DARPA Awards $53 Million for Solar Power Research 171
mygadgetbox writes "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will be giving a consortium led by the University of Delaware nearly $53 million in funding to more than double the efficiency of terrestrial solar cells within the next 50 months. DARPA wants the consortium to develop and produce 1,000 Very High Efficiency Solar Cell (VHESC) prototypes that are affordable and that operate at efficiencies of at least 50 percent. The goal is to create solar cells that operate at about 54 percent efficiency in the laboratory and 50 percent in production."
Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been getting excited about some of the recent research that is making progress towards less costly, cleaner (to produce and dispose) solar cells. I guess if you are the military, and price is not an issue than this DARPA research is usefull. They need to find some way to power all this new electronics equipment that soldiers are carrying. But it is improvements in cost efficiency that will really make a difference in real world.
TATFA (think about the article) (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:3, Interesting)
True, the military will care about efficient power cells but is it really worth it to go the solar route? I mean we've been hearing a lot about other small energy sources as well...in my opinion solar is a pretty bad way to go from what I know about it. They're not very rugged from what I know either, which kind of describes where most of our troops end up.
While I agree sometimes it is better to spend the money and get more efficient, I'm not sure I want my tax dollars wasted on something like this if the
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:5, Insightful)
Body armour may stop shrapnel. Body armour can't stop kenetic force. So it's good versus grenades, small arms, peripheral range of explosions, but piss poor against a bomb attack.
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:2)
A grenade is ussually a bite of something like cordite wrapped with a etched wire in a casing or the casing itself is etched. When the cordite explodes the shrapnel is what kills you. In a suicide bombing set up, there ussually is a lot more explosive and they don't depend on nails to do the damage. So yes, you can tell the difference between a bomb impact and a grenade impact.
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:3, Insightful)
And being able to set up a self-supporting field communications center with a small backpack full of gear can make a LOT more difference in war than an extra piece of
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:2)
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:2)
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, you have it backwards... if the American people weren't kept in a constant state of fear and reliance on the Pentagon to "protect" them, they wouldn't be so willing to fork over their tax dollars to support the world's largest military. That's the beauty of the system: the bigger the US military-industrial complex grows, the more the rest of the world resents and fears the USA. The more the rest of the world hates and fears the USA, the more insecure the US population becomes. The more insecure the US population becomes, the more willing they are to funnel more of their tax money into "defense", in the hopes that it will make them safer from the world that hates them so. So essentially the more money they spend, the more money they will have to spend later on.
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:2)
cars could recharge using solar cells on the roof. If this were possible, being stuck in a traffic jam
wouldn't be slightly less worrying, as I wouldn't be wasting money on keeping an engine going.
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:2)
Of course you don'tt need to worry about sitting in trafic so much, since hybrids don't burn fuel(very much) when you are
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:2)
Obviously you've not been watching the price of gas lately.
in my opinion solar is a pretty bad way to go from what I know about it.
You must know nothing about it at all. It only costs about $30,000 to take a home completely off of the electrical grid using solar with a combination of other natural sources of energy to power your house. (I'm part of a group of people here in Memphis, that have
Re:TATFA (think about the article) (Score:2)
Re:Meh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Come to think of it, isn't Area 51 surrounded by a bunch of wasteland desert?
Either way, I want solar that can pay for itself quicker than I have to pay off a loan for it, else I can't afford the capital investment. I'd plaster my whole roof with it.
Solar roof shingles and solar standing seam metal roofing are too expensive, too.
Re:Meh. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Meh. (Score:2)
land is cheap.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:land is cheap.. (Score:2)
Okay, you're right.
Re:land is cheap.. (Score:2)
More efficient and less expensive cells at the high-end will not translate into cheaper panels for consumer-level stuff because the pricing gap between the two grades will remain substantial for a long time to come... unless this DARPA funding leads to a major co
Re:Meh. (Score:2)
Re:Meh. (Score:2)
Yes. And because the grid is not a storage battery, the local utility takes that excess and dumps it.
Dumps it WHERE?
Don't you think that reducing the power production of other, conventional, plants, would be enough to accept the solar power?
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Interesting)
this would reduce the cost, even if the price-per-cell remains the same.
personally, i say let's try for both.
