Solar Power May Just Have Grabbed the Brass Ring!

High powered solar cells developed.

 

"Double"? Twice nothing is still nothing...

 

Actually, if they collect 90% of the energy falling on them, that's fantastic. But in the end, it will be a matter of how cost-effective they are.

 

True, but as with pretty much all other technology, there is a significant reduction in cost over time. Even if it's 5-10 years away, it's still a pretty impressive and major achievement!

 

Yep. I imagine there will come a day when solar panels will be so cheap, they'll be ubiquitous...EVERYTHING will be covered in them.

 

'Same as with Osama, 'bout goddamned time...

 

Roof shingles, bricks/siding, all flat surfaces on vehicles.

 

If this is accurate and not a "research forever" thing like nano-tubes and they can bring this to market within 5-10 years this would be a major milestone in human history.

Literally our whole world would change.

I remember a show on the Discovery channel about the future where energy is at a super premium and the Chinese and Americans in a joint venture in space were researching solar power, yet on Earth they were practically getting ready to go to war over resources (oil IIRC). The astronauts discovered the secret to I believe at the time was 85% efficiency but they didn't realize it until the Chinese guy found it by accident. The Chinese wanted their guy to steal the secret and get the hell out of there but he decided to share it with the world and basically backed the Chinese into a corner to not shoot him and his family but to make him a hero.

 

I wonder, would 90% be efficient enough to make it feasable to crack hydrogen from water inside your vehicle without turning it into a 40' solar panel?

 

Why is it the same story with all new tech these days:

"New revolutionary tech developed! But don't expect to see it for at least 10 years"

That's not how they did it in WWII, or in the can-do spirit of the 20s, 30s or 50s...

 

Prior to the early twentieth century, a lot of technology was largely limited by the ideas. For example the actual engineering and materials knowledge required to build a plane was relatively basic, it just required the Wright Brothers to put the pieces together after realizing that in theory it should work.

Things are much more complicated now. Many modern projects are a bit more like if the Wright Brothers had to also invent canvas, internal combustion engines, and the wheel.

 

Sometimes you do have to wonder if cheap, abundant solar power will be available about the same time fusion reactors are. Both have been "x" years in the future as long as I can remember and I'm getting older now.

 

That and how many square miles of surface they can have.

 

True. Solar power doesn't give a whole lot of power for the area.

But there's A LOT of area that could be covered with them if they were cheap enough...

 

With current tech, a thousand square miles of panels would meet US energy demands.

 

New Technology Promises To Tap Vast Reserves of Methane — And Sequester CO2

Unlike solar we'll be able to put it in our tanks.


Shell’s U.S. Shale Gas May Be Refined Into Diesel, Jet Fuel

 

"Why don't they put solar panels on those big wind turbines? Wouldn't they collect twice the power using the same space"

 

How many square miles does the National Parks Service have?

 

Tens, if not hundreds, of millions. You could easily set up an array of the correct size in one of the southwestern states and few people would notice. After all, it'd only be 100 miles on a side.

 

Why would we put all the solar panels in one area when we could spread them out over the whole United States?

Every business would be crazy not to install a set on their roofs.

Homeowners too.

Apartment owners would install it so they could pocket more money.

No, there is no logical reason to put them in one spot when everyone will want them.

 

^This. It's pretty much what's happening where I am. You can even have a reversible electric meter installed and sell power back to SoCal Ed.

Locating the entire grid in one area just makes it an easy target for attack. Plus, the argument for setting up nuke plants close to home is always that the cost of transporting the power over long distances is prohibitive. Wouldn't that be the same with solar power?

However, the "100 miles on a side" argument might at least be a counter-argument to "Solar panels take up too much space. Solar will never, ever, ever work. Drill, baby, drill!"

 

The problem with spreading them out all over the place is that not all spots in America receive equal amounts of sunlight. Solar panels in Alaska are essentially worthless for six months out of the year, at the very least.

However, the issue which no one talks about, were we to set up a large enough solar farm to meet US energy needs, is that as soon as the farm is completed, demand will begin to outstrip it thanks to Jevons Paradox. Furthermore, with no obvious downside to solar power (as compared to fossil fuels), there will be little interest in rationing the power. People will simply demand that more solar farms be built. Assuming everything doesn't go to shit in a few decades, by the start of the 22nd century, you can expect to see orbiting solar farms, beaming energy back to the Earth, along with every possible (non-polluting) means of generating energy being tapped to supply our energy demands and it still won't be enough.

 

Point of order: 100 miles on a side would be 10,000 sq miles.

 

Okay. Either way, 1,000 square miles or 10,000 square miles, is piddling small. You could erect the farm in a place like Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, or Utah (to name but a few) and nobody'd notice. The numbers I've seen for how much this would cost are tiny when compared to some of the big government outlays like defense, Medicare, and the like.

 

Well yeah you can still have farms and stuff as supplements but for the most part it would be spread all over the country.

 

However, unless the "energy companies" can figure out a way to own it and charge the consumer for it, it will never happen.

 

Distributed would be better than concentrated for several reasons (better use of daylight hours, decreased vulnerability to terrorist attack/natural disaster, etc.).

Instead of one 10,000 square mile facility, it would be better to have 100 100 square miles facilities, all situated as far south in the country as possible.

Of course, this is all moot until someone comes up with a way to make solar panels cost 1/10th-1/100th of what they do now...

 

That's the thing, g. The "energy companies" you deride are already looking for practical alternatives. If this were viable, someone would be working on it on some scale and it would've been showing some promise. After all, it's not like they're not already charging people for their other hair-brained schemes.

 

In believe it when I see it.

The quote makes it sound as if those solar sheets already existed. They don't.

"more than 90 percent of available light" - that's extremely close to the limit of 95 %.

95% = 1 - temperature of solar panel/temperature of sun = 1 - 300 K/5800 K

Then there would still be some additional waste due to "band gap". Photons must have a certain energy to be absorbed, else they are wasted. Usually this is countered by having several layers of cells which respond to various bands. So what happens if you layer several sheets? Some photons still get "lost" and are converted to heat.

My guess: this is simply a fundraiser.

And not even a clever one. Because you can't generate electricity from waste heat, if the temperature of the "heat" is about the same temperature as the cell, see equation above.

 

There's a photo of the sheet at the link.

Its poorly worded, but what they're talking about is having devices which can be slapped on to existing solar farms and being able to use it to capture waste heat from things like factories. Surprising as it might sound, capturing waste heat and using it for things like power generation is not often done, even when its a fairly inexpensive proposition.