Solar Breakthrough Could Provide Power Without Solar Cells

An anonymous reader tips a University of Michigan news release about the creation of what's being called an "optical battery" that could lead to the use of solar power without traditional solar cells (abstract). Quoting: "Light has electric and magnetic components. Until now, scientists thought the effects of the magnetic field were so weak that they could be ignored. What Rand and his colleagues found is that at the right intensity, when light is traveling through a material that does not conduct electricity, the light field can generate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than previously expected. Under these circumstances, the magnetic effects develop strength equivalent to a strong electric effect. 'This could lead to a new kind of solar cell without semiconductors and without absorption to produce charge separation,' Rand said. 'In solar cells, the light goes into a material, gets absorbed and creates heat. Here, we expect to have a very low heat load. Instead of the light being absorbed, energy is stored in the magnetic moment. Intense magnetization can be induced by intense light and then it is ultimately capable of providing a capacitive power source.'"

Comments

I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[unassimilatible]

for 30 years. New efficiency levels, solar paint, you name it, every time we're on the cusp of solving the energy problem. Every time, I get excited, and yet nothing ever really seems to come from it, to quote Tom Petty.
>
So call me jaded, but I'm going to wait until I see shipping products before I try to kick the football again, Lucy.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is that it's still cheap to get fossil fuels.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Compaqt]

It's awesome that they are (apparently) directly generating electricity. Much better than the quaint method of boiling water to turn turbines.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[h4rr4r]

Go to dow's website, you can order solar roof shingles today. Not what the article is about but a product that is surely less than 30 years old.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[by (1706743)]

Yeah, it's amusing that nuclear power reactors can use the same method as a 1800's steam engine.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[atheos]

nope, still vaporware "WHEN CAN WE GET SOLAR SHINGLES? Although they’re not available for sale yet, POWERHOUSE Solar Shingles will be available in select U.S. markets by the end of 2011"

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[h4rr4r]

Damn, I thought they had started shipping already. Sorry about that.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 5.5KW solar install and I find these stories "annoying" as well.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[TheLink]

Some progress but we're still behind in many ways: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/quantum-photosynthesis/

A leaf may not be as efficient as some solar panels when directly compared, but a leaf actually builds itself. So the leaf might be more analogous to quantum tech "solar panels" plus factories building the panels, converting the raw materials, etc.

Some plants can even grow from a single leaf.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[smelch]

Yes, what would be great is if fossil fuels were really expensive and we actually had an energy crisis. We won't get efficient panels until all the factories are shut down.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[i kan reed]

The focus fusion guys aren't. They believe they can use high energy helium nuclei can be used to create net-positive electricity induction. It would be cool to go off of steam.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[stg]

Might be for Dow, but looking for a couple of minutes on Google shows several companies that sell them.

i.e.: a blog from 2005/2006 and he had solar shingles back then.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been reading about it for 30 years, too. .As opposed to you, every time I read a story on some new solar power technology, I think, "Just another exercise in futility" since once some engineer (or accountant) comes along and points out the small amount of energy any solar technology produces compared to the startup and maintenance costs, the developers are bitch-slapped upside the head with reality.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Steneub]

Which is the only reason I'm against Nuclear Power. Boiling water is stone age comparatively - no matter how efficient.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[icebraining]

That's because they don't pay their due externalities.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[nitehawk214]

... It would be cool to go off of steam.

I see what you did there.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but wiring a leaf -- or a tree -- into the grid is kind of tricky.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not 'trouble'. That is the reason you get to sit around in an office all day writing bullshit on slashdot.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[zmooc]

Nothing comes from it? During the last year, in most western countries below 50 degrees latitude, producing your own electricity using PV has become cheaper than electricity from the net if you count the taxes for the net electricity. And that's without government funding. Why did you think Google invests so much in that solar project of theirs? For their image? No, they're probably simply in it for the money.

The production capacity for PV panels already is 1/18th of the capacity we'd need for the entire world to produce all it's electricity with PV and replace all PV panels every 25 years.

But you're right; obviously new efficiency levels don't take off. Nor does solar paint. There's a reason for that and that's that only thing that counts is price per watt since at the moment we have more than enough surfaces exposed to the sun. Efficiency simply doesn't count. Most of those extremely efficient PV panels use rather rare materials; they're simply not worth the money nor will they ever be. Such things are interesting only in situations where weight (think sattelites) or efficiency (think airplanes or cars in the solar challenge etc.) matters a lot.

The problem isn't a lack of solar breakthroughs. We don't need them, the solar PV panels we have now are perfectly fine if not great. What we desperately need now is a breakthrough in energy storage so we can get through the night.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Belial6]

30 years ago, it took more energy to produce a solar panel then what it would produce in it's lifetime. Today that is not the case. That achievement alone is monumental. Your problem is that you can't see the connection between the announcement and the release of these products.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[raygundan]

We've been over the energy- and cost-payback thresholds for solar power for quite some time. Even PV, which isn't quite as cost-effective as the solar thermal setups, has energy payback time in the 1-3 year range (depending on tech) and financial payback time well within warranty (with wide variation due to local insolation and electric rates).

Which is why we went ahead and stuck some on our roof. We're two years in, and four years from financial payback, and the system has a 25-year warranty. We're in a nearly best-case situation in Arizona, mind you-- our insolation is nearly double what it is in the midwest, and our primary load (air conditioning) tracks quite nicely with how sunny it is. But you can make your money back even in the pacific northwest.

The tipping point has come and gone, and it's only going to get gradually cheaper from this point on.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[i kan reed]

Actually, you didn't because focus fusion's experiments require minimum temperatures of a half billion degrees kelvin to acheive z-pinch.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Rei]

I've been reading about solar breakthroughs for 30 years

30 years ago, photovoltaic panels cost almost $40 per watt.
Today, the cheap ones are about $2 per watt.

Mods, how is ignorance insightful?

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Duradin]

To paraphrase Ballmer: "Externalities! Externalities! Externalities!"

It's turtles all the way down, no one is paying all their due externalities.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Rei]

The average energy payback time for silicon is 1-3 years. For thin film, it's a couple months.

Try again.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[nedlohs]

Comparitively to what? What better method do you have to turn heat into electricity?

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[RicktheBrick]

Go Michigan. This site http://peswiki.com/energy/News reported this story yesterday. It also reported a story from Michigan State University http://pesn.com/2011/04/14/9501810_Wave_Disk_Engine_Sips_Fuel/ about a new type of engine. So two big announcement about energy and they are both developed in Universities in the state of Michigan.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[raygundan]

Yeah, there's a solar-shingle install on a model home just down the street from us. I couldn't tell you the brand-- but they're very clearly available.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Slime-dogg]

WOOOOOOOSH

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[raygundan]

He's hoping so hard for "breakthroughs" he's entirely missed four decades of gradual progress.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah where have you been? The most exciting one to me are the spray on coatings. Yeah they are less efficient but they cost radically less. The price per kilowatt is more in line with coal and other sources except after the payback they keep charging you for the coal and nuclear power. And yes they are producing the spray on panels right now so I'm assuming you don't watch the news. Even Slashdot covered it. Traditional cells have a limited potential because they are made in a similar process to what computer chips are made. The future is in the new concepts like spray on cells, solar windows and blinds and even solar driveways and walkways. we can provide most of our residential needs without taking up an extra sq ft of land.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Rogue974]

That is part of the cycle of things. I work at a place that makes Bio-diesel among other things. When gas hit $4.00 a gallon a few year back, we had tons of people ready to invest money in our plant to expand our ability to make Bio-diesel and places ready to sign multi-year contracts to buy what we could make.. Then the cost of gas started to drop and no one wanted to invest money to expand our capabilities and we stopped making Bio-diesel. Gas prices back up, we can't make it fast enough and are considering expanding production and contracts are back on the table. Part of it is government subsidies as well as outside investors.

The tech people do the same. Last time gas got up to $4.00, there were all kinds of new techs being looked at, gas prices drop and all the tech is set aside and forgotten about. Some of it gets picked back up, some of it is sitting on a shelf and the person who did the initial R&D is no longer at the company so it is forgotten about. Or the company hired people to develop the tech and then prices drop, their money ran out, they laid everyone off and are now trying to get it going again, but don't have the resources.

If gas prices would get high and stay high, then new techs would emerge to draw us away from foreign oil. Hate to sound conspiracy nut, but all the oil people know this and gas prices can't stay high for long extended periods without people feeling the pain too much and new tech getting developed. OPEC has the ability to manipulate the market by controlling production and releasing more barrels.

