'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

[DanS]

Applied Materials (supplying the tooling for Moser Baer, Signet Solar, and many others) is coming out with some very nice-looking uniform black panels. See the panel on the last page of the following PDF.

http://www.signetsolar.com/pdf/Signet_Solar_Global_Press_Release_may_23_08.pdf

I don't know how anybody could object to the aesthetics on this one.

The power output on one of those is only 340 watts at peak, but they will be cheap and can handle partial sunlight just fine.

[Zkribbler]

Here's the first part of an article I found on Wikipedia. It calls the company NanoSolar. I distinctly remember it being called NanoTechnologies. Either I'm misremembering or there's two companies.

Nanosolar
Website nanosolar.com

Nanosolar is a developer of solar power technology. Based in San Jose, CA, Nanosolar has developed and commercialized an extremely low-cost printable solar cell manufacturing process. The company started selling panels mid-December 2007, and plans to profitably sell them at around $1 per watt.

Financial Backers and Manufacturing
Nanosolar was started in 2002 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. The company has received financing from a number of technology investors including Benchmark Capital, MDV, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google. Nanosolar received the largest amount in a round of Venture Capital technology funding, amongst United States companies during Q2 2006, with 100 million USD of new funding secured. Nanosolar plans to build a large production facility in San Jose and in Germany, with an annual capacity of 430 megawatts, enough to roughly triple total American solar cell production, moving the US from third worldwide to second, behind Japan. Nanosolar is also building a panel manufacturing plant in Luckenwalde (Berlin). Several German energy and venture capital companies are heavily invested in this company as a consequence of the favourable economics for solar energy in Germany due to government subsidies. On December 12, 2007 the company announced that it had started solar cell production in its San Jose factory, with its German facility slated to go into operation in the 1st quarter of 2008. On December 18, 2007 the company began shipping their first solar panels for a one-megawatt municipal power plant in Germany.

[DanS]

I haven't been able to figure Nanosolar out. Can't tell whether it's all vaporware, all true, or all exaggerated.

[chequita guevara]

Oerdin, can we store the nuclear waste in your house?

[GePap]

Another possible way to harness solar power that I read about in the economist:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/01/14/energy-breakthrough-storing-solar-power-with-salt/

Essentially, store the heat from the sun in molten salt, which retains the heat for a long time. I found this possible method very interesting.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Big yawn. Another day and another claim that a reliable aphrodisiac is just around the corner. They've been making the same wild claims for 3000 years and the reality is boners are still the single most exasperating and unreliable relationship tool out there. It's not just a little unreliable but instead is around 50% chance that a given man will suffer performance failure with no drug ever available to help, and certainly not three of them entering the market all within a 10 year period after millennia of floppycock quack cures.

I have made no changes whatsoever

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Arrian
Wind?

I assume that's not "real" either?

I know the vast majority of our electricity is produced by coal, nuclear and some hydro, dude. For now. I'm looking ahead.

-Arrian

But Wind energy kills birds!!!!

[/silly environmentalist]

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by GePap
Another possible way to harness solar power that I read about in the economist:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/01/14/energy-breakthrough-storing-solar-power-with-salt/

Essentially, store the heat from the sun in molten salt, which retains the heat for a long time. I found this possible method very interesting.

So, we send a spaceship full of salt near the sun, and then bring it back and boil an ocean or two with it?

Sounds inefficient, in any event ... but who knows.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by snoopy369


But Wind energy kills birds!!!!

[/silly environmentalist]

Any environmentalist wouldn't care about this. It's survival of the fittest. Stupid birds will be pureed before they can reproduce. And windmill-avoiding birds will rule the skies.

[Elok]

They can't help it. Giant spinning blades are just irresistibly attractive to avians of all types. They're like the easy hot chick at the party--you know you'll spend the rest of your life snorting penicillin like coke to kill what she gives you, but c'mon, she's HOT!

[Kuciwalker]

I don't entirely understand the massive solar spin here. This is just a massive improvement to battery design - which, yes, helps solar power, but it helps a lot of things besides that.

[Theben]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Here's the first part of an article I found on Wikipedia. It calls the company NanoSolar. I distinctly remember it being called NanoTechnologies. Either I'm misremembering or there's two companies.

Would that be the NanoSolar I linked on the 1st page?

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Ramo
The great advantage solar has is that it's distributed power; you don't need huge economies of scale to get it to work. A whole lot of energy is attenuated through transmission.

Obviously, there are a lot of engineering issues to be worked out (and it looks like clever battery designs are advancing pretty rapidly right now) before we can make it a huge part of our economy, but that's clearly where we're going in the medium to long term (along with deep geothermal).

But short term, we need nuclear.

Yeah. Let's not forget that until power sources such as solar become available 'en masse' we have no other option than to rely on carbonbased fuels at the moment. Despite the fact that governments should support alternative energy sources a lot more, technological and industrial development (as being discussed in this topic) can't provide us right away with the necessary energy, especially with the rampant economies BRIC-countries and other countries are developing right now.

Nuclear is absolutely necessary if we want to change the tide quickly. At least there are infinitely less external costs with nuclear compared to carbonbased fuels right now. What happened in Tsjernobil was bad. But compared to the zillions of environmental damage fossil fuel plants / cars bring about the disaster was insignificant. A lot more people die every day because of fossil fuels. On top of that the Russian government reacted poorly. In modern economies the risk would be a lot smaller even. Merely the word 'nuclear' frightens people - undeserved in most cases.


Heh, and I'm sort of an environmentalist myself

[Jon Miller]

Nuclear could be used right now, and is better in almost every way than oil/etc. Well, not better in price, but it is getting close.

JM

[Alinestra Covelia]

I also agree on the use of nuclear power. Probably as a transition power, tightly regulated, until we can get Solar Plants up and running for the massive Shield production boost and avert the risk of global warming until our fusion powered spaceship makes it to Alpha Centauri.