DOE Shines $14M on Solar Energy Research 164
coondoggie writes "Eleven university solar research projects aimed at developing advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) technology manufacturing processes and products got a $14 million boost today from the Dept. of Energy. Photovoltaic-based solar cells convert sunlight directly into electricity, and are made of semiconductor materials similar to those used in computer chips. When sunlight is absorbed by these materials, the solar energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, allowing the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity."
What will $14 million achieve? (Score:5, Insightful)
Should we subsidize specific technologies? (Score:4, Insightful)
On the basis of the evidence... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Department of Energy estimates that, in 15 years, America will get a whopping 2-3% of its electricity generation from solar power. It isn't hard to understand why: it is expensive, the technology takes a stupidly long time to go energy-positive (and longer to achieve ROI), and solar is and *always will be* hostage to weather conditions which make it impossible to as a main power source in the overwhelming majority of this country.
If you want cheap energy, go coal. If you want cheap clean energy, go nuclear. If you want the undying love of people who understand neither engineering or economics and are not willing to learn either, go solar.
Re:What will $14 million achieve? (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, we can only hope that these groups meet with quick success and that their work can be brought into development in the near future (not to mention the various other power sources that are much farther along).
$14M? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On the basis of the evidence... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear.
I personally do not believe they are safe but I have noticed that whenever this is brought up on Slashdot dozens of posts are sent in reply claiming that nuclear has "Come so far" since Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island and "nothing like that could ever happen again". Instead of getting bogged down on whether or not a nuclear power plant is likely to go into meltdown I thought it was better to stick to the inarguable facts.
World Grid? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On the basis of the evidence... (Score:2, Insightful)
What?! You're on Slashdot and you're not thinking "hmm, wonder what will happen with technology in the future?".
Do you seriously think that in the next 24,000 years of human science we WON'T come up with a solution to handle nuclear waste better? What about within the next 1,000 years (we can safely store for that long no worries). Still to long for ya? What about the next HUNDRED years, think we'll be able to deal with it then?
Did you know that we're already re-processing and using the waste from nuclear reactors from TEN years ago?
Come on, safely store the waste under a mountain in a geographically stable area (there isn't much waste that comes from a nuclear reactor) for now and deal with it 10, 50, 100 years from now.
Nuclear is safe, reliable and doesn't produce emissions when running. Much better than killing tens of thousands of people every year due to coal particulates in the air.
Meanwhile ... (Score:2, Insightful)
So that $14 million is about an hour and a halfs worth of investment, on one of the technologies that would stop us having to fight any more "wars for oil" ever again.
Makes you think
Stable energy sources (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What will $14 million achieve? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then again, it's going to take nonrenewable resources to fund the research on solar energy
Re:What will $14 million achieve? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is definitely a start but when you compare it to the $2 billion the DOE was going to spend in developing new rural coal plants you have to ask where their priorities lie.
Or maybe I should call it chimp change. 14 million when you're talking about a nation dependent on a line of oil tankers that stretches half-way around the world and pumps billions of dollars a day into one of the most oppressive governments on the planet. A country that just happens to supply the bulk of working terrorists in the world. The same country we get some of those dollars back by selling them mountains of advanced weapons systems, sending more guns to a part of the world that really doesn't need them.
So how's that 14 million looking now?
Re:Stable energy sources (Score:2, Insightful)
That's why the solar installation needs to be above the weather (in orbit). A solar satellite would receive solar radiation about three times as intense as on the surface, and would never be affected by adverse weather conditions.
Re:On the basis of the evidence... (Score:2, Insightful)
Damn, and with language like that you must be a 16 year old AOL user.
I'm sure my kids (or my kids grandchildren) will appreciate trying to clean the air rather than stored nuclear waste.
My priority would be to stop polluting the air now and nuclear is the best way I've heard to mass produce energy with the fewest emissions now. I work in the energy industry, wind is a joke and everything else doesn't scale up very well yet.