Re:Meh. (Score:2)
Re:Meh. (Score:1)
Re:Meh. (Score:2)
Hrm, my laptop draws 25W at peak, 14W while idling. Bright direct sunlight is 1kW per square metre. I estimate my laptop surface area (back of the screen) is about 0.06 square metres, and with efficiency of 15% for cells and assuming 25% sunlight (cloudy days, indirect lighting), yeah it's not even close. It's out by
Re:Meh. (Score:2)
The problem is you don't use laptops outside all that much and when you do use them outside you tend to
Re:Meh. (Score:1)
Re:Meh. (Score:2)
Darpa is more concerned about 24 hours 7 day a week in the air solar powered UAV's with solar panels than home owners. For all they care, those things could cost $10 million a pop as long as they get the job done.
Re: (Score:2)
Actual experience (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Meh. (Score:2)
There doesn't seem to be much excuse any more. Cheap AND effecient cells:
http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/ [greenandgo...rgy.com.au]
1000000 times better... (Score:5, Insightful)
...than looking for ways to bury waste products in the ocean.
Photocells are already fantastic technology. Not only do you save the energy you would otherwise be drawing from a power plant, you also save the energy needed to deliver the energy to the point where it is used.
A lot of public lighting near my home is now solar powered. The big advantage is that you don't have to dig trenches to the site. Trenching is very expensive because of the associated labour costs, and labour costs feed back directly into energy costs.
Re:1000000 times better... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:1000000 times better... (Score:2)
Re:1000000 times better... (Score:1, Informative)
Not true. ROI is about 18 months. Expected lifetime is upwards of 15 years.
Re:1000000 times better... (Score:2)
how do you get that? (Score:2)
So I did some numbers. My electric bill is about $40/mo from PG&E. I use about 353KWh/month.
I figured that there are about 6 effective peak hours of generation per day. That is, I get about 12 hours, but if you average it all hour, it's like I get peak sun for 6 hours (Solarbuzz says 5.5) in my area.
Okay, so that means for
you can't compare up front money to over time (Score:2)
I don't agree with your contract thing. I am comparing cost of PV power versus regular power, to get an idea of whether it makes sense for the person who is already accustomed to regular electric rates. Additionally, California is considering limiting the ability of anyone (even companies) to sign power contracts outside the regular system, so that might not even be an option for me soon.
I r
Try again... (Score:2)
Re:Try again... (Score:3, Informative)
It is in use all over the place here in Australia. Not along every main road, but it is used where there is no easy access to mains electricity. A location in the middle of a park, or on an isolated country road easily justifies solar power.
In my former job working on road transport systems we frequently installed solar and wireless traffic monitoring systems and emergency telephones.
You save on trenching this way, and also on maintenance because u
This is good and all (Score:4, Insightful)
Most excellent news, but let's hope... (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Most excellent news, but let's hope... (Score:2)
They love you... +1
This kind of behavior is common, but the public rarely hear about it.
They really love you... +2
The solution is for the world's populace to revolt by trying ever so hard not to purchase gasoline.
Erm...
Instead, whenever possible we should walk, bicycle or rollerblade to our place of work or relaxation until solar
..oil industry doesn't buy up.. (Score:2)
Re:Most excellent news, but let's hope... (Score:1)
"We're not evil oil companies, we make solar cells, too!"
Or it could be a poorly executed attempt at product diversification, like:
"Oil ain't going to be around forever, ya know, that's why we are making
Re:Most excellent news, but let's hope... (Score:2)
Re:Most excellent news, but let's hope... (Score:2)
Of course, selling dirt cheap solar panels, etc, to suburbia isn't quite in their best interest just yet. The aquisition of a state right beside Saudi Arabia will keep it going for a while.
A Good Start (Score:5, Interesting)
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid [cosmicvariance.com] I really encourage you to read the whole post.
~CK
Re:A Good Start (Score:2)
Re:A Good Start (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A Good Start (Score:2)
Solar may be variable on the local scale, but it is constant on the aggregate. Oh, BTW, they have figured out how to make non-silicon based solar panels, so they get easier and cheaper to make.
Re:A Good Start (Score:2)
I grant one and three but not two!
