a beer!.../s
How many billions did he need in Government funds?
but then again, i have zero idea about this stuff.
ugh. Is this guy typing with his tongue? A lot of us won’t even use our fingers on our germy keyboards and type with the end of a pen. yuk.
My guess would be a loving two parent home.
When I was his age 3D’s was what I got on math english and spelling.
The article is not clear on the concept.
MIT opens new 'window' on solar energy
Cost effective devices expected on market soon
Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of. MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing the sun's energy that could allow just that.
The work, to be reported in the July 11 issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel "solar concentrator." "Light is collected over a large area [like a window] and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges," explains Marc A. Baldo, leader of the work and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.
As a result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells (the semiconductor devices that transform sunlight into electricity), the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. In addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell "by a factor of over 40," Baldo says.
Because the system is simple to manufacture, the team believes that it could be implemented within three years--even added onto existing solar-panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal additional cost. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of solar electricity.
- Fact sheet: MIT's solar concentrators
In addition to Baldo, the researchers involved are Michael Currie, Jon Mapel, and Timothy Heidel, all graduate students in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Shalom Goffri, a postdoctoral associate in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics.
"Professor Baldo's project utilizes innovative design to achieve superior solar conversion without optical tracking," says Dr. Aravinda Kini, program manager in the Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, a sponsor of the work. "This accomplishment demonstrates the critical importance of innovative basic research in bringing about revolutionary advances in solar energy utilization in a cost-effective manner."
Solar concentrators in use today "track the sun to generate high optical intensities, often by using large mobile mirrors that are expensive to deploy and maintain," Baldo and colleagues write in Science. Further, "solar cells at the focal point of the mirrors must be cooled, and the entire assembly wastes space around the perimeter to avoid shadowing neighboring concentrators."
The MIT solar concentrator involves a mixture of two or more dyes that is essentially painted onto a pane of glass or plastic. The dyes work together to absorb light across a range of wavelengths, which is then re-emitted at a different wavelength and transported across the pane to waiting solar cells at the edges.
In the 1970s, similar solar concentrators were developed by impregnating dyes in plastic. But the idea was abandoned because, among other things, not enough of the collected light could reach the edges of the concentrator. Much of it was lost en route.
The MIT engineers, experts in optical techniques developed for lasers and organic light-emitting diodes, realized that perhaps those same advances could be applied to solar concentrators. The result? A mixture of dyes in specific ratios, applied only to the surface of the glass, that allows some level of control over light absorption and emission. "We made it so the light can travel a much longer distance," Mapel says. "We were able to substantially reduce light transport losses, resulting in a tenfold increase in the amount of power converted by the solar cells."
This work was also supported by the National Science Foundation. Baldo is also affiliated with MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics, Microsystems Technology Laboratories, and Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.
Mapel, Currie and Goffri are starting a company, Covalent Solar, to develop and commercialize the new technology. Earlier this year Covalent Solar won two prizes in the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. The company placed first in the Energy category ($20,000) and won the Audience Judging Award ($10,000), voted on by all who attended the awards.
See what the average person can do if government stays out of the way and not taxing us to death?
Faster than light travel will never be discovered by the scientist who is sure it isn’t possible.
In order to get a degree in journalism you do not have to take a single science course. Thus reporters are clueless in evaluating scientific claims like the ones in this article. The odds that this kid developed anything new or made a breakthough are vanishingly small.
Some4 say he’s copied this:
“3D Solar Cells Boost Efficiency, Reduce SizeNew design uses “nano-Manhattan” carbon nanotube towers
Atlanta (April 11, 2007)
... The 3D design was described in the March 2007 issue of the journal JOM, published by The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society. The research has been sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Air Force Research Laboratory, NewCyte Inc., and Intellectual Property Partners, LLC. A global patent application has been filed for the technology.
...The GTRI photovoltaic cells trap light between their tower structures, which are about 100 microns tall, 40 microns by 40 microns square, 10 microns apart—and built from arrays containing millions of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes.
...The ability of the 3D cells to absorb virtually all of the light that strikes them could also enable improvements in the efficiency...”
http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=1337
maybe he’s just a good reader.
OMG - so you just let it eat through the Earth?
Yeah, that’s it. Thanks!
It’s always the Asians kids. Plus, his parents gave him a normal first name.
“The sun is an object of great curiosity here in the northwest.”
We had so many overcast days last fall/winter/spring that when the sun DID show itself I thought the moon had exploded!
(though we have had a wonderful summer..)
click the link at post #31. it’s a LITTLE better.
Yes, except they ruined the value of a Nobel Peace Prize when they started handing them out like candy to idiots like Al Gore
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