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The Best Of What's New 2007
BlaineZilla pointed us to one of the earliest annual 'best of' roundups: Popular Science's Best of What's New awards. The winner this year is a nanosolar powersheet that may someday change the way we think about renewable energy. Other winners include the corot satellite, a project aimed at searching out habitable planets in other solar systems, and the world's most advanced bionic hand.
What if.. only I had a robotic hand??? FP
What gives? Oh, oh, the dollar bills, i forgot. *yawn*
But is that solar sheet in the stores yet ?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Nanosolar Powersheet http://www.forumpix.co.uk/uploads/1195419853.jpg
Although I was pretty skeptical about the buzzword-laden NanoSolar, after reading TFA, I've gotta say that their technology is absolutely incredible, and unlike most of PopSci's outlandish predictions looks like it very well break into the mainstream. Although it's not going to singlehandedly solve the energy crisis, if they can ramp up production quickly enough (and maybe cut costs even further), we'll soon begin to see a more widespread adoption of solar power.
As long as the cells are cheap enough, the applications for it are impressively extensive. The cells themselves are incredibly light and thin, and looks like it can be applied to just about any flat surface. It won't power your car, but it might make your hybrid/electric go a few extra miles before the next charge. Flat-roofed buildings can cover themselves in the stuff, and greatly reduce their energy usage. (Alternatively, a facility such as a warehouse could possibly even break even on its energy usage by keeping itself lit during the day with skylights, and selling the energy from the roof back to the grid. During the night, power for artificial light is taken from the grid)
You might even be able to apply the film directly to the body of a car or to roofing materials, given that the underlying backing doesn't need to be anything terribly special.
The fact that they're doing the majority of their research and production in the US and Germany also suggest that the manufacturing process will be relatively clean, and that their workers will be paid decent wages.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Here's a link to a longer and better video ( that works in Linux ) that shows off more of the capabilities of this thing :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMFrL7xt7kI
jdb2
Looks like popsci doesn't like my firefox. So long popsci.
...Begley Cloth? :) ( you need to be a Larry Niven fan to get this one )
jdb2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_indium_gallium_selenide
Many companies and researchers are working on CIGS photovoltaic technology. The fact that this particular company uses the word 'nano' makes me worry even more.
Lots of people working on the technology means that any really easy solutions don't exist. Nobody is claiming that the technology is more than half as efficient as conventional technology. The fact that this company uses marketing terminology to describe their project makes them look like they're selling vapor ware.
The popular press has been sucked in many times before. The two cases that come first to mind are: 1 - Oil from turkey guts and other agricultural waste. 2 - Air powered cars. Both of these produced a product and both have fallen well short of economical mass use.
I, for one, will welcome our solar powered overlords when and if they get here; not a moment sooner.
The month December. That was absolutely the best of 2007.
St00pid lists that round up years before they are over. Almost like an OS that calls his OS for the NEXT year. Mandriva anybody?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
There's several reasons for this...
First and foremost... you want to be first with your list of what was best of the year. If a rival publishes theirs first, everybody will be talking about it already. By the time you publish yours, less people are going to be interested in it - and those who are, will be comparing your list to their list; which has a subtle but very important difference from people comparing their list to your list. Granted - if your list is, in content, much better than the others' then next year people may wait for your list rather than going to the other's list. But given the extremely broad scope and subjectiveness of the list involved here (Best of What's New in 2007 - in anything? woo.), you're not likely to be able to get that.. so being first is very important. Expect next year's to be released around the same date, with a likelihood of being released -sooner-.
Then there's psychology - yes, of course, "The Best of 2007" can, quite technically, only be decided On January 1st, 2008. But if you release a list of "The Best of 2007" in 2008, psychology says that people will go "why would I want what was best last year? I want to know what's best -now-, and now is 2008".. despite the ludicrousness of such thoughts, there you go. So instead, you release your list early.. say at the beginning of December. The only thing to keep in mind is that your list should, then, be the list of "The Best of December 2006-November 2007" - but "The Best of 2007" is a much more attractive title. Typically, lists -do- include the time that was skipped from the last, though.
Now, of course, there are ways you can just take that all way too far. The automotive industry is infamous for this. For example, it's not uncommon to see a "Car of the Year 2007" ad in March of 2007. In Europe it's so insane that the Car of the Year 2008 is, and has been, decided for quite some time now. This year's Car of the Year (2007) was decided back in December of 2006. This, again, harks back to psychology.. people don't want to drive the "Car of Yesteryear".. they want to drive the "Car of the Year" where "the Year" is the one they're currently in. That said, as I mentioned, they're infamous for it and it wouldn't be the first time I've heard it be the butt-end of some impromptu jokes as such a commercial drops by inbetween a movie.
If publications don't stop themselves soon, they'll end up the same fate.