The uranium amount is far from being 'nearly inexhaustable', I remember vaguely that a study showed that if we switches from oil to uranium, the resource of uranium would be exhausted in two centuries.
That's a long time, ok but it's quite far from being 'nearly inexhaustable'.
Re:A Good Start (Score:2)
Re:A Good Start (Score:2)
So the "inexhaustible supply of uranium" is on the land. And what is it?
Assuming what? (Score:2)
Replacing hydrocarbon energy with clean energy is not the only way to reduce hydrocarbon use. Making things more efficient will also reduce power use. This can mean better insulation in buildings and homes; more efficient means of travel; more efficient lighting (LED?); more efficient heaters and air conditioners; etc.
It might even mean smarter stoplights. [blogspot.com]
the tricky part (Score:1)
It turns out you need a total surface area the size of a medium sized US state in about six places around the world (say one on each continent) to do the job.
Does anybody else see a problem covering Wyoming with solar arrays?
Re:the tricky part (Score:2)
lets see.. average house maybe 10 * 15 metres or more = 150 m^2 surface area on the roof. the sun gives a daily average of about 200 watts per m^2 (peaks at over 1KW at noon (in sunny places), drops to 0 at night)
that gives us 150*200 = 30 KW of average power. add in a 20% efficient cell and you've got 6 KW average power, for every house, (obviously we need a way to store it during the day for night use), being way more than enough for most houses
then youve
Re:the tricky part (Score:2)
To put this in persepctive, the average home uses between 20kWh and 40kWh per day. That averages out to less than 2kW average power. So as you say, even assuming grossly inefficient storage, solar power is technologically feasible. It's the economics that have held i
Re:A Good Start (Score:2)
That having been said, he's making trend estimations to 2050. 2050. That's 45 years off. People aren't particularly good at figuring out what will happen in 10 years, let alone in 45. By 2050 the world will look as different as it did in 1950, arguably moreso. Will we have simple, efficient hydrogen for power storage? Will we finally have cracked t
It can only mean one thing... (Score:5, Funny)
Halliburton now owns the sun.
Re:It can only mean one thing... (Score:1)
More than one way to rule the world (Score:2)
Halliburton now owns the sun.
Not necessarily. All Halliburton really needs is the power to *destroy* the sun -- thus rendering the Earth uninhabitable. Top that, General Electric!
Now shut up, pay your bills, and enjoy your democracy.
-kgj
Re: (Score:2)
Uses for solar panels (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uses for solar panels (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a similar issue to VLSI chips. Once you have sufficent economies of scale, costs will fall rapidly.
Re:Uses for solar panels (Score:2)
There are newer materials such as flexible solar cells, but they are expensive by comparison, and are less efficient. Several posters are also saying that more efficient is better because it will lower the amount of cells required..
Optical Rectennas (Score:1)
This would allow for a much higher top theoretical efficentcy. Maybe around 90%+ and would be far cheaper to produce.
Re:Optical Rectennas (Score:2)
Efficiency (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm also quite positive I remember stumbling across a webpage for a US Defense/space contractor, where they offered up solar panel "scraps" (stuff you could still assemble into working modules, with a fair bit of labor) for sale to the public. Efficiency was substantially higher than anything I've seen on the commercial market, though I don't recall figures off the top of my head. They probably cost a lot more to manufacture, but $50M amortized over -possible- solar panels sounds pretty expensive too.
Why couldn't we just give a $50M grant to homeowners to buy solar panels?
50 percent of what? (Score:2)
Now getting closer to 100% is harder. The amount of effort spent on making something efficient for a given frequency may be better spent trying to make it cover multiple frequencies (or layering cel
Re:50 percent of what? (Score:2)
Seriously.
A cell thats 25% efficient DOES convert 25% of the complete photon energy flux on its area in electrical energy.
Thats why 25% is such a high value and even optimisation cant rise it much higher. The _quantum_ efficiency of those solar cells is almost 1, btw, So if you wanted bullshit advertisements, you could always claim 94% efficience.
