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."
This has to be good news (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This has to be good news (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:On the basis of the evidence... (Score:5, Interesting)
The cost of setting up a plant is hardly "cheap" and what happens when coal becomes scarce? It IS a finite resource - unlike the sun.
Once again the cost of setting up a nuclear power plant is in the billions. Fissile materials are also finite, when they begin to run out we'll see huge increases in price. See the case of oil now.
I also take issue with your point that nuclear energy is "green". Even if we say that plants are entirely safe (Which seems to be the Slashdot consensus) there are many other issues. First of all, what does one do with the waste? Plutonium 239, the most common material used, has a half life of 24,000 years. That's longer than civilisation has so far existed. None of our current methods of storing waste are viable and many have been proven useless.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0606/S00198.htm [scoop.co.nz]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/4589321.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7068041.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/18/japan.justinmccurry1 [guardian.co.uk]
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003816157_webhanfordleak01.html?syndication=rss [nwsource.com]
Let's not forget the insane amounts of energy required to both commission a plant, continually mine and transport uranium and then decommission it.
I don't understand how you can argue that replacing our dependence on finite resource that pollutes the environment with another finite resource that pollutes the environment is a good thing. I suggest you read the recently commission Garnaut Review (Professor Ross Garnaut is an economist at the Australian National University) which states that nuclear is a non-viable option and the world must develop renewable sources of energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garnaut_Report [wikipedia.org]. Or the Stern review (also made by an economist) which reaches a similar conclusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review [wikipedia.org]. I do believe these two in particular have a broader depth of knowledge surrounding economics than you do.
Re:This has to be good news (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:On the basis of the evidence... (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering that Germany(the solar capital of the world) recieves roughly the same amount of sunlight as Seattle. Almost all of the USA could take advantage of solar energy.
Also the average home in the USA recieves enough sunlight on its roof to power itself for 2-3 days worth of energy consumption. (assuming the sunlight was harnessed)
Re:This has to be good news (Score:3, Interesting)
they're making large flywheel systems to store off peak power to release during peak demand... DOE funding them too.
Re:$14M? (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, the only one that we could have would be the Negawatts obtained from energy savings here and there.
Anyway, solar energy appears to be the only scalable renewable energy source. You sure cannot obtain 100% of electricity production from it, but after some energy savings, 50% nukes + 50% solar panels could be a possibility for most countries.
It is just impossible to obtain more than a few % with either biomass, hydropower, windpower or geothermal sources. Sure enough, those renewables should be used wherever possible, but they just cannot cover enough load. For what's left, we should use solar energy and nukes.
Re:What will $14 million achieve? (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a big push to use coal power because the US has so much natural reserves of the stuff and it will help develop the some of the areas of the country that currently have little job prospects. I think the worry with solar is that you'd find a great way to manufacture the cells, but then all the manufacturing would go overseas. Less US jobs created + you still don't have energy independence.
Re:This has to be good news (Score:3, Interesting)
There's also the failure modes to consider: losing the cooling probably means the wire will melt.
Re:$14M? (Score:3, Interesting)
On intermittent availability : Wind 'turns' around high and low-pressure areas, so if you are at the center of a high- or low-pressure area, there is no wind, that means that a few hundred Km's further (in ANY direction) there will be wind. furthermore : our planet is a blanket of high and low-pressure zones adjacent to each other, and the reason very simple : the moon turns around us, the earth turns around it's axis, we move around the sun, the earth is a globe, clouds : this leads to an uneven warming of the earths-surface --> high and low-pressure zones.
Re:This has to be good news (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:On the basis of the evidence... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not completely. It's also rubber gloves, overalls, etc, etc, that workers were wearing but are now classed as too radioactive to dispose of in landfill.
Last time I looked, for the UK put 1 smoke detector in a dustbin (240litres) and it can be collected by the dustmen (legally). Put two smoke detectors in the same dustbin and the whole dustbin load becomes "nuclear waste".
Story I heard from my physics tutor (so I assume it's true).
When the nuclear physics laboratory was built they wanted to put in a 20MeV tandem van-der-graff accelerator. There were two problems - one, there was a building height limit in Oxford and two, the normal cement they use in Oxford is so radioactive that any nuclear plant would immediately be shut down due to excessive radiation.
The first problem was solved by digging two stories down. The second problem was solved by going round all the builders yards with a geiger counter looking for the least radioactive cement.
Tim.
Re:This has to be good news (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:On the basis of the evidence... (Score:2, Interesting)
Back to the future...with solar cells (Score:3, Interesting)
One day they took us to the Capitol, and after the obligatory tour, they turned us loose.
In the Capitol. To look around. Really. It was a different world back then.
Anyway, I picked a hearing room at random, wandered in, and sat down.
This was during the first energy crisis, and someone was testifying to the committee about solar cells.
He was explaining that just as advances in IC technology had brought down the cost of ICs,
advances in the solar cell technology would bring down the cost of solar energy.
It sounded plausible, but it was completely wrong.
And for reasons that anyone testifying before congress should have understood.
It costs a certain amount of money (~ $1K) to process a silicon wafer.
We brought down the cost of ICs by making them smaller, so we get more of them for our $1K.
But that trick doesn't work with solar cells.
Solar cells collect photons over their surface.
You can make one smaller, sure, but then it collects fewer photons and produces less energy.
The only way to make solar cells cheaper is reduce the cost of the wafer and the processing,
and that's *hard*.
We've been working on it for 40 years,
and they still aren't competitive with coal/oil/gas/nuclear powered electric generators. (~ $0.10/KW-hr)
Real solar, from Applied Materials (Score:5, Interesting)
Last year, I heard a VP from Applied Materials give a talk on their solar panel operation. Applied Materials is a big, profitable company that makes a big fraction of the world's semiconductor and flat panel fab gear. Key points:
This was a big-company manufacturing executive talking. He never mentioned "green" or "eco" anything; he focused on volume and profitability. That's encouraging. This is finally happening for real.