New solar panel info

[Trevan]

I haven't really followed all the energy discussions here that closely, but I figured you guys would find this interesting:

12 Year Old Boy makes me feel inadequate

[eppie]

I haven't really followed all the energy discussions here that closely, but I figured you guys would find this interesting:

12 Year Old Boy makes me feel inadequate

A pitty that there are not many details given about the technology.
Also harvesting UV is not very interesting, harvesting IR, now that would be a giant leap. Also, what I know about solar cells is that the foton collection is not the biggest issue, many 2d cells can harvest more than 95%, the incident foton to collected electron ratio is the part that is the most important, many excited states or generated electron never make it out of the cell.
I am looking forward to hearing more about this system, and why it is so great (journalists are usually not the right persons to explain how something is working).

[Zenda]

What I found most interesting here, is that there are already '3D cells' with much higher efficiency as commercial ones. These are patented however, so that apparantly only smart kids in schools can do research on further improvement (it's hard to find investors for 'professional' research, when all profits go to someone else). And ofcourse, noone is allowed to put this technique to use, without first paying up.

Luckily, there are things that cannot be patented. How about using light-coloured paints for roads and rooftops in urban areas?

http://rainwaterharvesting.wordpress.com/2...cool-the-earth/

And it's not even a new idea, as you can see in this article, from 1995.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1451...t-tin-roof.html

Yes, solar energy is so easy to harvest, that it sometimes requires effort to avoid it :blink: