Scientists discover tiny solar panels that create themselves

The Original Article at MIT News.

The individual reactions of these new molecular structures in converting sunlight are about 40 percent efficient, or about double the efficiency of today’s best solar cells. Theoretically, the efficiency of the structures could be close to 100 percent, he says. But in the initial work, the concentration of the structures in the solution was low, so the overall efficiency of the device — the amount of electricity produced for a given surface area — was very low. They are working now to find ways to greatly increase the concentration.

I'm afraid the time between the discovery and its realization in a usable product is such we may not see this in our lifetimes.

The days of science being for science sake is long gone. The time when we could put a man on the Moon in a few years has given way to the researchers need for funding.

We will see something like this literally when Hell freezes over. I'll be surprised to even see another article about this in my lifetime. Whoever is supplying the funding will determine whether it sees the light of day or not.

Anything that will interfere with the Carbon Credit Market soon to come our way, will be filed away in short order. The huge sums of money to be made by suppressing clean, cheap energy will guarantee any leaps made will be squashed. Academia has sold its soul to the politicians and big business long ago.

The Original Article at MIT News.

The individual reactions of these new molecular structures in converting sunlight are about 40 percent efficient, or about double the efficiency of today’s best solar cells. Theoretically, the efficiency of the structures could be close to 100 percent, he says. But in the initial work, the concentration of the structures in the solution was low, so the overall efficiency of the device — the amount of electricity produced for a given surface area — was very low. They are working now to find ways to greatly increase the concentration.

I'm afraid the time between the discovery and its realization in a usable product is such we may not see this in our lifetimes.

The days of science being for science sake is long gone. The time when we could put a man on the Moon in a few years has given way to the researchers need for funding.

We will see something like this literally when Hell freezes over. I'll be surprised to even see another article about this in my lifetime. Whoever is supplying the funding will determine whether it sees the light of day or not.

Anything that will interfere with the Carbon Credit Market soon to come our way, will be filed away in short order. The huge sums of money to be made by suppressing clean, cheap energy will guarantee any leaps made will be squashed. Academia has sold its soul to the politicians and big business long ago.

reply to post by spikey


It is better to adapt to nature and its processes rather than to get in its way. I can only immagine 100 years from now dealing with the "new enviornmental crisis" that just so happens to be caused by our "answers" and "actions" to "fix" the previous "enviornmental crisis". This is a trend in our species history because humans are the only animals in existance arrogant enough to think of nature as "problematic" and "fixable" because "we know better" than the cycles of nature that made us possible in the first place.

Noooo!!!!!!! We don't need replicators in this galaxy!!!!








Nooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

reply to post by BomSquad


guys, sounds great. but coating you home, car in it? what happens if these things start replicating uncontrolably? is there a waste by product? if so, how do we dispose of it? if these things attach to carbon nanotubes, what's to stop them from attaching to other "carbon stuff"? like, i don't know... let's just think of something really important that's carbon based shall we? what happens then? something like this, although possibly being one of the most important advances in energy technology in general and green energy specificaly, needs decades of research. even then, you probably won't see it on my house. i barely trust my mp3 player.

hmm...bacteria that can give us infinate energy and cost nothing.

I forsee a bullet in the head of some people and this never being heard of again....

post entire findings on the internet or it didn't happen (literally...it will go into the ether very soon otherwise)

reply to post by frozenspark

Originally posted by frozenspark
I love hearing about these new scientific findings which seem to disappear after the first wave of articles and never return to spotlight again. Unfortunately I am not excited about this stuff anymore because I know that big oil will root out anything that stands to challenge it.

I know i remember back when i was in high school...those navy scientist came out and proclaimed they discovered a way to do Cold fusion....these were top naval scientist....then like a week later(or there abouts) they recanted their claim....

Buried...put to use in the military...but never the cheap clean fuel the world could use....

reply to post by Kailassa


a company by the name of nextgen has been in the process of creating solar paint. main problem is making it last out in the weather.this new breakthrough along with nextgens research really excites me. maybe we can finally build solar panels that dont require lots of energy to create.

This discovery sounds fantastic. But, like all the other sensational alternative energy methods that I've been hearing about in the past; nothing will come of them. The news about it will one day just stop and we'll never hear of it again.

Worries me.

-Edrick

If they self replicate, there must be a resource that they are drawing from. I realize it is new found and in it's infancy, but if you cover your house with them it seems they would eat your house in order to keep replicating.

How to shut off the replicating is paramount. I am sure everyone has seen the Borg, they never stop!

reply to post by Tribble


The do not really self replicate, they self organize, which is a little different. You would still need to provide the raw materials such as the phospholipids and the carbon nanotubes for them to form into the solar panels.

I do not know how they would react without each other, but I cannot imagine they are prone to dissolving matter to replicate themselves.

reply to post by BomSquad


I will follow up on their progress this summer. Seems like a promising discovery.

We are either going to go solar or atomic, oil and coal won't last much longer.

Interesting discovery, but I think solar panels would be good enough if they could get them to 80+% efficiency and for about half the price (will happen in due time im sure)

or we could make this solar paint idea a reality and fix a huge array of problems we face if nations like ours spent $600+ billion a year on science instead of new ways to kill each other.

if everyone had practically free unlimited energy across the earth, standards of living would greatly increase and there wouldnt be many reasons for people to fight anymore.

reply to post by A-Dub


I wish I could agree with you, but mankind will always find reasons to fight. Whether over religion, money, land or other perceived advantage or offense, people will always get mad enough to do something stupid over it (usually violence in one form or another). You get enough people like that together, and you can have wars.

I wish it were not so, but it is human nature. It is part of our survival instinct and since we are generally not threatened by mother nature so much anymore, we misdirect this instinct against each other. We begin to perceive social threats to be as dangerous as physical threats and react accordingly.

I am afraid it is going to be that way for the foreseeable future.