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Researchers Build Device That Turns Heat Into Light, Possibly Boosting Solar Cell Efficiency (pv-magazine.com) 26
“Any hot surface emits light as thermal radiation,” said Gururaj Naik, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice. “The problem is that thermal radiation is broadband while the conversion of light to electricity is efficient only if the emission is in a narrow band.” The team worked to create a device that could squeeze the photons emitted as heat into a narrower band that could be absorbed by a solar cell…
The next step for the research will be to combine the ‘hyperbolic thermal emitter’ device with a solar cell. “By squeezing all the wasted thermal energy into a small spectral region we can turn it into electricity very efficiently,” said Naik, “the theoretical prediction is that we can get 80% efficiency.”
- by nonBORG ( 5254161 ) on Sunday August 04, 2019 @06:39PM (#59039406)All these things are pretty exciting but just like the 500 new battery technologies that create battery cells with 1/10 the cost and 10x the storage we get tired of hearing about them due to the fact that we have been hearing about them so much without actually seeing it happening. Wish they would commercialize some of these ideas and so we could use them. My solar powered EV and home is just another c years away. (unfortunately c seems to stay constant)
- I often wonder myself.
Is it possible that no VC money is interested in being the Pathfinders?
You do know how you recognize pathfinders?
They’re the guys with arrows sticking out of their butts we get tired of hearing about them due to the fact that we have been hearing about them so much without actually seeing it happening.
If you get tired of reading tech-related research, why are you on slashdot?
(I don’t get tired. I love reading all these stories)
If you get tired of reading tech-related research, why are you on slashdot?
What is tiring is reading about technology that never becomes reality. What is tiring is reading about this technology in triplicate after it apparently didn’t get enough investors the first time it was put up in an article somewhere. It’s real easy to promise and not deliver. When they deliver then I’d love to read about how it works.
- We need batteries, not extra nukes.I admit to a partiality for solar thermal focus storage in phase change like Silicon. but that’s not an educated opinion, that’s just what seems most “industrial” to me and therefore most likely to be accepted
We need batteries, not extra nukes.
Is there some reason we can’t do both?
I admit to a partiality for solar thermal focus storage in phase change like Silicon. but that’s not an educated opinion, that’s just what seems most “industrial” to me and therefore most likely to be accepted
Solar thermal right now costs more than nuclear. Not by a thin margin either.
http://www.renewable-energysou… [renewable-…ources.com]It’s nice to dream about some future machine that will solve all of our problems but we need energy now. We need actual machines that can be built today. Third generation nuclear is here today and we know how to build it now.
I’ll quote the post above as the links might get overlooked as it was posted by AC.
Saw this on YouTube today, Thoughty2 thinks renewable energy is a scam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?… [youtube.com]Maybe it’s not a scam but it will be a problem if we don’t take a look at what renewable energy mean on the grid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?… [youtube.com]This boosting of solar cell efficiency won’t fix the problem of intermittent renewable energy supply. We need reliable energy, not batteries. Batteries cost money but don’t produce energy, they only shift electrical supply in time.
This Hornsea wind project mentioned in the first vide
- We know there is no such thing as renewable energy. It’s called the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Could such a thing be doable?
No.
- This is what they are trying to do, it is made up of stages. Or perhaps a cluster of cells working over different bands.
- by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc.famine@gmail. c o m> on Sunday August 04, 2019 @06:52PM (#59039452) Journal
Dupe, and an older one too. I think this was from a few months back.
- That scheme seems to violate thermodynamics’s second principle. Is there anything on that point?
I think the idea is that you ca make a material whose emissivity varies with wavelength. (actually of course you can, that is true of any material that has color). So If you have high emissivity at one wavelength, and low at others, thermal emission will happen mostly at that wavelength.
That makes it easier for practical solar cells to convert the light to electrical power, but presumably doesn’t break carnot efficiency. (doesn’t change the theoretical conversion efficiency).
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