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Spheral Solar Technology Approaching Reality
CactusMan writes: "A technology previously owned by Texas Instruments and then Ontario Hydro, Spheral Solar Technology is 'a low-cost alternative [to conventional solar cell technologies] involving flexible, lightweight solar cells comprised of thousands of tiny silicon spheres in an aluminum foil, which can be "formed and applied to virtually any curved or flat surface."' Automated Tooling Systems has just received $29.5 million (Canadian) to bring the technology to commercial viability. Read the article here or go directly to the Spheral site."
I've always dreamed of travelling to the sun in a sphere.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
wife: "honey, shut the computer down, the power meter's at low" husband: "christ, i just bought a fusion power plant too, and i was gonna blow it up and reak havoc all over my city" wife: "well your the damn moron who spent all his money on these stupid solar power cells"
Righteousness postpones the inevitable
http://burningaureole.caveism.net
A billion geeks walking around in aluminum foil hats powering their wearable electronic tools and toys.
So why didn't Orwell see that one?
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
What's the time to market for a cap with a solar powered beanie propeller?
I searched up and down on the site and found some really cool stuff. It's very light and very durable, but no specs. Normally when someone talks about a new solar panel, they mention the efficiency. I'm worried it might be really low, so they hid it.
I've been wishing for low cost solar panels all my life.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
In that case, read "Sundiver" by David Brin. Good book, first of the first Uplift Trilogy. (Though IMHO the second book, "Startide Rising" was better, and the third, "The Uplift War" was somewhat weak.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
if they aren't as efficient as conventional cells, if they are a lot cheaper to produce, and more durable, useful in more environments, etc.... then it works out.
The problem isn't so much the efficiency of current cells as it is the cost.
Watts per dollar is the make-or-break decision for individuals. If the price is right then why should I care if the whole house needs to be covered in PV tiles? I need to put tiles on the roof anyway.
Energy input is very important at larger scales. Normal PV has an energy payback period of around ten years (maybe a bit less now). ie. The PV device takes ten years to make the energy it toook to make the damn thing. Standard PV gets cut from highly purified wafers which take tens of hours to make, then dope and cure, at high temperatures. We're talking lots of energy. Think now. Say congress etc decided to convert 5% of the USA's electricity to solar in one year - bugger the cost. That would need 50% (ie. 5% * 10 years) of the USA's entire electricity prodiuction. In an age of rolling blackouts that would mean first building a whole bunch of power stations. The power to achieve the conversion just is not available. Lets say though that the this new Spherical stuff has an energy pay-back of 1 year. Suddenly that 5% only needs 5% of the energy production - much more achievable. This spherical stuff could well be much lower in energy use since it does not use wafer technology.
The stupid thing about PV research is that more money gets put into chasing the percentages with wierd compounds rather than trying to achieve something that is useful.
The Aussies have the solar challenge - a showcase for PV. Unfortunately, again, the focus is on spending bazzillions of dollars in making expensive cars - which does not help make PV a real-world energy solution.
High efficiency, high cost PV cells are useful, in two applications: (1) on spacecraft, and (2) in concentrator systems with high (500x, say) concentration factors. For the latter you want to get as much energy as you can to defray the cost of the optics and tracking hardware, so you want the PV cells to be as efficient as possible (and since the concentration is so high you can afford to spend a lot per unit cell area.)
Gallium arsenside is also useful in space because it can be made much thinner (hence, lighter) than silicon, and because it doesn't lose efficiency so quickly as it gets hot (for spacecraft on solar orbits bringing them closer to the Sun than 1 AU).
... or were there others that thought there was spelling error in the title?
/. too long :-)
I have been on