Eventually we will really run out and then prices will go up and stay up and then the techs won't get put away and actually be developed. So while this idea may not pan out, some day an idea will pan out that is huge and will shift things away from foreign oil, but as long as the prices come back down in time to stop them from finishing the R&D on the cool new energy saver stuff and get it to market, people will keep falling back to oil as it is cheaper and what we are used to.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Yeah, it's amusing that nuclear power reactors can use the same method as a 1800's steam engine.

Amusing more that HydroElectric Dams can use the same method as a 200 B.C.E. Water Wheel.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

what's your alternative, genius? is your next post a flying car and jetpack gem? shut up and engineer it.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

SHINGLES, they do nothing!

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[by (1706743)]

Since when did calling something "amusing" count as criticism?

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[demonbug]

WOOOOOOOSH

Yes, you're right, sometimes the steam lines leak.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Defenestrar]

Why? You just eat it and let your autonomic nervous system handle the rest.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[killmenow]

Right here on slashdot even

"Breakthrough." Slashdot submitters/editors keep using that word. I don't think it means what they think it means.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Amouth]

The average energy payback time for silicon is 1-3 years. For thin film, it's a couple months.

Try again.

not by the time it reaches joe sixpack hobbyist.. i would have done a conversion years ago if i could.. sadly my house is situated in about the worst way for it.

If i ever build my retirement house it will be self sufficient. a mix of solar and water power

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[CaptSlaq]

Is this before or after the taxpayer subsidy that many places hand you?

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[catmistake]

It is even more monumental when you consider that solar development, compared to nearly every other energy solution, has been operating on a shoe string budget (no massive injection of government resources to develop it). The opposite makes nuclear energy that much less impressive (i.e. nuclear power is only "cheap" because governments have thrown hundreds and hundreds of billions dollars at it for 70 years).

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[mldi]

Pixie dust and fairy tales?

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[DigiShaman]

Imagine for a moment that warp-drive was invented, and it was all powered by a steam engine inside a spaceship! **head asplodes**

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[ZosX]

I keep trying to go off of steam, but those $10 deals keep suckering me back in.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[element-o.p.]

Boiling water is stone age comparatively - no matter how efficient.

Ummm...with all due respect, so what?

I'm results oriented. If you can as-good-as or better efficiency with stone-age tech, then why not go with what works? If there was a high-tech way to directly generate electric power from a nuclear reactor, but it only worked at, say, 5% efficiency, but you could boil water to generate electricity at 10% efficiency (and I have no idea what realistic numbers are; I'm just making these up) then why on earth would you choose the high-tech method instead (unless the high tech method had the advantage of being less complicated/more reliable/more clean/etc.)? That's just asinine.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[CrimsonAvenger]

During the last year, in most western countries below 50 degrees latitude, producing your own electricity using PV has become cheaper than electricity from the net if you count the taxes for the net electricity.

Is that including the subsidies and tax credits you get for buying solar? Last I checked, where I live, they amount to rather more than I paid in income taxes this past year.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

What's exciting is that this is a total breakthrough in material science. Its a fundamental shift in how they think about harnessing light energy. It's not just more efficient or cheaper, its NEW :)

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[hey!]

Gosh, think what life would be like if our ancestors took this attitude. "Yeah, they've been saying how this iron stuff is going to take over from bronze for centuries now, but every time somebody scrapes together enough iron to cast a sword, when they take the mold apart it comes out brittle as pottery."

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Compaqt]

Just going out on a limb here, but I don't suppose they use distilled water for the steam, do they?

What about dissolved minerals? Don't they gum up the works after a while?

And oxidation?

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[jamesh]

They're trying to introduce a carbon tax here in AU which should make energy production with a high CO2 impact more expensive. Despite the fact that opposition to it is very loud and stupid, it seems like it might actually happen. I think the biggest problem with it is due to the various Free Trade Agreements, overseas products are implicitly subsidised because they don't have to pay the tax on the energy used to create them and we aren't allowed to tax them.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[ChrisMaple]

If all the factories are shut down, how will you make panels?

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I would use the same steam over and over with some type of condenser.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[zmooc]

That's excluding subsidies an tax credits. However, the electricity prices keep hovering around the breakeven point so the case is not as clear as I said it was.

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[WalksOnDirt]

Is this before or after the taxpayer subsidy that many places hand you?

Before.

No, wait, after.

Wait...how does that affect energy payback?

Re:I've been reading about solar breakthroughs

[badkarmadayaccount]

Stirling cycle, among others. Thermochemical hydrogen + industrial sized fuel cells would give energy storage flexibility, and the possibility of creating a viable fossil fuel replacement (note: I think hydrogen in vehicles sucks donkey balls) via ammonia generation (easy to store, technology similar to LPG conversions for consumer vehicles would suffice, though I admit I haven't done the math), or hydrogenating and cracking biomass derivatives for higher energy value.

Sounds promising

[Anonymous Coward]

New physics is *exactly* what's needed if the grandiose dreams of sci-fi are to become practical. This sounds like a tiny thing to allow cheaper solar power... What if a related effect then allows better fusion? Ah, then things are going to be good. We're running low on energy. We need this.

Re:Sounds promising

[mlts]

Bingo. Virtually everything we have and use on a daily basis has started in this manner where someone finds some phenomena which can be honed, researched, and turned into a viable product used daily.

Solar is important. Since nuclear power is essentially set back at least a decade, anything that gets us free from coal and oil is a must have, not just for global warming, but to prevent countries having to go to war for their dino juice stakes.

What will be the key breakthrough that will change everything will be the ability to have room temperature superconductors on a large scale, like Niven's Ringworld. This would mean that a solar array in Mexico could power a brewery in Alaska on one set of wires without worrying about significant current loss.

Re:Sounds promising

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bingo. Virtually everything we have and use on a daily basis has started in this manner where someone finds some phenomena which can be honed, researched, and turned into a viable product used daily."
There's the rub, *all* these phenomena you are thinking of were exploited within *years*, using early 20th century technology. The fact so little revolutionary science has been happening in decades really means it's the end for many, many things. No space colonies, no space elevators, and no asteroid mining either. The funny thing is, if we *did* find some energy / technology to allow that, well, we wouldn't NEED to!

Re:Sounds promising

[Rei]

You do realize that you're reading a forum where there are people posting comments from the middle of nowhere across the planet using a cell phone a fraction the size of a TI-85 which can get data connection rates out in the middle of the woods that blow away the modem speeds most people connected with in the 1990s, right?

Of course, it all depends on what your definition of a revolution is. Today's batteries store 4-5 times as much energy as those of two decades ago. Today's solar cells are a tenth the cost of those two decades ago. The cheapest ones are CdTe thin-films -- non-silicon. But thin-film silicon cells are now on the market. So are silicon cells with far higher efficiency than used to be available. A couple decades ago, a waterproof backpacking fabric meant polyurethane. Today, silnylon is passe at 1.1oz/m^3, when you've got cuben at 0.35oz/m^3. Two decades ago, digital cameras... wait, what digital cameras? Oh yeah, ones that cost $13,000 and were barely over 1 megapixel. I have a $750 digital camcorder which records 1080p 60fps at 24mbps H264 onto 32GB memory cards barely larger than my thumbnail. You know how many fields of technology had to advance to make that happen? And hey, how is that power getting to your house? In many areas, they're starting to rely on HVDC links, which are only affordable now because of recent huge advancements in thyristors. They're also allowing for ultra-compact high-power AC motors. What about medical tech? We now have prescription drugs on the market which can change your eye color. AIDS is no longer a deadly pandemic for people with health coverage, but a controllable syndrome. Remember how long it took to sequence the first human's DNA? Today's systems are 250,000 times faster. You can have your pets cloned and your children screened as embryos for genetic diseases. In pretty much every field, there have been massive advancements in technology. But some people are just completely blind to it because their *preferred* technologies don't exist, be they flying cars, space elevators (which are probably impossible on Earth anyway), etc.

Re:Sounds promising

[Anonymous Coward]

"You do realize that you're reading a forum where there are people posting comments from the middle of nowhere across the planet using a cell phone a fraction the size of a TI-85 which can get data connection rates out in the middle of the woods that blow away the modem speeds most people connected with in the 1990s, right?"

Yes, which is exactly what I'm saying. Things that are built, well, CAN be built. Talking about things that haven't been built for decades, CAN'T be built. that simple. Do I need to make it simpler?

