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Purple Pokeberries Yield Cheap Solar Power
separsons writes "Researchers at Wake Forest's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials created a low-cost solar power system geared towards developing nations. By coating fiber-based solar cells with dye from purple pokeberries, a common weed, scientists created a cheap yet highly efficient solar system. Wake Forest researchers and their accompanying company, FiberCell Inc., have filed for a patent for fiber-based solar. Plastic sheets are stamped with plastic fibers, creating millions of tiny 'cans' that trap light until it is absorbed. The fibers create a huge surface area, meaning sunlight can be collected at any angle from the time the sun rises until it sets. Coating the system with pokeberry dye creates even greater absorption: researchers say the system can produce twice as much power as traditional flat-cell technology."
I can't decide if I should make a pokemon joke, or a your mom joke.
Your mom poked my berries? I guess? I got nothin'.
Living With a Nerd
Weeds are only weeds because we don't want them. If this solar technology takes off, the Pokeberry will cease to be a weed. Horrors!
And abandoned fields across the American south became the new gold fields of the Yukon.
That stuff pops up everywhere, and grows like you wouldn't believe. I can't imagine how well it would do if you fertilized.
And of course, you can use the leaves for poke salad. With a lot of boiling...
stored on computers from birth to the grave
Thank god it's not smurfberries, or we'd have to sit through Dances with Smurfs...again...
Gotta catch 'em all!
Nothing will change the fact that the 1100W/m^2 (that's a napkin math theoretical maximum assuming such nice impossibilities as 100% energy capture) we're getting from the sun means going completely solar will never meet our demands. Unleash nuclear power; quit the NIMBYism and forcing the industry to use 40yr old designs and North America can be a net exporter of clean generated energy in 10 years.
"Wake Forest's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials"
Seriously? That's a little bit too long. MacGyver Photonics has a much nicer ring to it.
Ezekiel 23:20
What kind of solar panel is this? PV? Solar Thermal I guess would make more sense. Why would they not just spray the dye on at the factory? Does the dye degrade? Wash off in rain? If it's good for Africa, is it also good for everywhere else? It sounds like they were clinging to straws to tie in the manufacturing of the product with something local in Africa.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
"...researchers say the system can produce twice as much power as traditional flat-cell technology."
Sounds like a breakthrough technology, and more advances than other current available options out there, but why would it be benefit for only developing nations? I'm sure any cheap power source is needed every where, even here in the US.
gotta catch 'em all!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Most of the "Developing nations" out there are still having trouble with clean water, roads, and reliable power. So we're going to stick them with solar ? First, who is going to pay for it ? Second, if they aren't getting reliable power through more traditional means (like coal), how is this REALLY going to help them at all ?
While this sounds like a win-win, environmentally speaking (renewable energy using renewable plant materials) and TFA uses the term "environmentally friendly," it doesn't address whether the fiber based cells are using traditional photovoltaic material. If they are, there's still going to be a significant initial environmental negative, because AFAIK, photovoltaics are still pretty messy to produce. Though, if the new cells are cheaper and more efficient as the article says, it's still an improvement, albeit not a perfectly green one.
This page indicates that indium tin oxide is still used in the solar panel. Indium has got to be removed because it is an extremely expensive, worth over $500/kg, and it is rare and unsustainable. It's used to make transparent conductors. If we could make some kind of plastic as a transparent conductor, that would be helpful.
