Netizen: Solar power

Showing posts with label Solar power. Show all posts

Thursday, March 05, 2015

Sahara And Amazon And Solar

A few days back I came across this video. And it is fascinating. It is showing that the Amazon forest (full of life) is totally dependent on the Sahara (lifeless) for its very survival. This is mind blowing. Mother Nature.

Another thing I see is, the Sahara could also meet all of Africa's energy needs. Used to be solar was expensive and complex. Not any more.

The coming era of unlimited — and free — clean energy
Why Obama should stop pushing nuclear energy on India
Unlimited Free Solar Power?

Solar Energy Revolution: A Massive Opportunity http://t.co/bblDqsqC53 by @peterdiamandis -- 100% solar energy within 20 years amazing
— Vivek Wadhwa (@wadhwa) September 3, 2014

The Sahara alone could meet all of Africa's energy needs. The Sahara probably is the best place on earth to harness solar energy. And, guess what, the Sun is not going anywhere. The oil fields of Saudi Arabia will run dry, but the earth will evaporate before the sun will disappear. I think the Sahara could generate 1,000 GW easy. Imagine a solar panel - one panel - the size of Texas.

Africa could become the leading continent on earth based just on Sahara's solar energy. It truly is the central continent. It is closer to every other continent than any other. Which means, it could end up the manufacturing hub of the world.

Africa so deserves a political union. It only makes sense that Africa should become one country. Because political leadership is what has been in the way. Or rather, lack of it. The continent that deserves to be the richest is the poorest.

The Sahara is in need of a serious image makeover. It is not lifeless. It is the opposite. It is life-sustaining.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Solar: 60% Efficiency Would Be Game Changing

Solar cells (Photo credit: SamGewinski)

Sharp Demonstrates Ultra-Efficient Solar Cells

New technology could be twice as efficient at converting sunlight to electricity..... In theory, solar cells that exploit this technique could reach efficiencies over 60 percent.

At that point solar competes with fossil fuels. That would be a tipping point.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Conventional Crystalline Silicon

Solar is sexy.

What Tech Is Next for the Solar Industry?

conventional crystalline silicon ..... would bring the direct cost of solar power to six cents per kilowatt-hour, which is cheaper than the average cost expected for power from new natural gas power plants ..... screen-printing techniques can produce lines as thin as 30 micrometers .... the ability to make them on a flexible sheet of glass raises the possibility of continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing (like printing newspapers), which can reduce the cost per watt by increasing production. ... a two-sided solar cell that can absorb light from both the front and back. .... during some parts of the day, sunlight falls on the land between rows of solar panels in a solar power plant. That light reflects onto the back of the panels and could be harvested to increase the power output. ... Where a one-sided solar panel might generate 340 watts, a two-sided one might generate up to 400 watts. .... Such solar panels could be mounted vertically, like a fence, so that one side collects sunlight in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. That would make it possible to install the solar panels on very little land—they could serve as noise barriers along highways .... Adding one semiconductor could boost efficiencies from the 20 to 25 percent range to around 40 percent. Adding another could make efficiencies as high as 50 percent feasible, which would cut in half the number of solar panels needed for a given installation. The challenge is to produce good connections between these semiconductors, something made challenging by the arrangement of silicon atoms in crystalline silicon.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Microgrids And The Indian Power Outage

I think it is first and foremost a demand and supply problem, not a grid problem. Although I think microgrids can help. But the real solution is on the moon.

How Power Outages in India May One Day Be Avoided

Some 600 million people in India have been left without power after parts of the country's massive electricity grid collapsed Tuesday. ..... the simple backup diesel generators that are keeping many essential services in India going right now ...... distributed solar can be cheaper than running diesel generators alone for backup power. "Solar power is very attractive when compared to diesel generators in the daytime" ...... While news reports suggested that there are 600 million people who lost power with this week's outages, that's almost certainly an overestimate—if only because hundreds of millions of people in India didn't have grid power to start with.

Monday, July 30, 2012

The Casimir Effect

English: Illustration of the Casimir effect. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Engineers Unveil First Casimir Chip That Exploits The Vacuum Energy

One of the strangest effects to arise from the quantum nature of the universe is the Casimir force. This pushes two parallel conducting plates together when they are just a few dozen nanometres apart. ..... So instead of being hindered by uncontrollable Casimir forces, the next generation of microelectromechanical devices should be able to exploit them, perhaps to make stictionless bearings, springs and even actuators.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Solar Makes Sense

solar-powered solar system 19/365 (Photo credit: Faisty.com)

It is like tapping into nuclear energy minus any of the radiation: the Sun is at a safe distance. But the trick has been to make business sense out of it.

The Dog Days of Solar

The solar industry has done a spectacular job lowering costs in the past three years, slashing per-watt costs in half.... The challenge isn't lack of innovation or financing ..... smaller players face the powerful headwinds of competing against giant incumbent providers with access to large amounts of cheap capital, all while needing to work out the kinks of a new production process at scale ..... Many upstart solar companies did the right thing by betting on new technologies to bring the cost of solar power closer to that of fossil fuels. In the end, though, market woes may trump their technical advances.