The Future of Energy

[Nor'Easter]

I don't think finding more oil or more ways of extracting it is the answer, maybe for vasoline petroleum jelly but not for fueling cars to add to the carbon footprint.

 

[Nor'Easter]

All the energy on this planet came from the sun whatever it is... Fossil fuels are simply old stored up condensed sun energy. So I'd say it's pretty obvious we need to learn how to make our own mini suns and somehow harness the energy. LOL of course I have no clue how to do this or I'd be dead or rich lol

Or maybe put big ass solar collectors in space and beam the energy down to us, but somehow that seems like a recipe for disaster especially if we relied one solar collector or a small number of them.

these are actually good ideas. Solar collectors in space are very possible and could become reality if some funding was sent their way. Mini Suns, solar fusion is what drives the sun and its energy and that too could one day be reality even though they have been trying since the 50's. I think they need to try to do it in space to more closely approximate the conditions available to the sun.

 

[Guest 88950]

just thought this deserved a second post.


to the anti green energy crowd.........technological advances in one field of study will have a dominoe effect on unrelated industries.......technology breeds technology.

hang up the drill b/c green technology will dominate the future of providing energy for all.......jmo but we will see.

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- JA Solar Holdings Co., the world’s largest solar cell maker, jumped after announcing a product that converts as much as 18.5 percent of the sun’s energy into electricity.

JA Solar’s American depositary receipts gained 11 percent to $1.37 at 3:07 p.m. in New York, the most since Nov. 30. Before today, its ADRs had dropped 82 percent this year. Each ADR is worth one ordinary share of the Shanghai-based company.

JA Solar is producing its Maple multicrystalline cells “in large volume production,” it said today in a statement. Maple’s conversion efficiency tops the industry average of 16.8 percent for multicrystalline cells, the company said.


By harvesting waste heat, researchers from the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have for the first time built a solar cell with an external quantum efficiency over 100 percent.

A cell's external quantum efficiency is the number of electrons flowing per second in its external circuit, divided by the number of photons per second entering it, and is different at different wavelengths.

The best result for the NREL solar cell was 114 percent. it means, says the team, that solar energy has a competitive future, making it possibly cheaper than energy from fossil or nuclear fuels.

The team used a process called Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG), whereby a single absorbed photon of appropriately high energy can produce more than one electron-hole pair per absorbed photon.

Ten years ago, NREL scientist Arthur J Nozik predicted that MEG would be more efficient in semiconductor quantum dots - tiny crystals of semiconductor - than in bulk semiconductors.

Quantum dots, by confining charge carriers within their tiny volumes, can harvest excess energy that otherwise would be lost as heat – and therefore greatly increase the efficiency of converting photons into usable free energy.

The researchers hit the 114 percent external quantum efficiency with a layered cell consisting of antireflection-coated glass with a thin layer of a transparent conductor, a nanostructured zinc oxide layer, a quantum dot layer of lead selenide treated with ethanedithol and hydrazine, and a thin layer of gold for the top electrode.

They claim the fabrication of quantum dot solar cells lends itself to inexpensive, high-throughput roll-to-roll manufacturing.


According to a recent University of Texas (in Austin) press release, solar cells could soon extract twice as many electrons from each photon of sunlight received. This would be achieved using an organic plastic semiconductor material.
Solar cells are, themselves, a semiconductor material which is often printed onto a substrate such as glass or plastic (just to clarify this for you), and they are encased in solar panels for protection.
“Plastic semiconductor solar cell production has great advantages, one of which is low-cost,” said Zhu, a professor of chemistry. “Combined with the vast capabilities for molecular design and synthesis, our discovery opens the door to an exciting new approach for solar energy conversion, leading to much higher efficiencies.”
The maximum theoretical efficiency of the type of silicon solar cell that is usually used today is 31%, and these researchers say that they can achieve a 50% to 100% efficiency improvement.
Much of the electrons received by solar cells from the sun are of the “hot” type and are usually converted into heat in the panel instead of electricity. Capturing the “hot” electronics could facilitate 66% efficiency, which is extremely high for any type of generator.
Zhu and his researchers demonstrated that the hot electrons mentioned could be captured using semiconductor nanocrystals.
There are challenges still, of course. “For one thing,” said Zhu, “that 66 percent efficiency can only be achieved when highly focused sunlight is used, not just the raw sunlight that typically hits a solar panel. This creates problems when considering engineering a new material or device.”
A type of solar power plant that requires concentration in order to function correctly uses gallium arsenide solar panels, which achieve 42% efficiency, which is impressive compared to the 20% efficiency that typical solar cells achieve.
Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/14WHE)