None of your "revolutions" change a thing about our energy situation. Having a 1TB hard drive doesn't feed you or move mass around, or fly a 747, or fertilize the ground, or cure disease.

Re:Sounds promising

[TooMuchToDo]

You forgot about SpaceX developing the cheapest heavy lift vehicle to date, Falcon Heavy (which is most likely going to get humans to Mars). ;)

Re:Sounds promising

[Rei]

Really? Orders of magnitude pride reductions in solar, half an order of magnitude in batteries, practical HVDC, ultra-compact high-power AC motors... none of those things will change our energy situation?

Re:Sounds promising

[evilviper]

Since nuclear power is essentially set back at least a decade, anything that gets us free from coal and oil is a must have, not just for global warming, but to prevent countries having to go to war for their dino juice stakes.

Why do so many people use this nonsense arguement?

Oil != Coal

Getting rid of one won't rid us of the other. It won't even help just a little. We could eliminate all coal mining in favor of solar, yet we'd still go to war over oil supplies. The price of electricity could fall drastically, and $5/gallon oil would still be in high demand.

If you want to get off oil, do it, right now. Waiting until we get off coal is unnecessary, and merely an excuse to do nothing.

Re:Sounds promising

[deimtee]

Actually, with sufficient energy you can extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reduce it, combine with H from water, and eventually produce synthetic gasoline. Using the cheapest currently available energy, the cost works out to about $8 per gallon (US).
That's actual cost, not including taxes, so no way is it currently competitive with fossil oil. However it does set an upper limit for how high oil prices can go.

Re:Sounds promising

[evilviper]

People have said the same thing, many times before. Coal gasification was supposed to be price-competitive when gasoline reached $2.00/gal, but here we are. I have no doubt we'll see refining oil from atmospheric carbon + water also go nowhere long after we've exceeded the magic $8 price point.

Re:Sounds promising

[deimtee]

Given the free-falling US dollar, you could be right.
That analysis was done last year, so say, $8 a gallon in 2010 dollars, with power @ I think it was 10c per KWHr. Either way, test plants have demonstrated the chemistry involved. There is nothing esoteric in there. It is just a matter of scaling it up, as soon as it is cost effective.
Regarding coal, I think converting it to gasoline will be economical long before using CO2 for the carbon is (until you get to "peak coal"). It all comes down to needing cheap energy to do it.

Fun with Magnets!

[Linsaran]

So how long until this becomes practical on a personal scale? I really want to see someone's ipod solar edition get stuck to a metal guardrail until the sun goes down.

Re:Fun with Magnets!

[wealthychef]

So how long until this becomes practical on a personal scale?

You must be new here.

Re:Fun with Magnets!

[Asic Eng]

So how long until this becomes practical on a personal scale?

Nobody knows, potentially never. It's just basic research, and it could be very interesting just for it's own sake. However they need to package it somehow, to give people an idea how basic research fits into overall scientific and technological progress. It does fit there, and of course we constantly get advances which were rest on basic research done 30 years ago.

However if you want to use something now - you can just ignore this news. On the other hand: if magnetic effects of light interest you - cool that's a very exciting discovery for you.

The future's so bright...

[Itesh]

I gotta wear shades!

Re:The future's so bright...

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, just listened to that last night.

Re:The future's so bright...

[Anonymous Coward]

YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH

Re:Amazing..

[Anonymous Coward]

gotse link above mod down

Beyond the theoretical limit

[Geoffrey.landis]

The press office at U. Michigan has gone a long way from what they actually did to what they are speculating might be theoretically be possible. What they actually did was to predict a theoretical effect which has not yet been demonstrated. The press office then suggests that if you concentrate sunlight by a factor of a hundred million-- about seven hundred times higher than the theoretical concentration limit-- that this as-yet-unidentified material might be able to convert the light into electricity.
This is a bit speculative. They've predicted an interesting theoretical effect. Let's keep it at that, which is a nice piece of work, and leave the speculation to science fiction writers (like me).

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right that the concentration factor is about 100 million times (from ~1000W/m^2 sunlight at the Earth's surface), which is crazy high, but I wasn't aware there was a theoretical concentration limit. Where did you get that from and what's the rationale for it?

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

"Winners set goals, not limits!" That's what they'll say to get funding.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says they are using 10^7 W/cm^2. That should be enough for ionization by multi-photon absorption and some other effects of nonlinear optics. So I do not believe that they generated currents through the magnetic effect of light for now.

I wish I could access the paper.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

"leave the speculation to science fiction writers (like me)."

Oh, please link us to your website! Recommend us your best works!

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Mt._Honkey]

There's a theorem in imaging that says you cannot focus a light source to create a beam any more intense then at the surface of what is emitting the light. A consequence of this is that you cannot heat something to hotter than the surface temperature of the sun by concentrating sunlight in any way, even if you had a lens the size of the solar system. The spot size that you get will just keep getting bigger.

Incidentally if you were able to do this it would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, because you would be moving energy from a cooler object to a warmer one without doing any work, thus decreasing the total entropy of the universe.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nonsense, especially for coherent light sources. Think of a modern disk laser.
The gain medium (which is the source of the light) has a very large area, as this is good
for cooling. The beam that comes out is transversely single mode. If you send it through
the appropriate optics, you can create a diffraction limited spot that is about half a wavelength
in diameter.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

    Incidentally if you were able to do this it would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics...thus decreasing the total entropy of the universe.

Well, shit, we wouldn't want to do that!

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Jbcarpen]

There's a theorem in imaging that says you cannot focus a light source to create a beam any more intense then at the surface of what is emitting the light.

Really? If I have a translucent sphere with a smaller spherical source at the center, I have no way to determine by observation what the size of the inner source is, and thus no way to determine the surface intensity of the actual source. Furthermore, if I increase the size of the outer sphere, the apparent intensity at the surface decreases, but if I have a mirror array that fully encompasses it, the total collected flux remains the same.

Does that theorem perchance apply only to refraction not reflection?

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Jbcarpen]

Oh for the ability to edit...

Incidentally, it doesn't violate the 2nd law since the total entropy of the system (which includes the collector and the target) never decreases. The system as a whole is still losing energy.

Heck, for that matter, if you were to encompass the entire sun in an elliptical reflector with it at one focus, the other focus point would experience considerably more than the surface intensity. This system still loses energy though, since no reflector is perfect.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Mt._Honkey]

So to your first post, the claim is not that you cannot collect all the light nor that you are in fact able to focus it to exactly the intensity of the source. In your system the translucent sphere serves to prevent us from focusing the light anywhere near the intensity of the original source, so there is nothing wrong with that. Further, we would now find ourselves unable to focus the light to a spot any more intense than the surface intensity of the translucent sphere. If one were to envelop the whole system with collectors one could in principle collect all the light, just not at one spot.

To your 2nd post, "the system" must include the energy radiated away. The energy is not decreasing, but the entropy is. For a thought experiment, assume you are able to focus the light as tightly as you wish, and heat an object to greater than the source's temperature. You could then connect the two objects together and heat would flow from the hotter one to the cooler because that is what maximizes the entropy. Therefore we had violated the 2nd law when we heated the object above the source's temperature.

Your setup with the elliptical reflector would not work. Because the sun has finite size, you would find that at the other focus the light isn't directed to a single point, but at a sphere the same size as the sun. In this most extreme possible scenario, you could heat an object there to exactly the sun's temperature, but no higher. Within that sphere the light is not traveling radially inward to the focus, rather most of the light is missing the focus because it was emitted from the sun's surface, not its center.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Jbcarpen]

So to your first post, the claim is not that you cannot collect all the light nor that you are in fact able to focus it to exactly the intensity of the source. In your system the translucent sphere serves to prevent us from focusing the light anywhere near the intensity of the original source, so there is nothing wrong with that. Further, we would now find ourselves unable to focus the light to a spot any more intense than the surface intensity of the translucent sphere. If one were to envelop the whole system with collectors one could in principle collect all the light, just not at one spot.

If the collectors are all mirrors then I don't see why you couldn't. Admittedly, you can't possibly have a perfect reflector, but there's no reason you couldn't focus all the gathered energy on a single point. If there were a laws-of-thermodynamics reason for that to be impossible than you could never power a laser which has a focal point hotter than the surface of the sun with solar panels. But you can. Yes, that makes a conversion from light to electricity and back, but you lose energy doing so. Therefore it must be possible (within the laws of physics, if not current tech) to focus sunlight down to the same intensity with mirrors.