Re:What will $14 million achieve? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This has to be good news (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I've tried to be objective when evaluating Bush and his aid to africa package did not escape my notice. Unfortunately the TRILLIONS that will be spent on the iraq war make everything else pale in comparison. Especially when toilet paper is worth more than the dollar. My kids will be paying for this and I happen to love my kids. Right now I'm fucking pissed off. Thanks, George! And I'm a conservative!
$14 Million my ass.
Two solar technologies are supposedly economic (Score:3, Insightful)
So, rather than look around the U.S., one should see how Germany harnesses solar energy.
Two technologies have made solar technologies much less expensive.
1. Solar concentrators.
When sunlight hits a solar energy device,
that device needn't convert immediately to electricity or heat.
Split the use of solar energy into two steps,
a. Concentrate/divert the solar light with what looks like a mirror
or microwave antenna, but several meters in diameter.
b. Focus the solar mirror onto your solar energy converter;
essentially our solar cells of today, but able to withstand
large amounts of solar energy.
Producing solar mirrors is far less expensive than producing solar panels.
This concentrator method is being claimed by some Israelis.
They claim that 3 such concentrators save enough energy costs
to construct a new concentrator in 3 years,
thereby bootstrapping the economics of constructing solar concentrators.
2. Thin solar panels.
Thin is cheaper than thick.
Germans have developed this technology.
Germany is one of the last places you'd expect to have half the world's solar power.
From the same solar setup, you can get about twice as much energy near the equator
(eg, Israel) than in high latitude Germany.
Indeed, if we covered the Sahara Desert with solar panels,
we would produce as much energy as used by the whole world.
People on this blog mention that solar energy isn't storable.
But everything on earth is the result of solar energy
-- previous stars exploded to produce uranium and all the other elements besides hydrogen,
oil and coal are sunlight stored in carbon chains.
Which storage method used by nature could we use ourselves?
We could heat water then store it underground,
we could create carbon chains like oils,
we could move Sysiphus proverbial rock (or water) uphill then retrieve it downhill.
Dams once provided much of America's energy,
and now solar energy could move lake or sea water up into dams for later use.
If we go to mostly battery driven cars,
100 million big car batteries can store a great deal of solar energy.
Solar energy can be stored;
but perhaps the greatest technological challenge is not the acquisition of solar energy,
rather the storage of this energy.
Re:This has to be good news (Score:3, Insightful)
The point to take away from the comparison isn't that $14 million is worthless, but rather that the war in Iraq is ridiculously expensive. $14 million, applied in a productive manner, can go a long way. On the other hand, when trying to solve an insoluble problem like Iraq, no amount of money would be effective.
The BUSH has been a complete disaster to science research in this country, we may never recover
Given a competent replacement, I believe we can. Just because we've spent the last 8 years spinning our wheels doesn't mean we have to continue to do so.
Re:Back to the future...with solar cells (Score:4, Insightful)
Too often, the cost of energy is examined as just the $ that the consumer pays. By that measure, solar, is much more expensive than oil/coal/nuclear for example, and getting it below that cost may be close to impossible.
But, that price of the coal/oil/nuclear is not the REAL price of that form of energy. Much of the costs are offloaded onto the environments they are drawn from in the form of damage and pollution. Other costs are offloaded onto the people who live where the resources are mined in the form of land loss and damage, and low wages.
It is also offloaded as risk. Nuclear is cleaner, but you have greater risk. Risk of an attack/failure at the reactor, risk of what will happen to the waste for the next several thousand generations, risk with the radioactive fuel materials falling into the wrong hands. Etc. These may have higher or lower probabilities but they exist.
So yes, coal/oil/nuclear are cheaper in dollars and cents, but not cheaper when you factor in the hidden costs to society as a whole.
Moral of the story: as we move to cleaner energy sources in the future, the dollar cost may be higher, but there will be fewer hidden costs.