Posted on 09/10/2009 1:45:49 PM PDT by mnehring
A new type of solar panel using human hair could provide the world with cheap, green electricity, believes its teenage inventor.
Milan Karki, 18, who comes from a village in rural Nepal, believes he has found the solution to the developing world's energy needs.
The young inventor says hair is easy to use as a conductor in solar panels and could revolutionise renewable energy.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I assume “on” was meant as “onto”. ;)
Gee, you mean it didn’t come from a huge federal project?
A silicon solar panel of dimensions 1 foot by 1 foot has one square foot of surface are upon which to capture light.
This "solar panel" has a few strands of hair arranged in a grid. It is doubtful that a 1 foot by 1 foot panel of this hair-brained design would have a single square inch of hair surface area.
It wouldn't be capable of capturing even 1% of the impending light energy, even if it worked.
That was easy.
Mero afnu Nepali Bako nam Ram Prasad Karki ho. Hora, Milan Karki mero bai Prakash Karkiko chora?
This guy is going to generate a lot of electricity!
That's funny! And, now we can find a use for all the hair from those oldies we euthanize to keep healthcare costs down - wow a double payload. Who woulda thunk!
I’m still calling BS.
Lots of things can give out flashes of light or pulses of electricity when their states change.
A quartz crystal can put out a pretty darn good jolt of juice when it’s bent - the peizoelectric effect.
If you want to see something really fascinating, get some wintergreen mints, go into the bathroom after dark, look into the mirror, turn off the light, and with your mouth at least partly open, crush a mint between your teeth.
Even an amount of juice as low as 4-5 volts is detectable by our senses, I’ve been in hot tubs during the day with babes, if there were actual electric volts floating around, I woulda noticed...
They don’t call them “Fakirs” for nothing!
Why is it that hair can be a shining, fragrant, beautiful adornment that people love to touch, smell and admire, but the minute it parts company with the scalp, it becomes a vile, repulsive, dirty thing.
Purrrrfect
Dang!!!!
Wow, that boy looks like he’s got sufficient mullet power to move that Chevatruck real good like!
Well, OK, maybe the mirrors.
Just as a general comment:
Suppose Edison said, “I am going to give you illumination and I am going to burn the cotton thread that will glow to get you that illumination.”
So, actual evidence that blondes are dim bulbs?
And for the US that would be best.
For some poor farmer who just wanted to be able to charge some batteries for his cell phone, radio and a couple of lamps this would be a nice solution.
“For some poor farmer who just wanted to be able to charge some batteries for his cell phone, radio and a couple of lamps this would be a nice solution.”
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Maybe.
We shall see.
But my post, of course, was in response to the thread title which said:
“....panel that could be solution to developing world’s energy needs...”
This implies much more grandiose applications beyond just a few very small devices with extremely light energy requirements.
So the market for this device is probably what I said.
Something like this would be a blessing for about half of the world.
“Something like this would be a blessing for about half of the world.”
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Yes it would. Snatching energy out of the air would benefit EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE.
IF the developing world’s energy needs stay on the extremely limited individual basis you define, I suppose we could painfully stretch the point to agree that this unproven device “...could be solution to developing world’s energy needs..”.
On a very PARTIAL level.
Building big coal electric plants would do most of the world no good. The cost of getting the wiring in place alone would be prohibitive. And they wouldn't use enough energy to pay for it any time in the next 20 years.
For the next ten to twenty years this could be a partial bridge.
This could work for now. As to how the future would develop... :shrug: it is not here yet.
Small solutions tend to work best in the developing world and produce the most long term changes.
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