To your 2nd post, "the system" must include the energy radiated away. The energy is not decreasing, but the entropy is. For a thought experiment, assume you are able to focus the light as tightly as you wish, and heat an object to greater than the source's temperature. You could then connect the two objects together and heat would flow from the hotter one to the cooler because that is what maximizes the entropy. Therefore we had violated the 2nd law when we heated the object above the source's temperature.

would heat flow from the hotter to the colder? Yes. However, it will also radiate outwards from the hotter object in every other direction too. The total entropy is still increasing, it's just doing it more slowly. Congradulations, you just discovered insulation. Homebuilders everywhere thank you.

Your setup with the elliptical reflector would not work. Because the sun has finite size, you would find that at the other focus the light isn't directed to a single point, but at a sphere the same size as the sun. In this most extreme possible scenario, you could heat an object there to exactly the sun's temperature, but no higher. Within that sphere the light is not traveling radially inward to the focus, rather most of the light is missing the focus because it was emitted from the sun's surface, not its center.

Ok, the elliptical reflector only matches the surface temperature. I'd still like to see the proof that something that works better is impossible. You have a link to something with the math? A thought... If I focus a reflector (arbitrarily size) at a point epsilon above the surface of the sun, haven't I just harnessed radiation from the sun to cause a point (not on the surface) to be hotter than it's surface?

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[ChrisMaple]

Your example of a laser breaks some hidden assumptions in the claim that focussing cannot make a beam more intense than the source. Alas, my knowledge is inadequate to make an explanation. Instead, I'll point out that we're talking about solar power, and that the diffuse nature of sunlight is very different from laser light. No scheme involving only focussing (i.e. no energy storage or conversion to other forms of energy, etc.) can make diffuse, unpolarized light (close enough to sunlight) more intense than the source.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[ChrisMaple]

The case of a transparent sphere is different from a translucent sphere. With a transparent sphere and a tiny light source at its center, the light at the surface of the sphere is ordered, directional (normal to the surface of the sphere within the tolerance caused by the size of the source). That directionality allows all its light to be focussed back to a spot almost as tiny as the source. You can tell by looking at it that the source is not the surface.

With a translucent sphere, the light at the surface is unordered, omnidirectional. All the light coming out cannot be focussed to a size smaller than the surface of the sphere, any attempt to do so transmits at most only the amount proportional to the ratio of the area destination to the source. The fact observation provides no clue to the actual size of the source is all you need to know to conclude that you can't focus the light back to the size of the source.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Angst Badger]

There's a theorem in imaging that says you cannot focus a light source to create a beam any more intense then at the surface of what is emitting the light. A consequence of this is that you cannot heat something to hotter than the surface temperature of the sun by concentrating sunlight in any way, even if you had a lens the size of the solar system. The spot size that you get will just keep getting bigger.

That's true, but it only applies to imaging optics. Non-imaging optics, hyperbolic concentrators being one of the commoner cases, are not subject to this limitation. If I'm remembering right -- it's been about 25 years -- there was pioneering work done at the University of Chicago in the late 80's using hyperbolic concentrators to achieve concentrations considerably above those of the surface of the sun. This doesn't violate the Second Law because you only get the amount of light that falls into the collector, minus losses due to absorption and scattering. There are limits to non-imaging concentrators, too, but those revolve around the refractive index of the reflector material, which limits the range of useful hyperbolic profiles and thus the level of concentration achieved. Back when I was paying closer attention to this area, the highest-performing concentrators were using corundum, which is a tad pricey for large-scale work.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Kim0]

Making sun light hotter than the Sun is possible by using a concentrator with a high index of refraction, such as sapphire.
This is allowed by the 2nd law of thermodynamics because light is reflected, spread, and lost outside the concentrated zone, thus increasing the total entropy.

Kim0+

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

Lightning is produced by solar energy. The temperature of lightning bolt is around 30000 degrees. Does lightning violate the second law?

      Imagine that you have a bunch of solar cells that together power a black light (UV light). The temperature of the filament of a black light is around 12000 degrees. Does this violate the second law?

      As far as the magnifying glass is concerned...

Assume the focal ratio is f.
Assume the radius of the lens is r.
The focal length would be 2*r*f.
Assume the angular size of the sun is a. (about 1/120 radians)
The angular size of the image of the sun would be 2*r*f*a.
The radius of the image of the sun would be r*f*a.
Assume the solar constant is s. (about 1400 Watts/meter^2)
The amount of solar power hitting the lens is pi*r^2*s.
The amount of power hitting the image of the sun is about the same.
The power per unit area hitting the image is

pi*r^2*s/(pi*(r*f*a)^2) = s/f^2/a^2.

Assuming the image of the sun is a black body, it would radiate this power according the the formula

Radiated Power per unit area = sigma*T^4

where sigma is the Stefan Boltzmann constant.

So,

sigma*T^4 = s/f^2/a^2

If we used a lens with focal ratio 1.4, then

T = (s/f^2/a^2/sigma)^(1/4)
    = (1400 /120^2/1.4^2/(5.67e-8))^(1/4)
    = 3700 degrees.

So the poster seems to be correct about not being able to focus enough solar power using an ordinary lens to increase the image temperature above the temperature of the surface of the sun. Moving the lens to Mercury would make the solar constant, s, 6 times larger but the angular size of the sun, a, would increase by a factor of sqrt(6), so that would change the temperature of the image.

This line of reasoning does make me think that there may be a way to prove that the image temperature cannot exceed the surface temperature of the sun by using the second law of thermodynamics, but I don't see what the proof would be.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

Oops.

Should have said "Moving the lens to Mercury would make the solar constant, s, 6 times larger but the angular size of the sun, a, would increase by a factor of sqrt(6), so that would NOT change the temperature of the image."

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

Laws are meant to be broken. Lisa Simpson could do it I bet.

Re:Beyond the theoretical limit

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a theorem in imaging that says you cannot focus a light source to create a beam any more intense then at the surface of what is emitting the light. A consequence of this is that you cannot heat something to hotter than the surface temperature of the sun by concentrating sunlight in any way, even if you had a lens the size of the solar system. The spot size that you get will just keep getting bigger.

    Incidentally if you were able to do this it would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, because you would be moving energy from a cooler object to a warmer one without doing any work, thus decreasing the total entropy of the universe.

That's stupid. The 2nd law just means there will be losses in doing it. You can turn it into a new "source" that is more intense. It just must 1) have a smaller surface area 2) have a lower total energy as the contrating device will dissipate some
If what you are saying were true, you couldn't concentrate light _at all_.

Re:Amazing..

[icebike]

And it must be focused to an intensity of 10 million watts per square centimeter.

That ought to be enough to melt the glass, don't you think?

Wait, what?

[pushing-robot]

Electromagnetism consists of equal parts electricity and magnetism?

You mean... That fool Maxwell was right?

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Electromagnetism consists of equal parts electricity and magnetism?

You mean... That fool Maxwell was right?

Damn straight! And he made a mean cup of coffee at his house, too!

Re:Wait, what?

[mevets]

What happens to EM radiation if you remove the M? My physics is zero; I kinda get photon-electron pinball game, but if you bleed the magnetic power away, what happens to rest of it?

[ps. sorry if my tourettes addled puppy chimes in, he seems to have lost his way home and soiled himself]

Re:Wait, what?

[Josh Triplett]

You can't have E without M. Magnetism just comes from relativistic effects on electricity. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_electromagnetism for an example.

Re:Wait, what?

[JSBiff]

Isn't a static electric charge an example of E without M?

I know you can't have a magentic field without an electric field, but is that really a two-way relationship?

Re:Wait, what?

[pclminion]

Isn't a static electric charge an example of E without M?

What is a static charge? I can choose a reference frame where the charge is in motion, and thus produces a magnetic field. If you look carefully at the fundamental equations of electromagnetism, you see things like "the force on the charge is proportional to the velocity of the charge," and "the induced magnetic field is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux."

Both of these statements immediately imply the question in whose reference frame are we to measure the velocity of the charge or the rate of change of magnetic flux? In one frame to another the velocity is different, as is the rate of change of flux. But no matter what reference frame you pick, the particle does the same thing. This means that the electrical force and magnetic force are actually the same force, but they appear to be different when you choose some particular reference frame in which to measure them. You could have chosen a frame in which both fields took on different values, yet the net effect on the particle is the same.

It is relativity which causes the apparent splitting of the one unified force (electromagnetism) into two different forces (electricity and magnetism). You cannot have one without the other, or rather, you can have as much or as little of one as you want, depending what frame you measure in.

They are the same and can't be separated.

Re:Wait, what?

