Slashdot Mirror
Cheap Spray-on Plastic Solar Cells Coming
coyote1 writes "The
Sacramento Bee reports about
custom-tailored molecules and spray-on plastic could someday create the next generation of solar cells -- more flexible, more efficient and much less expensive than existing sources of solar power.
Nanotechnology is used to organize the molecules that are sprayed onto a surface."
Now I can spray this stuff all over my body and never have to replace the batteries in my mp3 player ever again! Also, it could bring a whole new light (so to speak) to sunbathing... Imagine all the pasty white geeks hittin' the beaches once they commericalize this stuff...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=58 5&u=/nm/20020328/sc_nm/science_solar_dc_2
Whine:* 2002-03-28 22:53:09 Paint-on solar cells (articles,news) (rejected)
In the context of chemistry and materials, organic refers to a material based on carbon (an element abbreviated as C). Additional elements that are commonly found in organic materials are hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), oxygen (O), phosphorus (P) and sulfur (S).
So... if the plastic is carbon (or hydrocarbon) based, it's organic. Note that this definition of organic has nothing to do with the one used to refer to naturally grown produce.
The cool thing that most people don't know is that this type of technology is going to be everywhere. For example, I'm sure most people have heard of OLEDs (orgainc light emitting diodes, Alan Heeger won the 2000 Nobel prize for this stuff among other things), the newest research is being done on small organic polymers that absorb photons at almost 100% quantum efficiency. What this means is, one day you'll paint your house and the whole thing will be a solar panel, you won't need specialized tiles. This will also be extended to cars, boats, etc. the implications are truly amazing.
I'm studying architecture, and sustainability and enviromental design is starting to be a big thing in buildings. Solar Power is one of the major technologies that will make it all work. The biggest obstacles to widespread use in architecture are price and appearance. Both of these will be overcome, and I imagine that photovoltaics will be integrated into most building materials. Right now they're seperate pieces applied to a building, but I think they'll some how be integrated or sprayed onto more traditional (or at least more traditional looking) building materials, so their existance could be a non-issue, at least from a visual standpoint.
On a larger level, I imagine urban areas becoming communities of buildings, all saturated with PV, generating all sorts of power. The buildings would on average generate more electricity than they need, and just release the extra into the local power grid. Instead of everyone getting their energy from a single provider, production would be distributed through all of the buildings, and energy would flow freely to where it was needed. A lot like the distributed internet systems we're starting to see now. There would most likely need to be some sort of external system for peak useages, and I'm sure heavier industrial buildings can require more energy than their buildings could provide, even with maximum PV use. But the advances in PV, along with the growing popularity of energy conserative design should make the power companies nervous
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
We can use nuclear power until cheap solar, and hydrogen from solar power, becomes a reality. We can build lotsa nuclear plants to make hydrogen to power pollutant-free hydrogen fuel cell cars.
One of the big culprits of smog is obviosly cars. We need to switch to hydrogen fuel cell cars. However, many people seem to think of hydrogen as an energy source. It isn't. You need electricity to make hydrogen.
Until we have cheap solar, you need to get the electricity from one of our old sources: coal, oil, nuclear, natural gas, etc.
Coal pollutes too much. We'd be overrun with smog if we built many more coal plants for hydrogen cars, much more so than if we used gasoline engines. We don't have enough oil to be energy independant. Natural gas is too expensive and we will run out of it in about 30 years. That leaves us with nuclear. Nuclear power is not as dangerous as people think. Also, Chernobyl-scale meltdowns in U.S. PWR are impossible. The Chernobyl reactor was a crappy commie RBMK reactor with no containment building. Of course we had the TMI reactor problem. However, that killed or injured no one. And, according to the World Health Org, only 31 people were killed in Chernobyl.
Fears of nuclear power are overblown. Radiation is just like any other pollutant. And you need a shyteload of radiation to really harm you. Nuclear power has killed a grand total of 35 people in it's entire exsistence. Coal power has killed somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 million people in this century, of emphysema, lung cancer, etc, etc.
Little known fact, but according to the Lawrence Livermore Nat'l lab, coal power realeases more radiation than nuclear power. Coal naturally contains some thorium and uranium. When you burn coal, this is realesed into the air. We burn so much fscking coal that we realease around 150 thousand tons of uranium and 350 thousand tons of thorium!!! The study is here. Nuclear power is also cheap. With some new tech, they have gotten the cost of some nuclear power plants below the cost of coal.
There is not mountains of nuclear waste made by our plants. Each plant only uses several tons of uranium a year. That would fit in an area just a few feet square. The total amount of waste ever created for a whole family for their whole lives would fit in a shoebox. If we reprocessed our fuel, it would fit in a pill bottle. Compare that to mountains of highly toxic coal waste with arsenic, cyanide, and other good stuff that just sits on the ground and leaches poisons into the groundwater.
Nuclear waste storage is very good. It's not like they are hauling it around in thin metal barrels like the environmentalists want you to think. No. The waste is transported in thick metal containers that have been tested by being thrown off cliffs, rammed into locomotives, and all sorts of crap. In Yucca mountain, the waste is stored inside these metal casks, which are in turn inside an ultra-thick concrete subterrainean room. Also, the storage place is 2,000 feet above the water table, so you're OK there.
Anyway, this plastic solar thing looks like it could be amazingly cheap and very clean. It would probably be easier for everyone to have these solar cells at their own homes. If Joe Smith put up 3,000 dollars worth of these solar cells, he could power his house for much cheaper than coal or nuclear.
However, you still have the energy storage problem. What happens to the power after dark or when it's cloudy? With this, you have an electrolyzer that takes some of your solar cell power during the daytime and splits it into hydrogen and oxygen. Then at night you recombine these components in a fuel cell to get power.
Home based solar plants are better than centralized ones for a few reasons:
1. Power loss over the lines. You lose over 10% of your electicity in the lines. Plus loss in transformers, etc.
2. Fuel cells are small devices. They are more suited for home use.
3. Independance from power companies (i.e. Enron)
Anyway, I don't think these solar cells will be ready for another 30 years or more. That is just my gut feeling. In the meantime:
1.Replace your incandescent bulbs with compact flourescent!!! The better brands put off a better, more natural light than even incandescent. They use so little electicity and last for so goddamn long that they are cheaper in the longrun.
2. Turn off the lights when you are not in the room!!!! There is no reason to have all the lights on. If you live in a house with you and your spouse, only one or two rooms should have the lights on. If you have your whole house lighted at night, you are really wasting energy.
3. During the daytime, set your hot water heater to "vacation." You don't need it to keep your water continously warm when you are at work. Turn it on when you get home. By dinnertime you will have plenty of hot water.
4. Buy "Energy Star" appliances. These will save you money in the long run.
For more info, go here.
It's pushback.com, San Francisco talk show host Dr. Bill Wattenburg's website. Lots of info on energy conservation and lots of other stuff, coming from someone with a doctorate, a masters, and a B.S., whos worked for Lockheed Missile and Space company, IBM, Lawrence Livermore, and other places. He is a rocket scientist. Listen to what he has to say.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
We who design solar cars beg to differ :).
Although you're right, current generation solar cars can only generate about 1-1.6 kW or so, but even then they can cruise at or above 75 km/h.
Of course, right now it's not very comfortable, only seats one person (usually), and is bloody expensive, but who knows what the future will bring?