As of the end of 2006, the total worldwide installed PV capacity was 5.7 gigawatt at peak. Norway, a country with a population bellow 5 million, consumes more electricity than that. Single nuclear power stations can produce more electricity. Seriously, solar will NOT solve the energy crisis in any near future. Even with an exponential growth of solar power, doubling installed capacity every 5 years, it would still be more than 50 years until you get to the same order of magnitude as PRESSENT energy consumption, and this is at peak power.
Proponents of solar power usually talk about how its efficiency is about to jump several times in the near future, but even if you improved the efficicency tenfold ( which would put you above 100% efficiency) you would still not even be within 1% of pressent energy consumption. Seriously, maybe in a century, but photovoltaics just isn't going to replace Oil before it runs out.
To get a slight idea about what will be required to phase out fossil fuels, have a look at this diagram: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:World_energy_usage_width_chart.svg
Solar and Wind just ins't going to solve that issue alone. Neither is nuclear, biofuels, or clean coal. It should be damn obvious from that diagram alone that we are going to need every piece of clean energy we can get our hands on. Expanding the use of nuclear and biomass 5 times, would take care of the first 50%. Carbon capture and storage with coal sticks you up at 75%, and expanding wind power 100 times can provide the remainder. All of this assumes strict energy conservation measures to keep the overall energy use at pressent levels. Of course, with the developing world industrialising this appears unlikely, so you will need some more energy, but ff we go for the optimistic goal of preventing overall energy consumption from increasing by more than 50%, then it is doable, PROVIDED we use all energy sources we can get. To reject carbon capture and storage, nuclear or other energy sources, based on some delusional pipe-dream of solar power coming to the rescue is however just wishful thinking.
These CIGS sheets seem very versatile and robust, but they're also supposed to have mediocre efficiency. There may be other upcoming technologies involving quantum dots which may produce more watts per sq.ft.
Oh well, Nanosolar's technology seems cheap and easy to deploy, which is good news.
About the discovery that reverse osmosis water won't work for agriculture ... because it doesn't have enough minerals ...
WTF do they think the mineral content of rain is? Some people can make up an excuse for anything.
Apple sues Gow's company for trademark infringement of "i-Limb".
I thought for sure Windows Vista would top the list of the "Best of 2007".... Where's the justice!?!?!?
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
There are two more technologies that are here and now and if implemented on very large scales would do more than a lot of the other alternatives, and those are geothermal and superinsulation techniques. Ground loop geothermal *works*, and works well, as does superinsulation. I've worked on several superinsulation projects and the results are quite simply fantastic. It's not sexy or gee whizz new tech, just using old tech smarter, it doesn't produce any more energy, but dollar for dollar it has everything else out there beat, hands down. You can spend the big bucks producing more power just to waste it, or small to medium bucks and save a bundle..forever, the life of the building. If building codes and mortgage approvals were altered to reflect that, for new construction and for title transfers, we could drop demand every year for a long time.
Besides that I agree with you, the solution is "all of the above as fast as possible" right now. I think the US could do good by making with the 100% tax credits for alternative energy and insulation projects for at least the next decade, and not wait for 150 to 200 buck a barrel oil to think about that. Not partial credits or deductions, 100%, with multi year carry-overs. The increase in practical and useful non burger flipping jobs and industries on one side will offset the tax in one place and replace it in another, so the net would be a wash dollar wise, but we'd all wind up with a ton of "free stuff", good energy and conservation measures, great for the nation, great for your personal wallet, so what's not to like? Energy independence is a good goal. Drop demand the same time you increase and diversify production, eventually you hit that magic sweet spot of independence, from there on out it's gravy. But ya, we can't keep farting around studying it and waiting for the mysterious mr. fusion to arrive, that's just silly, we can go with what we have now just fine, it is plenty good enough. There are millions of roofs out there facing south doing nothing more than rotting shingles. Plenty of backyards could get the ditchwitch action and have the groundloops installed. and etc. Solar thermal air heating and water heating are old tech now, work just fine and are cheap really.
The computers ten years from now will be much better, but they are still good enough now to use them and not wait ten years to get one. Same deal really. The future got here, it is the 21st century, time to start acting like it.
For some examples of the complete self powered homes plus car, look to the latest solar decathlon winners for some ideas.
It's a 2.5G/WiFi smartphone with a touchscreen and some gesture control. Tell me why that's innovative enough to win a "Best of" award.
I did not know about the solar decathlon, and apparently, neither did the grand parent... - Thanks!
Thanks for the handy link.
"That means even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce. To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt."
Someone doesn't understand the difference between energy (Joule) and power (Watt).
whats the odds that in a few years when their manufacturing is reliable enough to supply the general public they find that actually it costs as much as the rest of the solar equivalents and suddenly they become quiet on how cheap it will be and focus much more on how light and flexible it is as the advantages it offers. And I'm sure there will still be a market for such a product just not so exciting. Current solar tech will fall in price anyway as the silicon shortage abates.
Remember five to ten times cheaper than existing solar panes is their intention with their funding not their guaranteed result. If they really did manage it the world would be changed as current solar panels pay back in ten to twenty years. If this changed to one to four years everyone would buy them. But do you see coal mines and power plants falling in value due to the certainty of this gambit succeeding? No you don't. Its an aim, an unproven gamble.
