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Quantum Dot Recipe May Lead To Cheaper Solar Panels
Science Daily is reporting that scientists have developed a new method for cost-effectively producing four-armed quantum dots that have previously been shown to be particularly effective at converting sunlight into electrical energy. The discovery could clear the way for better, cheaper solar energy panels.
I notice oil companies are heavily involved in solar energy, are they securing their future and/or slowing solar tech down?
I would hate to reincarnate into a world where BP is still selling me (solar) energy as costly as what it is today.
Can individuals adequately produce energy themselves in the future, or will big-corps still be the real suppliers?
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
The problem is not that solar panels aren't improving fast enough.
The problem is that petroleum is still so cheap.
So for the time being, we have not crossed any economic thresholds for application types, nor are we looking at any such developments in the next serval years. So while basic engineering developments are promising, we aren't going see much investment aimed at making solar part of our daily lives.
We haven't reach world peak petroleum production yet. As we approach it, and the rate of production increase slows relative to world economic growth, things will change.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
As with all stories about incremental progress in solar cell there are still a few hurdles yet to overcome:
What's funny is that progress is almost always incremental, and we adjust to each of these changes easily so we don't notice the advances.
My 5-seat Saturn burns down the highway at 90 MPH, and gets over 30 MPG doing it, fully loaded, and has great handling all the way up. Try that in a 70's Comet. My dual-core laptop with 2 GB of RAM burns less power than an amazingly slower (but power efficient for its time!) K6-2 processor-based from 10 years ago. The concept of the Internet was mind-boggling 12 years ago when it was first introduced to me. Now, my 1.5 Mbit fixed IP DSL internet connection is ho hum by today's standards.
Progress is constant, slow, and incremental. But go back 10, 20, or 50 years and compare life then to today and you might be amazed. I don't imagine that Solar power will be any different.
Remember when a solar calculator was a big deal? Now, they're commonly available at the local $1 store. Nowadays, a 120-watt incandescent light bulb uses more electricity than virtually all the lights in my house, since the Compact Florescent bulbs I use everywhere are so efficient.
I recently added a 1,500 foot extension to my house. So, I'm a big energy waster, right?
Well, it looks like it actually REDUCES our energy consumption! Its got outer walls built with 2x6 instead of 2x4s, has double-paned windows, and over 2 FEET of insulation in the attic. Because of the double-pane windows, lighting needs are minimal, since we don't need to use lights during the day. The insulation is so good that when the doors/windows are closed, the temperature deviates by about 10 degrees through the day even though outside it has climbed to over 90 degrees. WOW! I don't think we'll even bother running the A/C in the older part of the house - to get comfortable, just go into the new extension!
A big part of making solar work will be in reducing our demand for power.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Pipe-dream or possibility?
A big possibility. Remember the time when we used this black solid thing called COAL? It's just the way science and technology goes. We're hitting a new industrial revolution where the key technology is nanotech.
Just as the discovery of the transistor made a revolution in electronics, the discovery of methods to create and handle nanomaterials is preparing us to make better tools, leading to more methods, materials, and so on.
The problem right now, is not that we can find cheap energy - but that we WASTE TOO MUCH of it. For example, the internal combustion engine wastes a lot of energy as heat; Many countries in the world still use incandescent bulbs because the energy-saving ones are too expensive; TV's still use Cathode Ray Tubes (unless you can afford a plasma one); and what to say about computers? Too much electricity is wasted as heat because of the way transistors work.
Nanotechnology aims to change all that. Against CRT TV's there are Field Emission displays (with nanotubes as electron emitters); against incandescent bulbs we have extra-bright LED's (with quantum dots as their key ingredient for light generation); against silicon in solar cells, we find tetrapod quantum dots; against internal combustion engines we are seeing fuel cells; Against silicon transistors we see quantum dots, nanotubes, graphene transistors, nanofibers, and what not.
These technologies are currently very expensive and aren't even in diapers yet; We need still a lot of discoveries that will make these technologies economically viable. What excites me about revolutionary discoveries is that they DON'T depend on time. They're discovered almost by accident, like peniciline. It could happen in any time, but in the meanwhile we have to depend on the slow and steady advance of science and technology research.
So if you want to help this become a greener earth, please support science and technology funding in your country.
Given the subsidies solar research has had since the 70s, I can't figure out why progress has been so slow for the past 30 years. I'm not a big conspiracy buff, but, given the explosive rate of technology on other fronts over the same period, something just doesn't seem right.
Method of processing duck feet
Move out. Homeowner's Associations are evil -- far, far worse than a school board for IQ(Mob)=least(IQ(Mob)) /cardinality(Mob). Best of modern economics coupled with the worst of small-town power-mad parochialism. Yes, I have examples, no I won't bore you with them. But you'd better fit in, sunshine!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Alternatively, you could build a world-wide grid. The sun is always shining somewhere.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Centralized planning like this always sounds so easy, but it belies the complexities involved in these areas. Perhaps you should have said, "Manhatten projects" because each one would require that level of committment to bring to fruition. Even then, you might find that the market and science had moved in a different direction and that you had squandered much or most of your investment. And that is why centralized planning fails so miserably in these complex problems. The market is vastly superior and more efficient. The best approach is to tie the true cost of energy to the fuel (ie add a tax to fossil fuels proportional to the amount of CO2 they release when burned). Then sit back and watch, as if by magic, the free market adjust and substitutes and alternatives are selected by consumers. Over time, the problems work themselves out.
"How do we store it?"
By pumping water uphill.
Problem with flywheel plants: they need very high quality metallurgy, ceramics or composite materials--none of which are cheap--to make them work, especially when you have to factor in the physics of a big, fast-spinning flywheel.
A better solution is to develop MIT's nanotube supercapacitor power storage units, which eliminates the complications of fast-moving parts and still offer quite a lot of power storage in a unit not much bigger than an air conditioning compressor for a whole house.
Science doesn't know yet. That's why it's mysterious.