[pclminion]

"the induced magnetic field is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux."

Quoting myself there... Obviously, what I meant to say is the induced electric field, not the induced magnetic field.

Re:Wait, what?

[CCarrot]

I know you can't have a magentic field without an electric field, but is that really a two-way relationship?

Actually, you can't. A magnetic field induces an electric field across conductive elements proportional to its strength and the conductors' position relative to the magnetic field (and the right hand rule, of course). It's the basis for many measurement tools.

The reason you don't constantly get zapped by the earth's magnetic field is that a) it's pretty weak, and b) you're not that great a conductor (sorry if I dashed some dreams there)

If you were silly enough to hug a strong enough electromagnet, you could theoretically die by electrocution since the induced voltage across your body could be large enough to induce significant current flow.

Re:Wait, what?

[mevets]

The article implies that the 100Million times stronger magnetic field is where the power is tapped from; thus it would have to weaken the field. What happens to the light?

Re:Wait, what?

[CCarrot]

Bah, should uncross my eyes before replying. Didn't see the "can't", thought you said "can". Sorry, my bad!

Re:Wait, what?

[pclminion]

The article implies that the 100Million times stronger magnetic field is where the power is tapped from; thus it would have to weaken the field. What happens to the light?

It ceases to exist. There is no law of "conservation of light." It's okay for light to disappear.

Re:Wait, what?

[marcosdumay]

On EM radiation the electric field is what causes the magnetic field, and the magnetic field is what causes the electric field. The radiation started somewhere, at the source there were some actual charged particles under acceleration, but everywhere else it is one field that makes the other exist.

If you tap the energy from one field, the other one will get weaker "trying" to maintain the relationship and you'll end up tapping all the energy and making they both go away.

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It oscillates between all E and all M much like a pendulum oscillates between potential and kinetic energy. So if you remove the one you have already removed the other.

If you want to get super fancy and technical, there is really only one thing going on - photons. In the Newtonian world it looks like two separate forces, E and M, but in special relativity there is a single electromagnetic force. It just looks like one or the other depending on your frame of reference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_electromagnetism_and_special_relativity

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't piss him off, if I were you. Reportedly, he has a silver hammer, and knows how to use it...

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't a static electric charge an example of E without M?

Even in the case of a charge which is at rest, the magnetic field is STILL not zero. The electron has a magnetic moment which isn't zero. This isn't coincidence, it's a consequence of relativity. Because the electric and magnetic forces are really aspects of one force, if either one of them is zero then the other must be zero as well. In order to have a magnetic moment the electron must have an angular momentum, i.e. spin, so all of this charge, electric and magnetic fields, spin business is interconnected by relativity.

Interesting, but doesn't seem very practical

[0123456]

If you have 10 million watts per square centimetre of light focussed on something there are far more efficient ways to convert it into useful power.

Re:Interesting, but doesn't seem very practical

[gr8_phk]

If you have 10 million watts per square centimetre of light focussed on something there are far more efficient ways to convert it into useful power.

Yeah, the something will suddenly be a high temperature gas suitable for boiling water or even blowing itself through a turbine.

Re:Interesting, but doesn't seem very practical

[slinches]

Yes, like igniting a fuel pellet in a fusion reactor.

Re:Amazing..

[wealthychef]

I believe they also state in the article that they are looking for materials that require less energy density. Right now, it's not practical, like most pending technologies announced on Slashdot. :-) Never mind the cost, it just doesn't actually even work. :-)

Efficiency vs cost.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice if they can get it to work. The main hurdle is finding a cheap enough material with the right properties. Also they claim it may "up-to 10%" efficient, the best solar cells today are close to 40%, though massively expensive. But great if they can make it work, and make it cheap.

Re:Its just a concept

[Anonymous Coward]

Goatse or not?
I guess I'll never know, but all the details point to it.

Magnetic Fields ...

[xleeko]

So do we now have to ask "Solar cells - How the f*ck do they work??"

Re:Magnetic Fields ...

[philmarcracken]

fking miracles

Re:Magnetic Fields ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So do we now have to ask "Solar cells - How the f*ck do they work??"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect

It's different from what is being described.

Don't hold your breath.

[mark-t]

This is still all theoretical, and to the best of my understanding has not been verified by actual working prototypes.

I'm really surprised that the article didn't mention "5 years" as a time scale for when this will be viable, since that's the typical duration mentioned in these sort of articles --- far enough in the future that most will have forgotten about it by the time we get there, but near enough to still feel like it's worth anticipating (in other words, the perfect length of time for a project that needs funding to continue, but may never actually produce desired results).

Re:Don't hold your breath.

[dimethylxanthine]

We have the technology. We want to save the Planet. But we dont want to spend a lot of money... (Family Guy :)

Re:Amazing..

[julesh]

It's a wiki, for god's sake, couldn't you have deleted the image ref?

Solar power

[kehren77]

Sure it's all great now, but what happens when we run out of sunlight?

Re:Solar power

[geekoid]

Wait till morning.

Re:Solar power

[cobrausn]

You mean when the machines blot out the sun to deprive us of solar power?

Wait, isn't that backwards? I'm confused.

Re:Solar power

[kehren77]

You mean when the machines blot out the sun to deprive us of solar power?

Wait, isn't that backwards? I'm confused.

Like when we run out of sun. That thing isn't going to be around forever. When are politicians going to address the issue of Peak Sunlight?

Re:Solar power

[Seedy2]

You mean when the machines blot out the sun to deprive us of solar power?

Wait, isn't that backwards? I'm confused.

Like when we run out of sun. That thing isn't going to be around forever. When are politicians going to address the issue of Peak Sunlight?

about the time the crust of the earth boils off due to being inside a red giant.

Re:Solar power

[Anonymous Coward]

There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer.

Re:Solar is the future

[h4rr4r]

I don't see what blackholes have to do with this.


I did not visit, but this is a GOATSE link.

Re:Hmmm.

[ae1294]

Could this be placed in marijuana grow houses to harness some of the wasted energy to power a small meth lab?

Meth labs power themselves... with fire...

Satellites not shipping products ...

[perpenso]

I agree with the general idea that there are lots of exaggerated claims and promises. I view that as most likely coming from people looking for grants or venture capitalists to fund their projects.

However I would not keep an eye to the shipping products to judge feasibility, I would keep an eye on satellites. Break throughs like the one in this story might first appear in the environment of much higher solar intensity found in space.

Re:Satellites not shipping products ...

[dougmc]

I would keep an eye on satellites. Break throughs like the one in this story might first appear in the environment of much higher solar intensity found in space.

Good plan.

The solar intensity isn't that much greater in space (20-30% more than noon day son at the equator?) but it's certainly a more difficult environment to deal with -- size and weight are at a premium, and the stuff has to keep working for a long time in a hostile environment, so they're going to want to send up the very best.

However, many breakthroughs are about price -- making solar panels (or whatever we use to create power from sunlight) cheaper. I wouldn't expect to see those up in space, as the cost of solar panels is a small factor compared to the cost of getting them up there (and the cost for space grade solar panels is massive!)

Re:Satellites not shipping products ...

[perpenso]

20-30% more than noon day son at the equator?

FWIW:
"Solar energy reaching Earth's orbit is 144% of the maximum found on the surface of Earth, and includes wavelengths that don't even reach the surface due to the atmosphere."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

Re:Satellites not shipping products ...

[dougmc]

OK, so 44% more, not 30% more. This page gives an approximate value of 36% more (1000 watts/m^2 vs. 1366 watts/m^2). I meant to say "20-30% less on the Earth's surface" rather than "20-30% more in space". (About 27% less would be the proper figure.) My error, but not a large one.

Absolutely right about the more diverse wavelengths -- that's part of the "hostile environment" I referred to.

Re:Satellites not shipping products ...

[perpenso]

The space-based-solar-power link said 144% not 44%, if it were 44% I would not have bothered responding. However your insolation link leaves me confused with 1,366 W/m^2 at the top of the atmosphere and 1,000 W/m^2 at sea level. Typo somewhere or am I missing something subtle in "solar energy" vs "radiant power", visible spectrum maybe?

Re:Satellites not shipping products ...

[dougmc]

The space-based-solar-power link said 144% not 44%

144% of X = 44% more than X. "144% of the maximum found on the surface of Earth", so if you take "the maximum found on the surface of Earth", add 44% -- you get the "Solar energy reaching Earth's orbit". So the *difference* is 44%, not 144%. (Or looking at it another way, at the maximum, 31% less solar energy reaches the Earth's surface as reaches Earth's orbit.)