New breakthrough shows promise for affordable plastic solar energy cells
Filed under Engineering, Environment, Research on Monday, December 19, 2011.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers report they have achieved a new record in efficiency with a prototype solar cell that could be manufactured using a roll-to-roll process.
“Imagine making solar panels by a process that looks like printing newspaper roll to roll,” said Franky So, a UF professor in the department of materials science and engineering.
Industry has eyed the roll-to-roll manufacturing process for years as a means of producing solar cells that can be integrated into the exterior of buildings, automobiles and even personal accessories such as handbags and jackets. But, to date, the photovoltaic sheets cannot muster enough energy per square inch to make them attractive to manufacturers.
The UF team has crossed the critical threshold of 8 percent efficiency in laboratory prototype solar cells, a milestone with implications for future marketability, by using a specially treated zinc oxide polymer blend as the electron charge transporting material. The full report outlining the details of their latest laboratory success in solar cell technology is published in the Dec. 18 online version of Nature Photonics.
The researchers said the innovative process they used to apply the zinc oxide as a film was key to their success. They first mixed it with a polymer so it could be spread thinly across the device, and then removed the polymer by subjecting it to intense ultraviolet light.
John Reynolds, a UF professor of chemistry working on the project, said the cells are layered with different materials that function like an electron-transporting parfait, with each of the nano-thin layers working together synergistically to harvest the sun’s energy with the highest efficiency.
Reynolds’ chemistry research group developed an additional specialized polymer coating that overlays the zinc oxide polymer blend.
“That’s where the real action is,” he said. The polymer blend creates the charges, and the zinc oxide layer delivers electrons to the outer circuit more efficiently.”
Reynolds’ chemistry research team is aligned in an ongoing collaboration with So’s materials science team, which they call “The SoRey Group.”
The most recent fruit of their collaboration will now go to Risø National Laboratory in Denmark, where researchers will replicate the materials and processes developed by the SoRey Group and test them in the roll-to-roll manufacturing process.
“This sort of thing can only happen when you have interdisciplinary groups like ours working together,” said Reynolds.
So and Reynolds plan to continue their collaboration with Risø National Laboratory, and expand it to include researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology where Reynolds is now moving. Their work is funded by a grant from the Office of Naval Research.

Multiple articles, sorry for the lack of attribution. Near orbit thin film solar arrays next...

 

[Green lung]

just thought this deserved a second post.


to the anti green energy crowd.........technological advances in one field of study will have a dominoe effect on unrelated industries.......technology breeds technology.

hang up the drill b/c green technology will dominate the future of providing energy for all.......jmo but we will see.

Check out Jeremy Rifkins book "The third Industrial Revolution"


Here he is talking about it. http://www.booktv.org/Program/12890...ing+Energy+the+Economy+and+the+Worldquot.aspx


There is so much opportunity for Jobs, business, money in this forthcoming energy revolution. Great time to be alive.

 

[trichrider]

wtf is 'solar fusion'?

limitless power/energy fills the universe, mostly ignored. mankind will someday defy the petroleum based paradigm. this is imperative for space exploration, the next frontier.

electro-magnetic propulsion, that's the ticket.

 

[foomar]

The United States' 400-plus coal-fired power plants emit more toxins into the air than any other single source; some 42% of the US total, according to the 2002 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)

Half of all Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-burning power plant "...which, in addition to mercury, emit more than 361,000 tons of other toxins including vanadium, barium, zinc, lead, chromium, arsenic, nickel, hydrogen fluoride, hydrochloric acid, ammonia and selenium."

They forgot to mention the high levels of radon gas in many coalfields , worth going green on environmental grounds alone.

Oil and gas are such valuable feedstocks for industry it seems daft to waste a finite resource generateing electricity which is then mostly wasted.


Classic example of waste locally , a big chain supermarket has had the car park lights on constantly for the last three years , day and night , despite comments and complaints over light pollution.

One hundred and sixty 600 watt halides running for nothing most of the time , we call it the grow-op instead of the co-op.