Or we could skip the solar panels and build a steam engine.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
my tech is extremely advanced
what i do is a store the construction information for a prefab nanoscale solar cell set up in a small protected sphere. with a little coaxing, the information stored in the sphere will begin assembling the solar array in a progressive manner that scales well in a fractal pattern that also maximizes solar exposure, including proprietary feedback mechanisms that is highly sensitive intellectual proerty. the solar assemblies are also plant based like the pokeberry mentioned one and are easily configured to various 3rd world climates
the solar technology i employ even cleans up greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and converts it into oxygen, water, and an energy storage compound which also happens to taste delicious. this solar product can be utilized as an energy source by 3rd world peoples in a variety of ways, including direct reconstitution to carbon via a high energy oxygen based deconstruction process that also produces a form of heating, or- get this, this is the part i'm most proud of- the 3rd world residents can consume the solar arrays DIRECTLY and their own bodies can utilize the energy storage medium for biological sustenance
how come nobody thought of this tech before?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
While I have no doubt that the technology works, FiberCell Inc's (creators of these pokeberry juice enhanced cells) website has only generic information, and an investor 'Give us money!' shtick, and that's it. No list to retailers, no list of available products.
According to their sales pitch data, their cells operate on par with polycrystalline silicon based cells, with a significantly superior output in lower light conditions.
Considering the issues with wind, rain, (and hail!) that menace my area, I would be very interested in this solar technology, but I can find no pricing data with which to compare it to costs of polycrystalline silicon, nor can I find any lists of distributors from which I can purchase a sample.
Thus, this press release stinks mightily of a PR stunt, intended to increase investor attention. That tells me that the technology is not yet ready for primetime.
Is it just me or does this seem like an odd perspective to this story?
I thought that the Civil War technology to make die out of Pokeberries was about the least interesting part of the story, but for some reason the writer chose to focus on the berries instead of the innovative fiber-based solar cells – odd?
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f-ing Peace Corps." - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky
I expected reading this article to call this hype... there are many new discoveries reported here on Slashdot, especially with regard to optical technologies like solar cells and LCD displays, that are interesting and potentially useful... if they were at all practical or near market ready.
This looked like another one, except upon reading what there is of the article and web page it just looks like the company building these has no PR or web staff, and seems completely focused on technology. Their web page looks like it was made by an intern, and they don't seem to have supplied much in the way of exciting facts or sound bites to the reporter, leaving them to provide some basic facts and fill in some boilerplate hyperbole: "Could Provide Low-Cost Solar for Developing Nations".
From the looks of the technology, the basic principles were discovered prior to 2007 and a patent filed about then. Likely the patent was just granted. The company that is researching this stuff formed then, got a round of funding, and started delivering prototypes and test types.
As of now they seem to be creating and testing whole assemblies, IE solar panels you can put outside and use for electricity.
This is interesting because it means this isn't a lab curiosity.. they haven't demonstrated an effect in the lab, they've actually managed to develop it into a form that is nearing mass production capability.
So why is this interesting for those of us not in the third world? Well, that bit about "developing nations" is an attempt to get people to relate to what the tech is good for.... possibly because wide implementation of solar power needs more than just good cells to work, it requires a massive change in infrastructure to distribute power or a major change on a per home basis to store and use the power in your own house. That's not as much of a problem in third world countries which have no reliable power anyway, and where people would be happy to have solar during the day.
Third world comments aside, if the efficiency curve they're measuring is correct, these cells are a disruptive technology for the solar cell business. They're cheap to produce, relatively environmentally friendly, flexible, light... basically an excellent solar cell technology that everyone can use everywhere it's sunny.
If these work out and get into mass production (the technology company making them is partnered with a couple manufacturing firms already) then you'll see a lot of them around everywhere, because they'll remove a couple major barriers to wider solar cell use... cost and the fragility of existing cells.
Of course, odds are this is another cool announcement that won't go anywhere, but at least there are indications of some substance here and there...
Erik
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100429141430.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+(ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News)
The summary link is to a blog, which gives a short not too useful summary and then links to this Science Daily article.
I like how Science Daily includes APA and MLA citation information at the bottom of their articles. Also, it seems like the fiber-based solar cells this article is about are the development, and the purple pokeberries are one of many possible natural or artificial dyes which could be used.
