Hairy Solar Cells Could Mean Higher Efficiency

kitzilla writes "Two research groups working independently have come up with what they say are cheap processes for growing nanowires to be used with solar cells. The 'hairy' cells provide a direct path for electrons collected at the panel face to reach an electrode, something which has the potential to dramatically improve system efficiency."

Comments

Re:Let me guess...

[MrKaos]

For now, the only feasible baseline power plants are hydro, nuclear and fossil.

Why is it that in any conversation about alternative sources of energy someone will mention Nuclear power as "feasible", "sustainable" or any other optamistic decriptor that, based on a critical examination of nuclear power, clearly isn't the case?

So before I have another drawn out conversation with yet another Nuclear Shill that hasn't done any actual research of the entire nuclear process, from Mining to long term isotope storage (or "waste") to an examination of any actual Net energy benefit from the nuclear process, let me summarise by simply saying that Nuclear power is barely practical let alone feasible.

and telling everybody not to invest in nuclear and wait until we come up with adequate energy storage technology is making the global warming worse by preventing substantial CO2 emission reductions.

Sorry, I meant obviously hasn't done any research because not only are there considerable CO2 emmissions from the energy used in the production of U-235 for reactor cores but also the CFC's leaked in the actual process are America's Number 1 source of CFC emmissions and are up to 20,000 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than C02.

Nuclear Shills should stop pretending that Nuclear power is anything other than the unmitigated failure that it is which takes money and research resources away from projects like baseload solar thermal. S.T.P is revealing itself to be completely viable alternatives to coal based on the capability to store thermal energy long after the sun goes down. That is the whole point of solar thermal power after all.