But perhaps I am too cynical as I type this on my hundred dollar 40" oled low power screen run by my transmeta powered pc.
Solar is a great boost to existing power for building and such. It makes sense to harness all that sunlight beating down on your building.
However, it just isn't a solution for long term major power. We can't just replace everything out ther with solar as much as we'd like to. There are a few reasons why:
1) What happens when it's cloudy, if everything runs on sun in an area, cloudy days could mean blackouts. Now not only is there little light due to a storm, but your lights also don't work.
2) Surface area. Solar requires way more surface area than any other source. Just imagine the ecosystem impact of paving huge tracts of land in solar panels.
It's really not that environmentally friendly unless put on existing structures.
Is this based on the lifetime of the panel? (What I'm really curious about is how much these things cost). Although, I suppose that based on a typical $20,000 home solar installation, using their figures of $3/W for conventional panels, a home installation should be around $2000. That would be pretty spiffy. (Yeah, I know I'm ignoring the fixed cost of the inverters and whatnot. It's an estimate, deal with it.)
As an aside- someone back there posted a very negative and dismissive argument about how this will take forever to eliminate the global dependence on oil. This may be. I, however, am more concerned with:
1. Eliminating MY dependence on oil- if I have cheap electricity I'll build or buy an electric car.
2. Assisting the US in eliminating our dependence on foreign oil.
3. Destroying the global oil market with extreme prejudice.
I will do anything in my power to make life as painful as possible for the countries in the Middle East. This nonsense has gone on long enough. It occurs to me as I type this that the US gov't should consider subsidizing the production of these things and start dumping them everywhere they can after some large percentage of homes in America are converted.
A tax credit? That's just keeping that sum of money and staying out of the tax collection scheme. That isn't them giving you a thing, just you getting to keep it as long as it is directed towards the reason for the credit. We had it before back in the late 70s to early 80s and it worked fairly well as long as it was running.
As to income taxes in general, that's another subject entirely, basically I am opposed to them because the US currently uses a non asset based fiat money system, with the money "injected" at the top of the economic food chain pyramid, to the already extremely wealthy folks. It is loaned with demanded interest into existence, it isn't there sitting in some vault, it is poof created out of thin air. If you want to complain about "free money" look to the huge banks for the corporate welfare angle. Right now we do have taxes, they are used as a carrot and stck on the population for pure social engineering purposes, so as long as that is the status quo, yes, I am in favor of tax credits for alternative energy and insulation upgrades leading to national energy independence.
I've already written an alternative assets-based currency outline manifesto a few places, if you'd like I might attempt to find it later this evening and hit ya with another reply on this side issue.
The Meraki Wireless devices in the Best of What's New for Computing is neither "New" or the "Best." It is advertisement disguised as an article. The company I've been working for has been using this technology at the same price for almost three years now. Mesh Networks are nothing new and spectacular. They are handy, available, and in use.
I'm just a long standing alternative energy enthusiast, since the 60s actually, and I frequently chime in here on slashdot if the subject comes up. For a short time I worked in the business, but now I just do farming. And I *did* work in the business way back then because I was convinced how effective it was, true believer fanboy in other words. Sort of like FOSS developers who actually get paid for what they do, they know it is a good idea overall, and getting paid for work is nice too. I tell you on the superinsulation deal, it works so well even the folks who get it freak out. Had one lady we did her house, couple days later or so she calls up (this is in the summer), asking if we "broke" her air conditioning, it "wasn't coming on as much as before" by a big margin. I said to her "Is your house still cool enough ma'am?" she goes "well...yes.." "It's working then, you are saving energy and on the electric bill!" I first got hip to it when I just took a job with some guy who was stuck with fuel oil bills higher than his monthly house note. We did the sub-non load bearing wall deal, added a loty more insulation, took out some of the larger single pane windows replaced with smaller triple paned gas filled, did the leaks around doorframes, etc. What a diff, he wound up paying just a small fraction of his old bill. Later on then I got into making solar space heaters, helping with windcharger projects, experimented with biofuels, got into solar PV and so on. I have 5 panels now and recently grabbed a small cheap diesel pickup that I will eventually be running off of some sort of biodiesel, I'm still rebuilding the truck, haven't finished it, mostly a junker when I got it.
And stuff like that. We lived as caretakers before this job on an estate that was almost totally solar PV powered and I maintained that system, it got me even more enthusiastic about it how well it works, how clean the power is, etc.
Tax credits work remarkably well for some things, in essence, instead of your x-dollars going to pay income tax, it goes directly for whatever the credit is marked for. It's beyond a "deduction" it is a direct dollar for dollar tradeoff (could be, usually it is), without filtering it through the government bureaucracy where a lot of it disappears. A lot of states have partial credits right now in fact for like active solar PV systems, etc, because they realize it is in their citizens long term best interest, good for balancing out energy needs, decentralizing power production, good for the environment, etc.
HTH, anytime