Posted on 01/10/2005 12:07:43 PM PST by ckilmer
New plastic can better convert solar energy Canadian Press
TORONTO — Researchers at the University of Toronto have invented an infrared-sensitive material that's five times more efficient at turning the sun's power into electrical energy than current methods.
The discovery could lead to shirts and sweaters capable of recharging our cellphones and other wireless devices, said Ted Sargent, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university.
Sargent and other researchers combined specially-designed minute particles called quantum dots, three to four nanometres across, with a polymer to make a plastic that can detect energy in the infrared.
Infrared light is not visible to the naked eye but it is what most remote controls emit, in small amounts, to control devices such as TVs and DVD players.
It also contains a huge untapped resource -- despite the surge in popularity of solar cells in the 1990s, we still miss half of the sun's power, Sargent said.
"In fact, there's enough power from the sun hitting the Earth every day to supply all the world's needs for energy 10,000 times over,'' Sargent said in a phone interview Sunday from Boston. He is currently a visiting professor of nanotechnology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sargent said the new plastic composite is, in layman's terms, a layer of film that "catches'' solar energy. He said the film can be applied to any device, much like paint is coated on a wall.
"We've done the same thing, but not with something that just sit there on the wall the way paint does,'' said the Ottawa native.
"We've done it to make a device which actually harnesses the power in the room in the infrared.''
The film can convert up to 30 per cent of the sun's power into usable, electrical energy. Today's best plastic solar cells capture only about six per cent.
Sargent said the advance would not only wipe away that inefficiency, but also resolve the hassle of recharging our countless gadgets and pave the way to a true wireless world.
"We now have our cellphones and our BlackBerries and we're walking around without the need to plug in, in order to get our data,'' he said.
"But we seem trapped at the moment in needing to plug in to get our power. That's because we charge these things up electrically, from the outlet. But there's actually huge amounts of power all around us coming from the sun.''
The film has the ability to be sprayed or woven into shirts so that our cuffs or collars could recharge our IPods, Sargent said.
While that may sound like a Star Trek dream, venture capitalists are keen to Sargent's invention.
Josh Wolfe, managing partner at Lux Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm, said while such a luxury may be five years away, the technology knows no bounds.
"When you have a material advance which literally materially changes the way that energy is absorbed and transmitted to our devices... somebody out there tinkering away in a bedroom or in a government lab is going to come up with a great idea for a new device that will shock us all,'' he said in a phone interview.
"When the Internet was created nobody envisioned that the killer app (application) would be e-mail or instant messaging.''
Sargent's work was published in the online edition of Nature Materials on Sunday and will appear in its February issue.
Some folks just love the vibrations of their cell phones. Wonder if we see that "sly smile" or a "great big smile" with this invention.
I immagine it would enhance Solar Water Disinfection. This method utilizes plastic soda bottles and is used in third world countries. The uses for this indeed could be boundless.
Ping
Average temperatures have dropped 5 to 10 degrees over the past five years, especially in the northern latitudes. Scientists have attributed this to the diminished amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exacerbated by a sharp drop in reflected infrared energy which warmed the lower atmosphere. Plans are underway to build CO2 generator stations throughout the European Union in order to bring crop harvests back to 2005 levels.
Yes, the law of unintended consequences! Actually, I see this discovery as a very good thing but still worthy of goofin' on it.
This will rival Laser Technology within 3 years.
Screw that. I wanna know when I can use it to power my house and get off the grid.
imho we need to be a lot more ambitious than that. I think it would be prudent of the US gov to announce that our policy is to turn all the deserts of the world green by killing the cost of water desalination and transport.
this is the equivalent of doing a star wars on the bad guys. we win by changing their assumptions about the future.
if you can clear your mind for a moment--you'll notice that the countries that are most troubling to the USA are desert countries these days.
Belay that!
I like deserts the way they are. Well, major parts of them. Other parts just look like a really big construction site.
I wonder when they will start making house roofs out of this material ;)
I think it would be prudent of the US gov to announce that our policy is to turn all the deserts of the world green by killing the cost of water desalination and transport.
Belay that!
I like deserts the way they are. Well, major parts of them. Other parts just look like a really big construction site.