A hint for better understanding: look at a spectral graph of sunlight through the athmosthere. Its not really a blackbody-
Does this not violate physics? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Does this not violate physics? (Score:2)
The losses in the C3 (or C4) cycle are enormous, and a plant is a living creature with a metabolism and much of the sugar generated goes for other uses than laying down fiber (which is what we eventually harvest for timber or firewood or hay).
Alternative Energy is already here. (Score:5, Interesting)
This was not their original plan at the outset. --Basically, they bought a property, and cleared a lot far back from the road. Then they learned that to have AC lines brought to their house from the mains, the local power company would charge them over $10,000 for the job of sinking four poles and running cable.
They thought, "Wow. Ten grand? Sheesh. What other options are there?"
The result was some research and a re-jigged construction plan using alternative energy. They spent about the same amount of money installing Geo-thermal and solar panel solutions.
10 big cells cost them about $8000 CAD. The rest of the money was spent digging trenches and laying thermal transfer pipes, air ducts and house wiring. Now they have all the power they need.
Strategic spot lighting using 12 volt halogen bulbs rather than bathing entire rooms in light minimizes the impact on energy reserves. Laptops are used instead of desktop computers, and various other appliances, like radios and televisions are run with DC to AC converters. Water is pumped from a well to a reservoir at the top of the house which provides pressure. Even while feeding the needs of an active family of four, the array of 5 big chemical batteries which stores electricity from sunlight never dipped below a 95% full charge on any of the days I visited. (The power readings were set on a cool display for all to look at.) --And the house is also absolutely enormous; 5 bedrooms, plus various huge family rooms the size of small churches, etc. A total mansion, and after the initial investment, it costs exactly zero to light and power.
Cooking is done on a big gas range fed from a pair of large propane tanks which contain enough propane to last more than a year. Water is drawn from a well. Refrigeration was the only puzzle still to be worked out, and while pondering it, the family had spent two years eating fresh foods while keeping milk and other such items in a basic camping cooler in the kitchen. Half the things people normally keep in their fridges don't really need to be there; milk and beef doesn't go bad all that quickly, eggs don't need to be refrigerated at all, and chicken and fish are simply bought fresh the day they are intended for consumption. --After realizing that this worked without any problems, the family basically concluded that they didn't really need a fridge in the first place. --Though, they told me that they had found a super-efficient 12 volt DC fridge on the market for homes exactly like theirs, but that they didn't think they really needed it.
Half the problem is not the power source, but the notion that we need so much electricity in the first place. --If we change the parameters of the problem, we can start using different solutions which have already been accepted by industry. Simple.
Despite the opposition, alternative energy is here for anybody who wants it.
-FL
Re:Alternative Energy is already here. (Score:2)
Re:Alternative Energy is already here. (Score:2)
See Nourishing Traditions [newtrendspublishing.com] (an awesome cookbook) for more uses for lactic acid fermentation (real sourkraut, chutneys, pickles, meats, etc)... There's another cookbook specifically
what did they learn about efficiency? (Score:2)
Halogen lighting is absurdly inefficient. Incandescent lighting in general is. Imagine if they used fluorescent lighting in their house? Heck, even LED or HID would be much more efficient.
I've never heard of a super-efficent 12V fridge either. Many 12V "fridges" (more like coolers) are god-awful Peltier devices which are about 10% as efficient as a compressor-based system.
Re:what did they learn about efficiency? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:what did they learn about efficiency? (Score:2)
Then you haven't looked hard enough
Vestfrost make some. They are super-efficient because they use loads of insulation, and can subsequently get away with small 12 compressors (actually 19VAC chopped up from 12v). Chest freezers with modified thermostats also come to mind , although they're still mains-powered.
And luxeon LED lighting would probably be the way to go - they only draw 5 watts or so tops, and you can get MR16 types that fit standard halogen sock
super-efficient? (Score:2)
That means the freezer on that vestfrost site uses 51.13904511 KWH/cu ft/year.
Now, at the energy star site http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=ref rig.display_products_html [energystar.gov], the freezer at the top of the list uses 45.46666667 KWH/cu ft/year, which is 10% less.
I'm sure there's some fudging I'm missing in these numbers, but I don't see how those devices you list are super-efficient. Efficie
Electricity. . . (Score:2)
Halogen lighting is absurdly inefficient. Incandescent lighting in general is. Imagine if they used fluorescent lighting in their house? Heck, even LED or HID would be much more efficient.