It's a shame that the article tells us nothing about how the fiber-based solar cells work. Here is some information on that:
http://www.fibercellinc.com/Technology.html
The patent is with the EPO (european parliament patent office), so if anyone could find that, it'd be rad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOzaVpgeHJg
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
If Slashdot would write an article about every single innovation in solar cells it would probably be several articles per week.
How many postgraduate students are working on this at the moment around the world? 1000? 10.000? 100.000?
The thing that I wonder, as an amateur with no chemistry and very little physics under my belt, is whether there is there a solid theory that guides these attempts at making better solar cells, or whether they are mostly tinkering away in the lab, perhaps in search of such a theory.
If they are tinkering, this is just like another monkey on a typewriter producing another random word or two of Shakespeare. Then every new advance is just that -- an interesting looking dead end.
But if these people have a solid theory this is one incremental step closer to cheap abundant energy for everyone.
...a common weed, scientists created a cheap yet highly efficient solar system
A cheap and efficient solar system - guys?! Come on!
Yeah, a solar system of cheap weed!
A solar system populated with Chinese labor?
Duuuuuuude! A solar system made out weed! That's soooo knarly!
I mean let's go!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Current photovoltaics are expected to last for 30 years; what is the functional lifetime of this device? It seems to me that plastic and pokeberry dye won't last anywhere near as long as silicone.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Zero technical information. The obvious question is HOW does device create electricity from sunlight. Is the dye just a booster, or does it actuallly create the electricity? They need a better writer, one who has some curiosity and perhaps a science degree.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
now the cat in the hat gets free 'leccy forever.
All your pokeberry are belong to us.
Pokeberry, I choose you! Rick Astley used Rollout! It's super effective! Pokeberry has fainted!
This is not good news for weed killer spray companies. Anti-weed-killer environmental protest in 3... 2... 1...
Is it just me or does this seem like an odd perspective to this story?
I thought that the Civil War technology to make die out of Pokeberries was about the least interesting part of the story
So wait...
there's civil war technology which people are killing off with Pokeberries?
Or did someone in the civil war era figure out how to use Pokeberries to make molds and similar toolings for casting?
Bow-ties are cool.
The best subset of pokeberry for power-generation: obviously, pikachuberry.
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
This sounds very much like a Dye-sensitized solar cell, also known as Graetzel cell.
Unfortunately that means that the new invention does probably share the same (unsolved) long term stability problems.
js christ, more inhabitant spam. can we get a section for these so we can ignore them?
Mooseberries.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Do the snozberries really taste like snozberries?
I declined to invest in a pokeberry startup... sometimes life just mocks those who don't take risks
Facts are useless, they can be used to prove anything.
You can't get rid of it. We have truckloads here I spray, they still come back here and there, from the birds eating the berries I guess. I really *do* wish we had some good uses/ a ready market for some of the more common weeds, poke, multiflora rose, privet, stuff like that. Poke has to be one of the easiest things to grow.
With that said, OK, I looked at their page. Chump change as far as big business goes to set up mass quantities production facilities. Let's see what happens, if this is yet another amazing solar breakthrough that just disappears. We've had dozens, freaking dozens, over the last decade. Breakthrough after breakthrough..poof..disappears.
Just what they are spending daily to try and clean up one leaky oil well would build several big factories with this new solar tech a week. We've got a billion roofs out there sitting rotting shingles in the hot sun, they should be covered with solar panels by now, not just in the "developing" world, I mean all over.
When I first got into solar power in the late sixties I thought for sure by now this would be as common as anything..nope..same old centralized power monopolies. Some advances with commercial windpower, but solar is the tech that allows joe homeowner to actually own the means of production in a reasonable fashion, get independent or dang close, because all you need is the roof, which you already have, no giant wind tower needed.
With a name like that they are just begging people to condecingly dissmissing their reserch. Also, obligitory xkcd reference met...
wikipedia article calls it Pokeweed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokeweed
... in the same sentence? yeah, right, it will catch on like wildfire.
