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Caltech Makes Flexible, 86% Efficient Solar Arrays
strredwolf writes "Caltech has released a flexible solar array that converts 95% of single-wavelength incandescent light and 86% of all sunlight into electricity. Instead of being flat-panel, they stand thin silicon wires in a plastic substrate that scatters the light onto them. The total composition is 98% plastic, 2% wire — the amount of silicon used is 1/50th that of ordinary panels. So as soon as they can get these to market, solar could be very viable and cheap to produce." Update: 03/01 21:02 GMT by KD : Reader axelrosen points out evidence that the 80%+ efficiency figure is wrong. MIT's Tech Review, in covering the Caltech announcement, says that the new panel's efficiency is in the 15%-20% range — which is competitive with the current state of the art. And the Caltech panel should be far cheaper to manufacture.
All these idiots working on solar panels when what is really needed is overcast panels to get power from gloomy days when you use more light bulbs.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Well, getting hot water out of it is a feature, not a bug.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Actually it's spot-on. See, carbon-friendly means not turning the carbon into carbon dioxide. That is, it means not gassing the carbon. I think you would call not gassing Jews Jew-friendly.
You hook a lightbulb up to a solar panel, and it will keep glowing forever. Obviously this has to be done in a completely sealed box so that none of the light escapes, so you are forbidden from checking that the light is still glowing.
Some would say it's useless, but it improves the quality of life of physicists' cats quite dramatically.
Talking of Nazis, did you know that every other use of an apostrophe in your first sentence was incorrect?