However your insolation link leaves me confused with 1,366 W/m^2 at the top of the atmosphere and 1,000 W/m^2 at sea level. Typo somewhere or am I missing something subtle in "solar energy" vs "radiant power", visible spectrum maybe?

Confused about what? The difference between "44% more" and "36.6% more"? Or something else?

Re:Satellites not shipping products ...

[jimmydigital]

I would keep an eye on satellites. Break throughs like the one in this story might first appear in the environment of much higher solar intensity found in space.

In soviet russia the satellites keep eye on you! Bet you didn't see that one coming... but the satellites sure did.

Re:Satellites not shipping products ...

[perpenso]

Fair enough, I was misreading it as 144% more, X + 1.44X.

Re:Satellites not shipping products ...

[badkarmadayaccount]

Off-topic: Have you considered releasing a Android version?

Re:Satellites not shipping products ...

[perpenso]

Off-topic: Have you considered releasing a Android version?

Yes we plan to add support for the Android platform. I don't have an ETA though.

If you don't mind being treated like someone we bump into on the street ... What app store(s) do you use? Where do you go to learn about new apps? Thanks.

Rand? Did I see the word Rand? OMG it is John.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

OMG, OMG. So who found this thing? John Galt?

Re:Rand? Did I see the word Rand? OMG it is John.

[Anonymous Coward]

Atlas is about to shrug.

Re:Amazing..

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know it was a wiki for all the goatse i was getting around my family; I for sure wasn't going to click that address again, I did notice there was a wiki in the link URL but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is a wiki, hope that makes sense.

more green vaporings

[Thud457]

First that vague press report on the purportedly revolutionary (no pun intended) wave disk engine from Michigan state, now this. Did some sort of pronouncement go out that Michigan universities need to flog green technology to overcome the abject failure of Detroit ?

Re:Amazing..

[sserendipity]

But it will! It will! In just ten years! Along with Artificial General Intelligence, and the cure for male pattern baldness!

Ten years! Ten years!

Still ten years!

Magnetic fields can be ignored

[Anonymous Coward]

That explains why the loop antenna on my old TV never worked!

Kudos to the University of Michigan!

[PinchDuck]

This looks like some really promising work. I still want to crush your football team on the gridiron, though. 3 Cheers for U of M Physics! 3 Cheers for Rich Rodriguez!

10 Million Watts

[Anonymous Coward]

"...it must be focused to an intensity of 10 million watts per square centimeter. Sunlight isn’t this intense on its own, but new materials are being sought that would work at lower intensities, Fisher said."

Something tells me this isn't going to come to fruition anytime soon.

Pursuing patent protection

[bobs666]

This is what patents are for. Not that getting money from you clicking on my button.

Oblig xkcd

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really surprised that the article didn't mention "5 years" as a time scale for when this will be viable, since that's the typical duration mentioned in these sort of articles --- far enough in the future that most will have forgotten about it by the time we get there, but near enough to still feel like it's worth anticipating (in other words, the perfect length of time for a project that needs funding to continue, but may never actually produce desired results).

Researcher Translation

Re:Oblig xkcd

[marcosdumay]

By the xkcd translator it should be 25+ years. That if you assume that the limit on how focused the sunlight can be does not prove it to be impossible. Sadly Randall did not include the time it takes for an impossible technology to reach market.

Solar thermal competition?

[WaffleMonster]

At 10% effeciency I'm not understanding the appeal.

The light has to be concentrated which means tracking electronics, hardware, mirrors, maintenance..etc.

You can get about 30% effeciency today by pointing concentrated solar energy at a stirling engine.

The effect itself is more intersting to me than the possible use in solar energy.

Re:Solar thermal competition?

[scorp1us]

It is the simplicity. Both manufacturing and maintenance. Current solar panels top out at 19% efficiency, but take a whole host of environmentally bad chemicals and processes to make. Then they degrade over time. This suggests common glass could power the world.

You approach 30% on a sterling engine, with a perfect source and sync. But you have moving components that will wear out and need maintenance.

Basically, imagine a piece of glass with integrated lens with wires on it - solid state, reliable, durable, and cheap.

Re:Solar thermal competition?

[ChrisMaple]

Basically, imagine a piece of glass with integrated lens with wires on it - solid state, reliable, durable, and cheap.

Yup, that's what the U of Michigan people are doing, imagining. Imagining that any material will withstand such an optical flux. Imagining that such a flux can be generated from the sun. Imagining that their already impossible magic pixie dust will be improved over time.

The more I think about this, the more dishonest it looks.

Re:Solar thermal competition?

[scorp1us]

Your judgement is the same as the original problem. The effect has been dismissed, so you've never heard of it. It consequently should feel dishonest.

Re:Solar thermal competition?

[Anonymous Coward]

People are overly obsessed with the "efficiency" of solar energy panels, as though increasing the percent of light converted to energy was the only way to make solar energy better. It's not. If you came up with a solar panel that was 3% efficient, but you could build and deploy it for less than, say, $300/kW, you would be well on your way to being richer than Jesus.

Yes but no absorption

[goombah99]

And it must be focused to an intensity of 10 million watts per square centimeter.

That ought to be enough to melt the glass, don't you think?

Well it won't get hot if there is no absorption of the photons. Of course I don't see how it produces energy without absorbing the photons.

Basically the science writer was scrawling gibberish. There's probably something really interesting here but getting it from this article requires advanced degrees in Kremlinolgy and Tea Leaf reading to determine what the scientist really wanted to say.

My guess about what they are trying to say is that the energy is not being stored by promoting electrons from a valence band to a conduction band. It is some how being stored in a magnetic polarization of the media. I think it hints that this polarization can have an EMF to push mobile electrons.

I think the trick is this. Normally the magnetic fields from an E&M wave are not important but if you concentrate them enough you can extract energy. As long as you are also not doing electron-hole absorption to deplete it then this concentration can eventually become significant and the energy can be extracted in other ways.

Beyond that I have no guesses what the article might have wanted to say.

Re:Yes but no absorption

[Bruce Perens]

Perhaps it's the opposite of synchrotron radiation?

Pics

[surveyork]

or it didn't happen. A working prototype is fine too.

Re:Amazing..

[GameboyRMH]

I didn't know it was a wiki for all the goatse i was getting around my family

Stop giving the troll lulz! It's like a catnip to them!

So...

[Quiet_Desperation]

...how long before we never hear about this one again?

Re:So...

[marcosdumay]

For me? Until I close this broswer tab.

Energon Cubes

[PrimalChrome]

All hail our decepticon overlords!

cutting out the middlemen

[nido]

Imagine a world where all the energy you'd ever need could be purchased by the kilowatt, for a reasonable cost - say, $0.50/watt. Suppose the most energy your house would ever draw is 10,000 watts (a hot day in Phoenix in July). For an initial outlay of "$5,000" (or so), the electrical needs of your home would be met forever.

Suppose this new understanding of the physics of light evolves to the point that it could power an automobile with just the surface area available on the roof.

Whatever will the millions of people who are employed by the energy industry do for work, when their jobs go *poof*?

Whatever will the hundreds of billionaires do with their "white elephant" investments in the energy industry? How will they maintain their status of living if their utility stocks can't pay dividends anymore?

The term "black swan" is applicable here. Most people here have so much faith in the "laws" of thermodynamics, that they can't imagine a world where that principle is just a special case of the universal law.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever will the millions of people who are employed by the energy industry do for work, when their jobs go *poof*?

WORK IN THE NEWLY FORMED INDUSTRIES THAT PEOPLE CAN FINANCE WITH THEIR NEW SAVED CASH!!

Duh. These one-sided bullshit arguments always pop up, and they are a sure sign for stupidity. People don't lose jobs when industries dissolve. Because those that financed those industries, won't just accumulate their cash in their mattresses and never use it. There's something they want, and now they can buy it. So your task is to offer that. Easy.

Also, even if your industry dies, and you got no ability that allows you to do something else... so what? If there was life back in the days when oxygen was low in earth's atmosphere, that depended on that fact, and the high oxygen killed their species, then nobody asked whatever they would do. Sometimes your time is over. That is nothing bad or good. It's just how nature works. Adapt or accept it.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[peragrin]

even if all that was true, there is still one problem.

you can't store electricity. it is an on demand only product. so when the sun went down your electric car still wouldn't work.