I read an article the other day about some villagers in a remote corner of Afghanistan. There was a large generator which had been given to them years before which was lying unused. Apparently they had used the gas that came with it, calculated that it would cost 20 cents per house per night to run it, and never fired it up again. They couldn't afford the gas, which anyway would have been difficult to transport. A donated solar panel installation, on the other hand, might actually do them some good.
The problem with this, solar panels, is that some sort of storage would be needed. Batteries require maintenance. Sure it's not hard but someone would have to do it.
Actually I support bringing solar power to more remote areas. I read an article in IEEE's Spectrum where people in south/southeast Asia built and put together small solar power systems, creating employment, then sold them to villagers. A villager with a work shop would be able to increase his/her income. Elsewhere I read how children could use lights to read thus increasing their education.
Perhaps serendipitously on the front page Spectrum has a link to the article Batteries That Go With the Flow "A new battery design promises to even out fluctuations in solar and wind power". RTFA though it will require more work.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Loss of transmission is on the order of 5-10% to transmit power halfway across the US even with our current outdated grid.
Yes, with our current grid. Because it's mostly, but not only, AC. HVDC has lower losses over long distances. However smaller scale alternative energy sources can be located closer to where the energy is used. Such as roof mounted PVs. Or wind turbines located on food crop farms. A Walmart in my area has a verticle windmill mounted on it's roof.
5: No, the point is that you are wrong about solar in every fundamental way. Nuclear power is a good idea. It is clean and efficient.
Nuclear power is dirty from cradle to grave, ie from the mining of it to the disposal of it. As for what the efficiency is studies on the EROEI, Energy Returned on Energy Invested, are all over the place depending on who did the study. Pro-nuclear groups say it is efficient while anti-nuclear groups claim it is inefficient.
Breeder reactors are the only way to solve the nuclear waste problem that we are already dealing with
While reprocessing reduces to quantity and half life of the fuel it also creates a lot of toxic chemicals.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I have hand dug out hundreds or even thousands of them over the past five years now. Mul;tiflora rose I spray first, then yank out the clumps with a heavy chain and a tractor. Privet I spray and mow close. A heavy blast of glyphosate works on poke, too, just I started out with zillions here, and finally had to admit defeat on my mechaincal physical weeding, I am just one guy, it was too much, so went to spray (reluctantly). Starting to get under control, but it has taken some years. Latest nasty weeds are corn buttercups, that multiple hits with 2,4-d seem to manage, and what I *think* is nutsedge and man I hope we don't have that. According to the charts I should be a tad too far north, it's a subtropical invasive species from India, but it sure looks like it. Even heavy spray just bounces off, they have deep creeper roots and just keep coming back. Heavy multiple deep cultivation/rototilling sessions, then sit in the hot sun..a week later..it comes back. I mean..dang...never seen anything like it. I have had two samples looked at so far at the county level, plus all my online research, going for a third right to the main brains at the state ag college soon, I am going to physically drive several live samples stuck into big containers over there. This stuff is like underground kudzu. Poke is easy in comparison.
Apparently these guys developed an inferior product. Now they need to get some ROI for all that wasted R&D to pay off the IB's and VC's who demand to get their money back. What to do?
I know (says the marketing department) let's just coat this crap with some colourful waste product and call it sunshine. Then we'll ask for donations from the locals to send it across the globe over to some poor foreign suckers. Yes, that will work as the people paying for it won't be able to verify what we claim: works better then existing plate panels... nor disprove our bogus science: purple poke berries turn our sh*t product into gold.
This is not a product. If it was a product, they would market it to countries that need more electricity and have the money to pay for it. ie: the country of California.
Because if the electric car is going to take off in America and around the world... garage and remote charging stations with free power (like what they claim this does) is going to be all the rage.
When I reached the "Pokeberries" part I actually checked the date for April 1st.
But we dump it all in the ocean anyway. We don't have to think about it that way.
Look up methane digesters.
Deleted
I have found a very interesting source of information about the poke-berries.
My parser is a grammar nazi.