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IBM Models Human Blood System To Build Solar Power Prototype

Posted by samzenpus on from the solar-in-your-veins dept.

coondoggie writes "IBM today said its researchers are developing a solar power system that concentrates solar radiation 2,000 times by using a human-blood supply modeled way of cooling and converting 80% of Sun's heat into useful energy. IBM says the system can also desalinate water and cool air in sunny, remote locations where such systems are often in short supply."

1 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cray 2 by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Informative

    A Cray 2 requires 200KW. The panels claim 80% efficiency, so you'd need 200/0.8 = 250KW. Sun intensity, ignoring atmosphere and with optimal panel orientation, is around 1.3KW/M^2. So you'd need 192 M^2 of panels. In practice you'd need space for panel orientation gear, plus atmospheric attenuation would reduce power, so you'd need rather more than that, but it's entirely practical. However, no running the Cray at night.

    The Cray 2 had 1.3GF of floating-point processing power. A single i7 chip has 109GF, double-precision. The Cray 2 was without doubt one of the coolest looking computers ever built, but the technology is rather dated. You could comfortably emulate it on a modern desktop.

    *European, not handegg.