Stanford's New Solar Tech Harnesses Heat, Light 117
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a Stanford news release:
"Stanford engineers have figured out how to simultaneously use the light and heat of the sun to generate electricity in a way that could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil. Unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels — which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises — the new process excels at higher temperatures. ... 'This is really a conceptual breakthrough, a new energy conversion process, not just a new material or a slightly different tweak,' said Nick Melosh, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research group. 'It is actually something fundamentally different about how you can harvest energy.' And the materials needed to build a device to make the process work are cheap and easily available, meaning the power that comes from it will be affordable."
The abstract for the researchers' paper is available at Nature.
So, is this like... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:When will these ever make it to market (Score:2, Funny)
They all get bought out by the oil companies to keep it hidden and hush hush and then shelf the projects...same thing happened with those water powered motors that we are not supposed to know exists but have been shelved a long time ago...wiki i think has the links...
Re:50% conversion! (Score:3, Funny)
o still not practical for home roof top deployment. Most people will not want 800C )or anything close) on their roof tops even if it was light and portable.
Are you kidding? Add a couple of rotating mirrors and market it as a death ray. Rabbits getting into your garden? Neighbor's dog crapping on your lawn? Reflect that beam spot around and *poof*, no more problem!