Quantum Dots Could Double Solar Energy Efficiency 112
dptalia notes the recent publication in Science of research demonstrating a way to use hot electrons in solar cells, resulting in an overall energy conversion efficiency of 66%. Here is the abstract in Science; access to the full article requires a subscription. "A team of University of Minnesota-led researchers has cleared a major hurdle in the drive to build solar cells with potential efficiencies up to twice as high as current levels, which rarely exceed 30 percent. ... Tisdale and his colleagues demonstrated that quantum dots — made not of silicon but of another semiconductor called lead selenide — could indeed be made to surrender their 'hot' electrons before they cooled. The electrons were pulled away by titanium dioxide, another common inexpensive and abundant semiconductor material that behaves like a wire."
But by when? (Score:4, Insightful)
Could, might, may... (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had a tribble for every time one of these solar energy articles came out with their pages full of nothing.... I could make a lot of fur coats.
Could someone in the research field please hold on to their excitement until they can post a report that has words like "WILL, SHALL, DEFINITELY, HAS, IS" instead of the wimpy "could, may, might, has potential to, in 5 years if all goes well....."
I got sucked in by one years ago and pestered the company for information about their new "product" which was due out "soon".... and that was nearly 10 years ago.
So many advances in tiny little cells on a research bench, and so many promising advances. Yet none of them seem to show up at the local hardware store.
I understand that advances in quantum materials science is cool, and can change everything just like the invention of the transistor did once. But seriosly folks - the number of speculative postings based on
these barely germinated lab experiments seem a little bit like the kid who cried "Solar revolution", or was that wolf?
Re:An ideal occasion to post (Score:0, Insightful)
I'd say this was on-topic. Maybe deserving of a Funny mod...
Re:Econuts will be torn over this one (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a problem; lead's not nearly as bad as the arsenic in some panels!
We need to find a way to get usable arsenic out of contaminated soil. There are literally thousands of tons of it around the world, much of it slated for "cleanup" (secure burial). It's a lot less dangerous when you make it into a solar panel than when it's free to get into groundwater.
Re:How much energy are we talking about? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're confusing energy conversion efficiency with energy production. The main connection there is that less efficiency means more raw resources for the same result. They're certainly not the same thing.
I think what the GP was getting at is something like, "This sounds way better than past solar conversion efficiency. Can we know build viable solar power stations? What about orbital solar power satellites? Where does this leave coal and nuclear power stations? What will the overall energy production strategy be, once this comes to market, given projected energy needs WHEN it will come to market?"
That's not a set of questions you want to answer too hastily.
Re:But by when? (Score:4, Insightful)
Things would go a lot faster if more people were saying "how can I make this happen?" and fewer "I was supposed to have a jetpack frownyface exclaimation mark question mark"
Re:Could, might, may... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a research paper, not a god-damned press release. Don't blame the scientists for publishing their awesome research in a prestigous journal, blame the journalists who treat every Friday as a chance to jizz out a couple of easy stories by rewriting articles in Science.
Re:Econuts will be torn over this one (Score:3, Insightful)
True. But installation and area and transport and many other components of the price, are independent of efficiency. So if you could make and install a 50% efficient solar-cell for less than twice the price of a 25% one, you'd have a win.
But sure, twice-as-effective ten-times-as-expensive isn't interesting.
Re:price not efficiency (Score:4, Insightful)
While this isn't as much the case in very rural, very poor areas, where making kilometer-square solar arrays is viable, there's at least two orders of magnitude less money to be spent in such locations, so you're back to the same problem.
Re:price not efficiency (Score:2, Insightful)
Make it cheap enough and it would be nothing short of revolutionary.
Microgeneration still sucks, even with good cells (Score:3, Insightful)
I seriously wonder why people keep promoting micro-generation. Electricity distribution is very efficient ( you lose maybe 10% of the electricity on average ) , and you lose a lot of economies of scale when going micro. Even assuming you'd manage to make some super cost-efficient solar cells, why would you go destroy it by putting them on poorly aligned roofs, as opposed to building a designated plant where they can be made to track the sun throughout the year?
Seriously , for EVERY energy source centralized generation will come out on-top. It's a consequence of how easy electric power is to transport, as well as the fact that most energy generation schemes scale very well. The only real exception is where you're burning something for combined heat and power, thereby allowing you to recover the spill heat from the power-plant. However, even in that case district-heating will probably work out better, and does in many regions. We use it extensively in Sweden.
Essentially the only way micro-generation is going to be competitive with centralized generation is if government fucks up big time to make centralized generation inefficient. Granted that is of course plausible, and I'm sure there's many people who are willing to say that it is happening many places, but this is a political problem that could just as well ( and probably will ) hit micro-generation. It does nothing to alter the fact that on technical merits, micro-generation is inferior for all places that are connected to the electric grid. It just doesn't make any sense to take technologies that scale very well and deploy them in as small units as possible.