In the end the real break through for electricity won't be fancy solar cells, or something with magnets, a 10KVA mega capacitor that can let out a little current or a lot and be recharged by the out put of your solar / wind/ tidal/ nuclear/ bicycle, etc. 3-5 of them could run a house for a couple of days, and that would relive stress on the grid.

until we can decently store huge amounts of electricity readily we are going to need a cord, or some form of chemical conversation(gas/fuel cell/battery) that isn't going to be very useful.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[JordanL]

You cannot store electricity at 100% efficiency... you can certainly store it, whether that's chemically or not. Hydrogen electrolosized out of water is an adequate form of long-ish term electricity storage, and decent medium term storage can be achieved using flywheels weighing several dozen tons.

The fact that these systems are not in place does not mean they don't exist or can't be implemented.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[Bruce Perens]

It's already happened, when electric refrigeration replaced the tremendous worldwide industry that harvested, stored, transported, and delivered ice. It was not necessary to break the laws of physics. We got more fresh food, and people found other jobs.

The problem with infinite cheap direct energy is entropy. Energy inevitably becomes heat pollution. But good solar isn't infinite energy, and the heat is already getting here.

There isn't anything more sure than the laws of thermodynamics. As long as you live, you will never see them broken.

A coupling between light and magnetic moment would have corrolaries like light from magnetic moment - perhaps synchrotron radiation. When you see both of these things explained at the same time, then it's time to start to take this seriously. The time hasn't arrived yet.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[treeves]

...a reasonable cost - say, $0.50/watt.

I'd gladly pay $0.50/watt, if I'm guaranteed to have my watts delivered as long as I live.
I'll take 3000.
That'd be 3kW*30yrs*365days/yr*24hr/day (assuming I live another 30 years) = 788,400 kW*h ...for $1500.
$0.0019 / kW*h.
That's a real bargain!

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[ChrisMaple]

Even with 100% efficiency and 100% efficient storage and cloudless skies, a reasonable family car couldn't run more than 3 hours a day. No "new understanding of the physics of light" is going to get around the fact that sunlight isn't high intensity energy.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[nido]

Thermodynamics applies to closed systems. The physical universe is not a closed system. Once Heaviside & Company's bastardization of Maxwell's 20 Equations are corrected, this will be considered common knowledge.

There isn't anything more sure than the laws of thermodynamics. As long as you live, you will never see them broken.

There was a story on faith a week or so ago, maybe you missed it.

HTH, HAND.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[Bruce Perens]

Yes, there was a story about faith, but a stupid story. People who believe in science believe in the scientific method. This does not mean that your two choices are faith or to understand all of physics from first principles.

Do you understand how meaningless a statement like "The physical universe is not a closed system" is? Obviously not. Don't bother answering, you can't compose meaningful statements about the world.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[nido]

There's a quote from Timothy Leary about "reality tunnels". This is basically the set of beliefs an individual has about the world we live in. Wikipedia has a few paragraphs on the topic.

I used to "believe" in the scientific consensus too, but then it became an obstacle. Medicine based in materialism is okay for some conditions, but it is severely limited. Every culture, excepting the "scientific materialism" that guides the western approach to health, describes energy systems that serve as the body's blueprint. These work well for most people with most conditions (as appropriate, of course), sometimes even in spite of a negative placebo effect.

Tesla's vision is going to win out, eventually. I have an acquaintance who doesn't care about the gospel of thermodynamics, and his prototypes are coming along nicely.... I'll have to go for an update, thanks for the reminder. :)

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[BotnetZombie]

"you can't store electricity"
All the batteries in the world suddenly stopped working at the exact moment this information was revealed.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[Bruce Perens]

10 years ago or so there was a guy, somewhat famous or infamous, who believed he had a data compressor that could compress its own output iteratively. It worked using "the spaces between the bits". He had a prototype with some "bugs" which made it lossy. He kept bothering me about it. I finally told him I didn't believe it could ever work, and if he wanted to prove me wrong he could come back when it did work, because it would obviously make him rich if it did. That's the last I heard of him.

Re:cutting out the middlemen

[Eivind]

"infinite" cheap energy has that problem, yes. But when people say "infinite" and "cheap" they tend to mean merely relative to what they're used to.

Energy is -already- very plentiful and very cheap to people in the developed world. I fill my car with $9/gallon gas, which is aproximately the most expensive in the world, but that -nevertheless- gives me 500Kwh worth of energy for half a days salary, or around 1Mwh/workday.

It's not that long ago that people would've considered getting 1Mwh worth of energy for a single days salary to be "plentiful cheap energy".

None of this is worth crap until

[bl8n8r]

..It can be implemented main-stream, for less cost and be more efficient that current processes.  Until then this is all just intellectual masturbation.

Re:None of this is worth crap until

[The Living Fractal]

In terms of worth as defined by VA/NVA, sure. But without folks like this at least trying we're going to be in a whole heap of trouble in a couple hundred years. Hell, even WITH folks like this at least trying we still might be. So, "none of this is worth crap" is a bit harsh.

Theoretical limit to solar concentration

[Geoffrey.landis]

I wasn't aware there was a theoretical concentration limit. Where did you get that from and what's the rationale for it?

The theoretical concentration limit is straightforward-- it comes from the fact that the sun has a non-zero solid angle. Basically, a concentrator works by increasing the fraction of the sky that's filled by the sun, and the best you can do is to make the light come from the whole sky. (Well, there's also a factor of n, the refractive index).

The book Solar Electricity by T. Markvart gives a calculation (page 237-- it's available on googlebooks)

Re:Theoretical limit to solar concentration

[sznupi]

How one avoids instant vaporisation of any real world "cell" or ionization of most non-perfect vacuums, with such fluxes, would be in itself an... interesting dilemma.

Re:Theoretical limit to solar concentration

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas, "pages 113 to 291 are not shown in this preview". How frustrating.

Okay, it makes sense for lenses, but is it true for mirror/tower systems as well? Obviously you'd hit a practical limit long before you tiled the ground with mirrors all the way to the horizon that pointed back at a tower concentration point, but it would still seem like a very high concentration factor would be theoretically possible.

Hmmm... with a bit of google hunting I found this page, where it states the maximum concentration factor is 46211x, and that the maximum theoretical temperature is 5500C. That makes sense for temperature, and I'm guessing intuitively that the same rationale would exist for the light flux -- the equivalent of whatever it is at the Sun's surface is the maximum that could be attained. In which case it is still short, especially since we're not talking about impossibly perfect mirror systems (i.e. the practical concentration factor would be far lower).

Thanks for the pointer. I'm sure I'll find the calculation with a bit more hunting.

Re:Theoretical limit to solar concentration

[Geoffrey.landis]

Alas, "pages 113 to 291 are not shown in this preview". How frustrating.

Wow, that's annoying.

Okay, it makes sense for lenses, but is it true for mirror/tower systems as well?

Yes, it's a general result for any optical system, of any kind.

Obviously you'd hit a practical limit long before you tiled the ground with mirrors all the way to the horizon that pointed back at a tower concentration point, but it would still seem like a very high concentration factor would be theoretically possible.

Hmmm... with a bit of google hunting I found this page, where it states the maximum concentration factor is 46211x,

Actually, that's only if you concentrate light onto one side. In principle, you can double that, concentrating light onto both the front and the back. Then (the Winston concentrator trick) you can increase the factor a little more with a high-index secondary.

and that the maximum theoretical temperature is 5500C. That makes sense for temperature,

Right, maximum temperature is the temperature of the surface of the sun.

and I'm guessing intuitively that the same rationale would exist for the light flux -- the equivalent of whatever it is at the Sun's surface is the maximum that could be attained.

Exactly.

Re:Theoretical limit to solar concentration

[amorsen]

If you made your mirrors out of Faraday isolators, couldn't you theoretically have a mirror which admitted light from behind while reflecting light from the front? That ought to enable you to beat the concentration limit.

It is definitely not cost effective, of course.

Re:Theoretical limit to solar concentration

[Geoffrey.landis]

You would think.

But, no, you use that to beat the concentration limit: that would violate the second law of thermodynamics.

The proof is left to the student :)

Re:Theoretical limit to solar concentration

[badkarmadayaccount]

Maxwell's demon.

Incredible..

[Anonymous Coward]

It is an interesting invention..I have sharing also about Solar cells on my site.. I wait you my blog:http://interestingengineering.blogspot.com See you

Re:Its just a concept

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez Goatse was old 10 years ago...get over it losers.

Re:Amazing..

[Frnknstn]

I thought that cat macros were catnip to trolls...

Yes but...

