New Solar Panel Design Traps More Light

GoSun wrote in with an article about new solar panels that opens, "Sunlight has never really caught fire as a power source, mostly because generating electricity with solar cells is more expensive and less efficient than some conventional sources. But a new solar panel unveiled this month by the Georgia Tech Research Institute hopes to brighten the future of the energy source." The new panels are able to produce sixty times the current of traditional models.

Comments

Power

[Mark_MF-WN]

People say that about EVERY form of power that isn't produced from fossil fuels. Nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind, blah blah blah. It's stupid bullshit from stupid people.

They ought to take a look at how much energy it takes to pump petroleum out of the ground, refine it, ship it from one place to another, and then turn what little is left into energy at less than 40% efficiency (closer to 15% on average if it's an automobile). I think the actual net efficiency works out to around 3% or 4%. So that's what other forms of power are competing against.

Seriously, someday people will have to learn to ignore the insane ramblings of rednecks who believe that "alternative power" is a euphemism for the government taking away their guns and forcing them be Wiccans while having to suffer the indignity of possessing civil liberties and human rights. There have been some issues with producing the semiconductors for solar panels in an environmentally responible way (the process has some toxic byproducts), but energy costs are not among them.