////////////////
the only dream the Mexicans have is the USA. Yet 60% of that country is empty desert. Announce a policy to turn the deserts green by doing the research to kill the cost of water desalination and transport --and the Federales in Mexico City start to have second thoughts about emptying their countryside of people and sending them to the USA. And the people have a dream in the land.
Also, a third of the USA is desert. It would be nice to expand the habitable part of the USA too.
Looking ahead the treacherous french will someday betray the arabs they think they are leading--. Those moslems will need someplace to go. So if the deserts of north africa are turned green...etc.
i wouldn't mind getting off the grid myself
Most water sources in any of these countries are mostly unpotable. It is a lot cheaper to lay a plastic bottle on black plastic to be disinfected than any other method known. Trouble with SODIS is testing the quality of the water for ecoli, etc. Not sure I am following you on the rest.
getting off the grid is one of the best "possibilities" I see from this!!! Thank God for techno-geeks who will pirate/clone this and make it available to folks!!
Silicon Valley players seek breakthroughs in alternative-power technology
http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage1819.html Publication Date:09-January-2005
Source:Matt Marshall -San Jose Mercury News
Until recently, the energy business didn't hold much appeal for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs -- too old-world, too regulated, too, weell, unenergetic.
That's changing fast.
As the price of oil soars and China's insatiable appetite for growth sparks a race to sign energy contracts, valley start-ups are realizing there could be real profit in alternative energy. The challenge to make technical breakthroughs -- and good money -- is drawing eager scientists. And all this is turning the heads of leading venture capitalists.
"That's what America wants right now," explained T.J. Rodgers, chief executive of San Jose's Cypress Semiconductor, referring to the need for new, cheap power. He has invested time and big money in solar and fuel-cell companies. "It's strictly a capitalist enterprise," he said.
Venture capital investments in clean-energy technologies alone last year represented 2.4 percent of total venture investing in the United States, still small but up from 0.8 percent in 1999, according to research group Clean Edge. Even the valley's powerhouse venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, acknowledged it's seeking energy deals for the first time in its three-decade history: "That's a left turn, a new initiative for Kleiner," partner John Doerr said at a San Francisco conference last month.
Silicon Valley brings technology know-how to energy. The fine-tuned precision of the semiconductor manufacturing process, for example, is the secret sauce behind SunPower's production of solar cells. Similarly, local high-tech instrument manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard and Varian were precursors to Genencor's ability to experiment with ethanol.
It's not merely new ideas driving the change -- it's policy, too. Last month, a valley non-profit, Palo Alto's William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, sponsored a major report by a national bipartisan group on "Ending the Energy Stalemate," recommended investments in alternative energy and forgotten industries such as nuclear power, and grabbed the attention of lawmakers.
Further, the valley's big technology companies have the clout to bring about big change. For example, Santa Clara chip giant Intel recently created new standards that require power suppliers to become more efficient, as a condition of using devices carrying Intel chips. That has pushed an array of new local companies to find ways to save power or make chips more energy-efficient.
Of course, there are skeptics. Many valley venture firms say energy offers few home-run opportunities. Others are interested but groan that new ideas are still few and far between. Bill Green, venture capitalist with Vantage Point Venture Partners, was impressed, at an October San Francisco solar conference, by how serious the industry had become.
"There was a conspicuous absence of pony-tailed attendees and granola on the floor," he said. But still, cutting-edge companies "seem to be the exceptions rather than the rule," he said.
Even advocates differ. Environmentalist and entrepreneur Bob Epstein sees ethanol as an answer but doubts the feasibility of many fuel-cell projects. Businessman Rodgers thinks fuel-cell companies will be ready within five years but dismisses biofuel alternatives such as ethanol as still in the research phase.
Still, everyone agrees that the time is ripe for the right companies and technology.
Rodgers placed his bet on solar in 2001, after someone suggested putting solar panels on his company's new San Jose building. He did the math, and it worked out. He would pay off the cost in seven years, then enjoy free energy for the 25- to 30-year life of the cells. And if the cost of energy were to go up, the economics would be even better.
