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Solar Cell Inventor Wins Millennium Prize
adeelarshad82 writes "The inventor of a new type of solar cell won the Finnish state and industry-funded, €800,000 ($1.07 million), Millennium Technology Prize. According to the foundation, Michael Graetzel's dye-sensitized solar cells, known as Graetzel cells, could be a significant contributor to the future energy technologies due to their excellent price-performance ratio."
http://teachers.usd497.org/agleue/Gratzel_solar_cell%20assets/instructions%20for%20making%20the%20gratzel%20cell.htm
Not yet, some reports have shown promise in stabilizing the dyes for long term exposure but I don't think there are any commercial cells available yet. Also I'm not sure how much of a panacea they are, according to the articles I can find most of the lab cells use ruthenium and platinum, any solution using trace elements is unlikely to bring a mass scale replacement to our current fuels. That's why I think we need to concentrate on stored energy wind farms and collecting solar/thermal plants, neither require exotic trace materials (some "rare" earths for more efficient magnets, but nothing on a gram/kW scale compared to any of the photovoltaic solutions).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I live in a cold climate - it is use energy or freeze
actually, Investing in insulation is ten times cheaper than buying energy. a passive house has been build in very cold climates.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Oh FFS, I'm a Finn and I really don't have any problem with this. In the summary you'll find the price is "Finnish state and industry-funded". And the price is biannual, 400k€ annually is not really that much for the state, even if it were completely "my tax money".
You're over-simplifying things.
There is an optimum in every climate. Here's how it works:
You choose a certain period. Say, 30 years.
You check the price of the energy. You check the price of different kinds of insulation.
Insulation is a one-time investment, energy costs money all the time. You check which is the cheapest after 30 years.
In many houses an investment in insulation is worth the money and will pay itself back. But in some cases, the quality of the insulation is already such that it's just too expensive to add even more insulation to save those few euros/dollars/whatevers in energy.
> Have this guy's solar cells left the lab yet?
In some small applications, yes, but nothing serious. There are several reason:
1) the electrolyte is a liquid. It loses efficiency in cold weather, and eventually stops working.
2) well before that limit, expansion and contraction is a serious issue and large-scale structures have problems with sealing and leakage.
3) the electrolyte dissolves silver. It can be used for small-scale systems where the cost of platinum is not a major factor compared to construction costs, but for large low-cost solutions silver is the only practical solution.
4) the solvents used to mix the dye with the TiO degrade plastics.
None of these is unsolvable. It just needs another decade of work. I install mSi panels now, I suspect I will be installing DSSCs in 15 years.
Maury