Slashdot Mirror
Optical Furnace Bakes Better Solar Cells
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory just announced that they have found a way to create more efficient photovoltaic cells using 50% less energy. The technique hinges upon a new optical furnace that uses intense light instead of a conventional furnace to heat silicon to make solar cells. The new furnace utilizes 'highly reflective and heat-resistant ceramics to ensure that the light is absorbed only by a silicon wafer, not by the walls inside the furnace.'"
Until I read a Slashdot article about a facility in the PRC manufacturing photovoltaic cells using 'highly reflective and heat-resistant ceramics to ensure that the light is absorbed only by a silicon wafer, not by the walls inside the furnace'"?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
The idea of removing impurities using light is cool if it increases the efficiency of the completed pannel.
The premise of saving energy in the manufacture of the panels isn't really relevant. Currently producing silicon uses lots of energy, but it needen't really. The process really only involves heating and cooling of relatively small volumes of silicon, and if you were to design a machine to do it continuously, you could do it with nearly no energy. The raw materials are cold, the output is cold, and the processing in the middle is hot - use the energy from the finished product cooling down to heat new raw materials in a continuous process, as already done in a water Heat Exchanger.
The reason this currently isn't done is because energy is a tiny cost in the production of silicon, and other things are far more important than recapturing a tiny amount of energy while the silicon cools down.
Seeing as this breakthrough is as yet not even on the NREL RSS feed... http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/rss/rss.xml I reckon either somebody is "talking out of school" which likely means this technology will indeed show up in production in some other country other than NREL's source of funding first or it does not, indeed, exist.
Still, one can always hope that Big Carbon's throttling grip may one day be broken...or even act upon that desire: http://cleanenergy.harvard.edu/
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I worked on an optical/ceramic-walled metallization furnace that started shipping a year ago. Apparently our US marketing people didn't come up with sufficiently catchy buzz to generate sales. I was laid off in September after documenting all the assembly procedures for our new plant in ... Shanghai :-(
Unfortunately the article is dumbed down a lot, so it is not easy to understand what technology is actually supposed to be used. But this sound a lot like a Rapid Thermal Anneal (RTA/RTP), which has been used for decades in semiconductor manufacturing. It has also been used a lot in lab environment to manufacture solar cells. It is possible that the energy consumption can be reduced, but the tool throughput and maintenance costs are quite a bit higher than that of a conventional furnace. I suppose that is why it did not catch on so far.
Ouch!, on your behalf....on a larger scale, America seems to be in the grip of this attitude of "If it won't make us a lot of money today, we don't want to play!" at the Wall Street/venture capital/NHWI level.
To our detriment; Rome wasn't built in a day - but it took about a day to fall.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Bullocks. Rome took centuries to fall.
I hardly see how Saundra Bullock caused the fall of Rome.
The true expense of Li-ion batteries is that they are heated to something like 900C. Hellish to say the least. Is there a way to lower that cost? That would drop the costs of li-ion batteries a great deal.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Solar *IS* affordable fusion - free from that big fusion reactor in the sky.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
lolll...no, the Roman Empire - its power structure, and so its government - took about three decades to decay to the point that Alaric could sack Rome on August 24, A.D. 410.
About as long as "flood-up/trickle-down" economics has been dictating policy in the U.S., in fact.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Further tracing of the story reveals it came out of a MIT publication on December 13th way back in 2011 ;^)
A much more creditable provenance regardless of the lack of information at NREL's website.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Well the decay in the united states started in the 1980's so I'm guess we are right on track.
it was about that time when Corporations stopped caring about product quality and innovation and decided that the right thing is to maximize profits at all costs.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The past.
Virtually all caravan and recreational vehicle/motor home devices are 12v.
The problem is the amperage with a 12v supply.
Deleted
The problem has been a predictable result of Corporations railing against restriction and regulation. We put powerful rods in the reactor of capitalism when at the turn of the twentieth century a succession of economic disasters was precipitated by wholesale greed and financial practices that made a tiny few rich, but impoverished the masses.
We find ourselves learning the hard way, that we haven't changed in any significant way in 100 years, that greed is ultimately destructive and that our economic engines need exactly the same kind of checks and balances that our political engines require, because in the end, its all about the best and worst in being human. If you don't ensure stability, diversity and fair competition, you get boom-bust, profound disparity and a system which us ultimately unsustainable.
Corporations must be separated from government, for the benefit of both. Both must have a strong set of checks and balances (for example, corporations must not have the rights of human beings.) Both must have strong external guidance based on the greater good of society including environmental necessity, social responsibility and human dignity. A system of rewards and punishment must be implemented that moves these great forces in a direction that serves the needs of humanity and not the other way around.
But its not like the conditions of Rome in 380 AD were the conditions of Rome for all the years prior. It took a lot going wrong to get there.
IMHO the "decline" really starts with the death of Hadrian or Marcus Aurelius, depending on your perspective. Some people even think it starts earlier, with the end of the Republic and the start of the empire.
It is true that it took the powerful and wealthy of Rome more than a day to destroy any real loyalty to their government - but again, you're referencing the Roman Empire. The fall of Rome itself came with unseemly speed when Rome's economic underclass opened the Salarian Gate for the Visigoths.
Hence my comment that "Rome wasn't built in a day - but it took about a day to fall.". The moral of the story, of course, is that you allow greed to weaken your nation and disillusion your populace at your own peril, for when the big day comes the safest place in the empire won't be safe enough.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Bullocks. Rome took centuries to fall.
It took millennia (billenia?) to fall, if you count the time involved gathering matter together, exploding it to make heavier elements (twice), then gathering it together again and having two planets collide to form our moon, the basis of life on this planet. So, you're also off by several orders of magnitude, if you wish to be adequately pedantic. Or, you could say it fell in a microsecond, that being the last decision the ruler made to doom it.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.