Then, in 2003, he bumped into a former Stanford University classmate, Dick Swanson, who said he had founded SunPower and was making the most efficient solar cells in the world. That December, when Swanson told Rodgers the economic downturn was forcing him to lay off half his staff and consider shutting down, Rodgers wrote him a $750,000 check.
Rodgers then got Cypress' board to approve more investments. By next month, Cypress will have pumped $200 million into SunPower.
Its first products, just out, are being well-received. SunPower is now in full ramp-up mode, and word is it could aim for an initial public offering within two years. Other solar companies with futuristic thin-film or foil solar-cell technologies -- including Miasole, Nanosolar and Nanosys -- say they'll hit the market sometime soon, with even better products.
Rodgers also has invested in the fuel-cell arena, where technology is much younger and manufacturing processes are only now being developed.
One company with buzz is the top-secret Ion America, in which Kleiner Perkins has invested.
Ion America makes what is called a "solid oxide" fuel cell technology, which the company believes can soon compete with grid-delivered electric power.
Several snippets about the company have leaked out. One document showed that the Navy began testing the technology, which is said to provide oxygen for a submarine crew to breathe as well as power for submarine propulsion.
How did Rodgers find it? Silicon Valley's energy community is fairly tight knit, Rodgers said, and Kleiner Perkins was looking for an experienced businessman to join the board. The board even has a Washington lobbyist, Andrew Lundquist, who previously was the director of Vice President Dick Cheney's controversial energy-policy task force.
Lately, there's also been interest brewing in biofuels.
Palo Alto's Genencor has worked feverishly on the problem of lowering the cost of ethanol production. Ethanol, which can be produced from plants and blended efficiently into gasoline, burns clean. But it's expensive. Experts, inside and out, say Genencor's breakthroughs in ethanol production could hit competitive price points -- of 5 to 10 cents a gallon -- within three to five years.
Biofuels are where Silicon Valley may contribute the most, says Epstein, who founded Environmental Entrepreneurs, a local group focused on clean technology.
"If Silicon Valley, through bioengineering, solves the problem of how to efficiently convert energy from plant material -- if they crack the code on that -- thaat's the biggest transformation I could imagine," he said.
Such a breakthrough would leave the United States less reliant on oil imports and transform agricultural economies in poorer countries, he said. It also would bring big money to Genencor by undercutting the more costly biofuel technologies of incumbents such as Monsanto.
"It's a model that has worked again and again," says entrepreneur Sunil Paul, founder of anti-spam company BrightMail, who has started a forum with other entrepreneurs called the "Power Lunch" in search of alternative energy ideas. "Take new technologies and marry them with the right management teams and financing."
Still others are turning to more traditional power sources, for example, nuclear or coal, but hope to make them cleaner and more efficient through technology advances.
Take San Francisco venture capitalist Lip-bu Tan of Walden International, who tired of the fumes and smoke he found during his trips to cities like Beijing.
Fearing that China's ever-growing thirst for cheap power would soon bring it in conflict with the United States, Tan has taken a sabbatical to study ways to invest in China's power grid. He's looking to back companies that help supply more efficient components, electronics, software and monitoring technologies.
Tan was trained as a nuclear physicist, but abandoned hopes of getting a job in the field because the United States was turning away from nuclear power at the time. Now he's picking up his college books again and hoping to make a return.
"Nuclear is one of the energy forms to be invested in," he said, smiling about the irony of returning to the industry where he started.
Solar conversion efficiency is irrelevant.
What drives solar is "dollars per watt", installed, and how long does it last.
If I can get 2.5 KW installed for $8,500, and it will last 10 years without major maintenance, I do not care if it is 6% efficient.
If someone tried to sell me a system that was 2.5 KW installed, for $20,000, and it needed major replacements in three years, 30% efficiency is a very weak selling point.
This polymer technology will be one to watch, for sure; I hope it works! But we need to consider many other factors than efficiency.
Those engineering problems are quite true. Nevertheless, this might be helpful not as a total replacement for a home's energy needs - to take it totally off-grid - but instead as a "booster" system. If you could easily generate 50 or 100 watts from a few gallons of paint (or strips of siding), some wires, and a small converter, you could at least supplement your house's power supply to save a bit of money during the day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.