BS: Nantennas - New Solar Technology

Subject: BS: Nantennas - New Solar Technology
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 03:07 PM

Also called nano antennas. Here's an interesting (and promising) new technology for solar power...

http://www.memagazine.org/march08/departments/input_output/input_out.html

Subject: RE: BS: Nantennas - New Solar Technology
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 04:10 PM

80% efficiency is the gold standard and the realistic limit.

Also the companies that make rolls of solar cell film are good for private use.

I have noticed that these companies are usually not publicly traded.

Subject: RE: BS: Nantennas - New Solar Technology
From: MarkS
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 03:15 PM

If you capture all the solar energy falling on a given bit of ground, doesn't that have a bad environmental effect on the ground?

Subject: RE: BS: Nantennas - New Solar Technology
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 03:17 PM

We could put them on roofs and over parking areas and stuff. There's certainly enough of them already preventing the sun from reaching the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Nantennas - New Solar Technology
From: semi-submersible
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 07:41 PM

What a pity solar panels don't grow on trees. Oh, yes, of course... they do. (Also in shrubs, herbs, and pond scum, making sunlight plus water and air equal sugar. Imagine a world covered in solar panels, a world still pleasant to live in...)

What we want (as opposed to food energy, which we merely need) is power for machines. In the next few years, cheap, durable, reasonably efficient photovoltaic films will be brought to market by at least some of the people now searching for such technology. There's so much solar energy available that those who can afford it will then have energy aplenty for a while, and will be free to discover new ways to depend on it. ("Invention is the mother of many necessities." Marshall McLuhan)

If we're going to use roads anyway, at least let us collect sunlight with them to power electric vehicles and other industry. Roofs can be used also, but where it's possible to support the weight of both soil and snow, it would be more efficient in the long run to grow food on roofs. (The hitch so far is that where life is, moisture is, and decay follows. Having to tear out and rebuild a green roof within a few decades wouldn't be cost- or energy-efficient. Insurers and builders remain wary of it until they see it proven.)

Meanwhile we'll start to fight over water and food supply. The solar energy boom will help processing and transportation, but the new use for land will further squeeze cropland and wilderness. Caring citizens are the most effective defenders of healthy local ecologies that deliver clean water and air, and eat up pollution and pests. Musicians, please help people remember why we need hedgerows and tangled braes in our neighbourhoods.

Subject: RE: BS: Nantennas - New Solar Technology
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 07:59 PM

MarkS

For the most part it just means that you are shading any given area. Obviously solar panels on roofs would not have a bad effect, in fact it might cut cooling costs. Obviously it might not be the most environmentally friendly to have solar panels INSTEAD of plants in a given area.