I agree that I do find LED lighting an exciting technology, but I'd be hard pressed to go with it in a house; it's a very blue and cold light. I dislike fluorescent for those same reasons and because even the special units designed to replace incandesce
Re:Alternative Energy is already here. (Score:2)
Propane Fridge. (Score:2)
-FL
Night Sky Refrigeration (Score:2)
Basically, you have a heavily insulated storage "unit" - an old, large chest freezer will work fine. Get rid of the compressor, coils, etc, then seal any holes or cracks. Dig a really large hole, deep enough to hold the chest, leaving a couple of feet completely around the box. Fill the bottom up with a foot or two of straw, old fiberglass insulation, sawdust, etc - basically some
Nova Scotia, actually. (Score:2)
Even still, it took a lot of work to get the bank to allow a building loan for the house; the bank's concern was that an eco-friendly house would be difficult for the bank to re-sell if the original owner failed to pay back the loan. It took a fair bit of fighting and many phone calls up the chain to bosses of bosses and a bit of threatened media attention. ("What? Your bank doesn't support environmentally friendly housing? What will the
Solar Power is not just Photovoltaics (Score:5, Interesting)
But solar power is not limited merely to what one can do with photovoltaics. When people talk about the many terawatts of solar power that falls on the surface of the earth, most of that solar goes into two things: photochemistry (like in plants) or to heating the earth's surface. Plants make very efficient use of the solar power that falls on them, and a black, nonreflective object will convert the incident solar power to heat (or reradiated infrared light) with extremely high efficiency. If we could focus efforts to developing technologies that capture sunlight first into chemistry or raw heat and converting that to electricity, rather than the direct conversion to electricity that photovoltaics do, we may have a better chance of reaching the 50% goal.
For instance, there was (is?) a solar power project [doe.gov] that in the California desert that was a solar-thermal generator. Hundreds of mirrors focused sunlight onto a tower, much like the Archimedes death ray (which has received some press in
I'll admit this isn't much use in the battlefield, which is what DARPA is aiming for, but it is not out of the question to consider a smaller solar thermal unit for an encampment, which used a different medium than sodium.
Re:Solar Tower (Score:2)
Goal Not Important (Score:2)
Government
Solar cells are still very expensive (Score:2, Informative)
Generating electric energy with solar cells is a great idea, but they are still a speciality, because the price of the cells are so high. Prices are falling, and have been doing so for many years, but they still have a long way to go to be competitive to other large scale energy sources.
Solar cells needs more researching and funding for R&D. It will be great once it becomes affordable
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Solar cells are still very expensive (Score:2)
On the smaller scale you do see many of the homes outside of town
More like $5 trillion needed (Score:2, Interesting)
$53m is not a lot (Score:2)
This is dwarfed by the subsidies [motherjones.com] that govts give to the world's richest industry, Oil.
Burns Shield? (Score:1)
Re:Orbitting powerplants (Score:2)
Re:Orbitting powerplants (Score:3, Informative)
True, but since you are getting it "for free" from the sun, a certain amount of inefficiency is tolerable. The lossage can be minimized by transmitting the power on the right frequencies.
It would also need to be very precisely targeted - at those sort of distances, a fraction of a degree off could result in blasting some poor shmucks house of the face of the earth
There are several simple ways to deal with that problem:
Re:Orbitting powerplants (Score:2)
And what would you propose we do with the last dregs of our fossil fuel reserves? Burn them up in our SUVs and wait for the rapture? Using them to construct an alternate system of collecting energy, so that civilization can continue after they are gone, seems quite reasonable to me...
Re:Rove and Libby (Score:2)
It's not about right vs. left, it's about intelligence vs. stupidity. George Bush is the dumbest president in living memory. You have to be dumber than he is not to recognize that. Unfortunately, George Bush is apparently right around median intelligence, which means that nearly half of America is, in fact, dumber than he is. (The rest are wealthy and think they know which side their bread is b
Re:Rove and Libby (Score:2)
No one pays attention to where the money is spent. They're too busy spending it themselves. At every level. In every branch. In every party.
The Bush clan just have it down to a science.