nanomesh nearly triples solar cell efficiency

www.extremetech.com...

a research team at Princeton has used nanotechnology to create a mesh that increases efficiency over organic solar cells nearly three fold. Led by Stephen Chou, the team has made two dramatic improvements: reducing reflectivity, and more effectively capturing the light that isn’t reflected. As you can see by the illustration below by Dimitri Karetnikov, Princeton’s new solar cell is much thinner and less reflective. By utilizing sandwiched plastic and metal with the nanomesh, this so-called “Plasmonic Cavity with Subwavelength Hole array” or “PlaCSH” substantially reduces the potential for losing the light itself. In fact, it only reflects about 4% of direct sunlight, leading to a 52% higher efficiency than conventional, organic solar cells.

Now we are getting somewhere, but how long until we get access to something like that?

A long time
We all know that somebody will buy the right to it and make it disappeared.
then say they are having problem.

reply to post by winterkill


I heard once while I was in college that the government will not let any modification that improves existing technology by more than 1/3 to be patented....anyone know it this is true. It would seem to be because of all the supressed technology....cars that ran on water, 300 mpg carburetors..ect..

Suppression of new technology has led us down a path of self destruction. Everything we ever needed has already been created. Only problem is that monopolies would crumble instantly. TPTB can only have control through manipulation of history, ideas, and inventions.

reply to post by ParanoidAmerican


Right now the government makes billions of dollars on the tax it charges on Gasoline.
Take that money away and we'd be in a huge mess.

en.wikipedia.org...

Over 20 billion a year. and it all goes towards infrastructure.

Originally posted by winterkill
Now we are getting somewhere, but how long until we get access to something like that?

If you look at historical efficiency of solar cells, you will see they are already more efficient than they used to be, and this trend will continue. We can't be sure where improvements will stop, but with efficiencies so low now, improvements like this should continue for some time.

It sucks to buy solar cells not knowing how long before a double efficiency one is around the corner.
I have a friend who did his whole ranch and then bang, here's a three times better one.

There have been a number of improvements in solar cells in the last ten years. But because few solar cells are made in the US and most are made in china the Chinese have no reason to build new factories to build these new solar cells.

They will just continue to build the old tech solar cells.

It takes about 10 years to design and build the machinery to build a new tech solar cell and put it in production.

I takes years to build mass production equipment after some one invents and builds some new tech.
it does not happen overnight

reply to post by winterkill


This is why I believe that any purchase of solar panel technology with any company, should come with a government controled garuntee, that the company from which the panel is purchased, will upgrade the purchased panel to bring it in line with any and all improvements over a ten year period. Either that or make them cheaper to by per meter than wall paper is.

Originally posted by grey580
reply to post by ParanoidAmerican

 

Right now the government makes billions of dollars on the tax it charges on Gasoline.
Take that money away and we'd be in a huge mess.

en.wikipedia.org...

Over 20 billion a year. and it all goes towards infrastructure.

edit on 14-12-2012 by grey580 because: (no reason given)

Over $20 billion a year? Britain's petrol tax is £27billion. That would work out as something like $43 billion.

Originally posted by Merriman Weir

Originally posted by grey580
reply to post by ParanoidAmerican

 

Right now the government makes billions of dollars on the tax it charges on Gasoline.
Take that money away and we'd be in a huge mess.

en.wikipedia.org...

Over 20 billion a year. and it all goes towards infrastructure.

edit on 14-12-2012 by grey580 because: (no reason given)

Over $20 billion a year? Britain's petrol tax is £27billion. That would work out as something like $43 billion.

The US fuel duty is 18 cents per US Gallon.

The UK fuel duty is an equivalent £2.19 per U.S. gallon.

If they attempted to charge the US public the same as the UK the politicians would be dangling from the lamp posts.

I wonder if these new efficient cells and be applied to NanoSolar's thin film printing techniques with only minor modifications? They are based out of California and are already doing great business with much expansion planned and in the works. I been watching them since 2009, and have gone to my local city council meetings just to talk about a possible city plan during the public speaking time. I doubt anyone actually takes what I say seriously though, aside from a couple of my fellow citizens.

Is it unreasonable for a city government to want to have a simple 10 megwatt backup facility to provide power to essential services during a time of emergency? Or if anything there could be a simple Federal plan that would set aside space near all hospitals in the country to be used by local municipalities to subsidize, with federal help of course, the building backup micro solar power operations? Could be applied to all transport hubs and other infrastructure facilities as well.

Thoughts and opinions on my "proposed legislation" ??