The Warring States of NPF - Neat news in solar power

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Neat news in solar power

http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/a...php?q=08071107

Quote:

Can you imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of? Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers report a new approach to harnessing the solar energy that could allow just that. The work, published in the today's issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel 'solar concentrator.'

'Light is collected over a large area and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges,' explains Marc A. Baldo, leader of the work and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering. As a result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells, the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. In addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell 'by a factor of over 40,' Baldo says.

Because the starting materials are affordable, relatively easy to scale up beyond a laboratory setting, and easy to retrofit to existing solar panels, the researchers believe the technology could find its way to the marketplace within three years. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of solar electricity.

'Professor Baldo's project utilises innovative design to achieve superior solar conversion without optical tracking,' says Dr Aravinda Kini, program manager in the Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, a sponsor of the work. 'This accomplishment demonstrates the critical importance of innovative basic research in bringing about revolutionary advances in solar energy utilisation in a cost-effective manner.'

Solar concentrators in use today 'track the sun to generate high optical intensities, often by using large mobile mirrors that are expensive to deploy and maintain,' Baldo and colleagues write in Science. Further, 'solar cells at the focal point of the mirrors must be cooled, and the entire assembly wastes space around the perimeter to avoid shadowing neighbouring concentrators.'

[article continues, see link for further]

Solar power had come up in the If You Ruled America thread thing so when I saw this I thought I would mention it here. Forty times more power! That sure sounds like a whole lot of power.

Well I will be keen to read the actual article but this sounds like a great idea.
It seems to be using dye flourescence, which is a key source used in dye lasers, and then using that to concentrate light through adsorption and then reemission (which works because flourescence involves system conversion and change in selection rules allowing one to tailor light sources). They do the same thing with dye lasers where one set of light is focused on the dye which then reemits at a different, concentrated length.
This idea was postulated in the 90s but no one managed to get the engineering right but if these guys have they are excellent.
I'm not sure exactly how useful these things will be, that's more engineering than anything, but they sure sound good.

Now all we need to do is combine this with soft solar panels and we'll be made.

For reference, I can't find anything on Wikipedia, but there was a program on TV within the past few years (Oprah?) that featured them as new technology. This thing was about a foot square, could be rolled up, and had a hole punched in it to show that it wouldn't break the unit like a cracked silicon cell, and the guy presenting it ran a radio off of the power it generated from nothing but a standard-size halogen flashlight. That's some crazy efficiency, there, considering it probably took the same kind and number of batteries.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluestarultor (Post 807492)

Yeah that is one of the advantages of dye based systems, they madly resilent.
It's because the dye adsorption is based upon rotational and vibrational bands which are indepedent of translational motion (as opposite to solid state systems which can break down under translational distortion) which means any configuration of the dye liquid will still work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants (Post 807520)

I'll be honest, I don't think I understood any of that. But it sounded cool *thumbs up!* :D

But yeah, this sounds very promising. I want solar windows.

Just blanket the Sahara with the stuff, already.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterOfMagic (Post 807526)

I'll be honest, I don't think I understood any of that. But it sounded cool *thumbs up!* :D

But yeah, this sounds very promising. I want solar windows.

IN layman's terms There is a die that takes a color (vibrations) of light from white light (because white light is really green red and blue light mixed together) and curves it to the solar "panels" on the side.This is more effective because of it utilizes how light moves . while the normal system burns itself out trying to collect more energy not trying to use physics to its advantage

This might actually solve our big gasoline thing.

I mean oil can be used in a fuckton of other ways but this would at least take cars off the fossil fuel market, but if they didn't do that, they could at least power divisions of large companies like grocery stores.

Its about damn time and I'm excited to see how this is going to end up. Maybe the planet isn't doomed yet.

I think this is a long way away from powering cars myself, because let's face it.... Electric cars have only one good thing going for them...
They're quiet, cheap and green.
Ok, so that's like... 3 things, but my point remains that you're not going to be able to convince anyone who uses their car as anything MORE than a Points A to B machine to go electric...

I believe I read an article in a science magazine, maybe it was Popular Science, that places like Arizona, New Mexico, Northern Texas, and the like are veritable treasure troves of solar power. Like enough to provide North America with an enormous source of cheap efficient energy that won't go away any time soon, barring y'know..the sun exploding or somethin.