[boristdog]

You can do the same thing by smearing a thin layer of ripe banana on graphite-coated paper. Nearly .5 watts per square meter.
All you need is paper, a fat pencil and a bunch of ripe bananas.

100 times stronger!

[Anonymous Coward]

AWESOME! 100 tiems stronger than previously thought. That's like 10 billion giggawatts, right?

Seem like they could oscillate the light

[Marrow]

And create a moving magnetic field over coils wound around the medium. Instant power.

L-curve is applicable here

[nido]

Okay, so the millions don't have much to worry about. It was the billionaires that I was really concerned about.

Through what other means (the artificial scarcity of energy has worked really well for a long time) can the planet's billionaires maintain the L-curve distribution of income in the economy? This is the only question which must be answered before revolutionary energy technology can be allowed into the market.

As I've said before, remember that JP Morgan only financed Nikola Tesla's research until he realized that Tesla wanted to give electricity away to everyone for free.

Re:L-curve is applicable here

[sorak]

The L curve will always exist. If electricity were free, then people would have more money to spend on housing, food, and other finite resources. Consequently, the price of those resources would increase*, and those who owned them before electricity became free would still be rich. Sure, the people who owned the electric companies would be losing money, but that's why people diversify their investments.

* Look at the housing market. How do we determine the value of a house? Look at who wants it, how much they are willing to pay. Those are the only two variables that matter.

Re:L-curve is applicable here

[JohnRoss1968]

If the future is that painful for them, I votewe help them out of their misery...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-0lAhnoDlU

It'll never work!

[he-sk]

Let's build more nukes!

Y R U so stupid?

[Anonymous Coward]

Y R U So stupid??

Y R U So stupid ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Y R U So stupid ??

Re:Amazing..

[Anonymous Coward]

But it will! It will! In just ten years! Along with Artificial General Intelligence, and the cure for male pattern baldness!

Ten years! Ten years!

Still ten years!

Maybe in 2011+34 -> 2045 we won't care about male pattern baldness...

not sure it's totally awesome...

[slew]

There are many ways to apparently inefficiently directly generate electricity that have nothing to do with boiling water...

You can run turbines in several ways w/o boiling water (e.g., wind, water).
You can generate electricity w/o turbines through chemistry (e.g., lemon battery) or quantum mechanically (e.g., photoelectric effect in solar).

You never know, this whole thing may turn out to be more like the Casmir effect or similar effect. Interesting, but not quite practical for anything yet. The danger is that this gets morphed into something like the sub-zero ground state and hydrino energy peddlers out there...

FWIW, this "magnetic" effect is not something new or unheard of, and it also not just something "magnetic" as it is also present in the "electrical" version. The primary difference is that in the photo-cell, the first order effect of optical excitation is that an electron absorbs a photon changes energy state (the photo-electric effect), since there aren't any magnetic mono-poles (that we know of), there isn't an analgous photo-magnetic effect. There is, however, in both magnetic and electric a second order effect optical rectification of the wave due to the non-linear properties of the medium (e.g., crystal structure, resonnances, or other non-homogenous properties). Almost nobody cares about this second order effect in photo-electric systems (except when it opposes the charge transport and reduces the photo-electric efficiency). Since there isn't a first-order effect of optical excitation in the magnetic version, we only get the second order effect. When people measure a second order effect, they get excited, but that doesn't mean it will turn out to be very practical...

open up your 'vision' a little

[nido]

* Look at the housing market. How do we determine the value of a house? Look at who wants it, how much they are willing to pay. Those are the only two variables that matter.

Very few people pay cash for a house. The variable that matters more than any other is how much a "home buyer" can afford to borrow (from JP Morgan).

If electricity were free, then people would have more money to spend on ... *finite resources.* Consequently, the price of those resources would increase

If electricity were free, all resources would be essentially limitless. We could afford to desalinate water and pump it into the desert to make an artificial oasis, etc. Surplus has been a 'problem' for quite a while now (due mechanization & automation reducing the amount of labor required for many of the products humans need)...

Re:open up your 'vision' a little

[sorak]

* Look at the housing market. How do we determine the value of a house? Look at who wants it, how much they are willing to pay. Those are the only two variables that matter.

Very few people pay cash for a house. The variable that matters more than any other is how much a "home buyer" can afford to borrow (from JP Morgan).

I never said anything about paying cash. It really doesn't seem relevant if they are paying in cash, check, or by bank loan. If the average person made 50,000 per year, he may be able to afford a $100,000 house, and the banks would loan that amount if the credit is good. If the average salary increased to $500,000 per year, the cost of housing would increase by at least a factor of 10, and the disparity would continue.

If electricity were free, then people would have more money to spend on ... *finite resources.* Consequently, the price of those resources would increase

If electricity were free, all resources would be essentially limitless.

No. We would still be limited in land quantities, the availability of raw materials, etc...I admit, it would change the world drastically. I can't be sure what the next big shortage/catastrophe would be. An over reliance on electronics might lead to a shortage of conductive metals. We would have to worry about shortages of plastics and lubricants needed to maintain these machines. People would be needed to maintain those devices, and those people would need houses, land, cars, etc.

And then there would be the potential environmental implications to teraforming a large portion of the Earth's surface. Raise the temperature a few degrees and you get erratic weather patterns. What would happen if you removed enough water from the ocean to turn entire deserts into farmland? I'm just speculating, but as long as there is one substance on earth in limited quantities, there will be a class that owns more than their share, and uses it to control others.

Odds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week it was the super efficient engine, this week super efficient electricity from light.

Two potentially very disruptive technologies, both from University of Michigan, within about a week.

What are the odds? Have they trumped the MIT's and Stanford's of the world all of a sudden?

Why do you troll others on slashdot for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you troll others on slashdot for?

Why do you troll others on slashdot for ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you troll others on slashdot for ?

They better be thick at 10 million watts/cm^2

[bigtrike]

I hope your shades are very thick since this technology currently requires some fairly bright light.

100 million times ...

[PPH]

... stronger than previously expected.

Well, since I expected zero, this still isn't very much.

a few points

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists don't think that the magnetic field in in EM radiation is negligible, where do you think that half of the energy density in light comes from? The electric field is just easier to work with.

New physical effect, cheap new material

[buybuydandavis]

I think people are missing the point, here. This sounds like a fundamentally new effect. This isn't a better semiconductor, and it's not just focusing light and collecting heat. And they said they could use glass for the material.

So it's a new physical effect, using a cheap material. That sounds significant to me. If nothing else, it sounds like a natural for cogeneration with a heat collecting method.

Just tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when they've invented the GDI Ion Cannon, that's all I care about.

Solar Breakthru! 100M (100^6) Times Power!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go for Launch => http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/04/15/1731247/Solar-Breakthrough-Could-Provide-Power-Without-Solar-Cells?utm_source=headlines&utm_medium=email
 
An anonymous reader tips a University of Michigan news release about the creation of what's being called an "optical battery" that could lead to the use of solar power without traditional solar cells (abstract). Quoting:
 
"Light has electric and magnetic components. Until now, scientists thought the effects of the magnetic field were so weak that they could be ignored. What Rand and his colleagues found is that at the right intensity, when light is traveling through a material that does not conduct electricity, the light field can generate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than previously expected. Under these circumstances, the magnetic effects develop strength equivalent to a strong electric effect. 'This could lead to a new kind of solar cell without semiconductors and without absorption to produce charge separation,' Rand said. 'In solar cells, the light goes into a material, gets absorbed and creates heat. Here, we expect to have a very low heat load. Instead of the light being absorbed, energy is stored in the magnetic moment. Intense magnetization can be induced by intense light and then it is ultimately capable of providing a capacitive power source.'"

Re: Solar ZPM

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh..Are we on to something like the Solar ZPM ?

Re:Amazing..

[JohnRoss1968]

10 Years, 10 Years, I Love You, 10 years. Your always 10 years away.
*Sung to the tune of Tomorrow.
I'll have to work on a whole song for that...I wonder if theres an App for that.

Science fiction indeed and incompetent too!

[Anonymous Coward]

This would have been a good item for April 1. It must be hard for academia to find valid subjects for studies on which to publish these days. It is unfortunate that Slashdot will publish any crXp that is put out there because it seems to come form people associated with a "respectable" institution. You need to vet things a bit more. It only takes elementary grade arithmetic to look at published solar panel specs and understand that today's silicon panels are anywhere between 15 and 20 percent efficient; way more than the 10% quoted in referenced article and here now i.e. real; and not needing the science fiction levels of light concentration mentioned. Sad.