Stanford's New Solar Tech Harnesses Heat, Light

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a Stanford news release: "Stanford engineers have figured out how to simultaneously use the light and heat of the sun to generate electricity in a way that could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil. Unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels — which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises — the new process excels at higher temperatures. ... 'This is really a conceptual breakthrough, a new energy conversion process, not just a new material or a slightly different tweak,' said Nick Melosh, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research group. 'It is actually something fundamentally different about how you can harvest energy.' And the materials needed to build a device to make the process work are cheap and easily available, meaning the power that comes from it will be affordable." The abstract for the researchers' paper is available at Nature.

Comments

compete with what, now?

[Tumbleweed]

Compete with oil? I'm going to guess that they mean with coal, as oil is rarely used as a fuel for power generating stations. Coal and natural gas, yeah, oil - not so much. In the U.S., anyway, only around 1% is generated by petroleum, whereas coal is about 45% and natural gas is about 23%.

Re:Interesting, but not yet practical

[Chris Burke]

Impractical for personal residence deployment and use, but I'd certainly call a big solar power generation station providing energy "everyday use". Or at least, I'd like for it to be an everyday use. Much like efficient windmills are much too large for my backyard, yet provide me with clean energy everyday.

Re:I agree

[qoncept]

These "overzealous" researchers are, in your overarching lump sum, the same people who create new technologies that do make it to market. You know for every new technology that makes it, there are several that don't. Is your solution to stop all the research so all the failures will stop breaking your heart?

I live in one of the better parts of the country for solar power, and an installation would cost more than $15,000 to even begin to be practical.

What part of the country is this where putting 15 grand in to your house is such an outrageous sum? A new roof, HVAC, siding, remodeling a room.. pretty much anything you do to your house is going to have a similar cost. And I guarantee none of them would give you the same return until you sell the house.

Re:It's all for VC money

[jusdisgi]

Recent grid solar installations are far more efficient and cost-effective than their counterparts from five years ago. I'd say that suggests all this research is going somewhere. What, you thought that each of these announcements about laboratory successes would instantly result in a new product on the shelf of your local Wal-Mart?