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Carbon Nanotube Solar Cells On the Horizon
MikeChino writes Carbon nanotube news abounds as of late, and the next application for the up and coming material may be hyper-efficient and economical solar cells. Led by professor Paul McEuen, researchers at Cornell recently tested a simple solar cell (called a photodiode) crafted from a single carbon nanotube. Surprisingly, researchers discovered that more light shined on the nanotube created even more electricity, a huge difference from today's silicon solar cells where excess energy is lost in the form of heat rather than used to create more electricity."
Carbon nanotubes... is there anything they _can't_ do?
Not a week goes by that you don't hear about yet another breakthrough in cheap and efficient solar cells. Every week, without fail, since 1979, I swear to God. Any more grains of salt, and I'll have a heart attack.
The question is, it it cost-effective?
If someone developed a 99% efficient solar cell, would you really care what it cost?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Yeah, but you can buy tubes of silicone at any hardware store. It ain't exactly rare.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
It's a great finding, but unfortunately, making nanotubes is a HIGHLY energy intensive process
Obviously we need someone to invent some sort of hyper-efficient, clean and renewable energy source to power the manufacturing process then.
Well, if somebody developed a 150% efficient solar cell I wouldn't care about cost.
Then again, you could use such a solar cell to power some high efficiency light producing device (say, a LED) which you would point at the solar cell thus getting back more energy than you used to power the light (i.e. free energy).
I think it's pretty amazing, actually, that a cellphone sized computer could be used to perform (and now, perhaps even automate - as in run an autopilot program) all the calculations necessary to control a spacecraft intended to fly to the moon and back.
There's an app for that.