Yeah more nano stuff!

unkpku has a really long fucking screenname because i saw some other people do it

@Kakkoister: Reallocation of food crops to the production of fuel has harmed economies and populations in other countries....friggin' hippies. Granola munching hippies make me puke.

DigitalSciGuy

This is actually a very exciting development!

Stang70Fastback

Woot, glad to see my tuition/federal grants are going to useful stuff here. I've always wondered what was going on in those large grey buildings next to our new shiny concert hall.

DigitalSciGuy

@bilyeu: I was thinking the same exact thing've

jwoods3

Mmmm... photons. (Sorry; feeling my inner hippie today.)

+ Watch video

scarbrtj

@milestailsprowe: Indeed. I don't understand these people who think turning our food into fuel is the smarter choice lol. Especially with our population growing more rapidly with every year. Were going to need all the food production we can possibly do.

Electricity is the future for sure.

Kakkoister

@bilyeu: I've also doubt anyone would turn down adding "'ve" to a word for no reason.

bilyeu

@milestailsprowe: That grand is as good as in the bank.

I've doubt anyone would turn down an electric car to drive corn.

bilyeu

2 words: FUCK YEAH!

Now lets watch this technology be dramatically delayed by Oil lobbyists and then have them pass a law claiming it kills baby kittens. <_<

Kakkoister

@milestailsprowe: you're right, electric cars ARE the future... but until then, I'm happy paying $1.50/gallon (my most recent fill up) of E85.

mrtallbones

And my 1 g bet that electric cars are the future not corn is coming closer

milestailsprowe

so there we are, stealin light!,

we are becomin freakin light ninjas.

laio

@etimy: In the full story for this, it said that this one captures the full spectrum.

Kakkoister

There are a few clarifications that need to be made here. First, this coating only affects the glass surface (or other superstrate material) and not the actual active semiconductor layers, i.e. a decrease in reflection does not cause an increase in light-energy conversion, a.k.a. efficiency.

Secondly, even though this technology may allow light from greater incident angles to pass through the glass without being reflected, the interaction of photons with these nanostructures surely causes a decrease in photonic energy due to scattering, etc. It's very possible that incident light at a certain energy may drop to an energy that is below that of the semiconductor band-gap energy level, causing these retarded photons to pass through the active layer(s) without being converted to electrical energy.

khetti

@Kakkoister: Right because every time we hear about awesome solar energy efficiency breakthroughs they hit the market at cost-effective prices within 2 years and the only thing holding them back are conspiracy.

Cmon there is a solar 'breakthrough' like this every quarter - whether they can bring these technologies into the market is a completely different matter and the answer is usually 'no'.

PS I do not understand how tracking is no longer necessary because tracking exposes the panel to more sunlight - this tech cannot grab sunlight which is not hitting the panel. If the panel is perpendicular to the sun rather than facing it most of the light is not hitting the panel at all.

brundlefly76

This is nice, but the discovery of full spectrum PV a few weeks back is a lot more promising.

etimy

@DigitalSciGuy: Not hippies, It's actually retarded bible beating conservatives in states like Ohio. Just thought you should know. Ethanol, is, was, and always will be a complete waste of time. In 2004 the DoE released a report stating that if every square foot of usable land in the US was converted into creating biomass (ethanol, canola oil, etc.) we would only be able to offset 40% of our petroleum use, not even counting energy production in powerplants, agriculture, etc. Please stop talking about biomass/ethanol, etc. It will never happen. Ever.

etimy

Too much talk and not enough action. People keep talking about these great solutions but as of yet I see no one actually selling anything anywhere.

Noobs-R-Us

This article is misleading. "Absorb" just refers to how much light is not reflected or transmitted. Says little about how much is converted to electricity.

TommyImages

@khetti: heh he... retarded photons

Jasontrainer

It was my late father's Alma matter, I grew up watching the engineers play hockey and my big brothers were frat guys there. One of my best friends is currently getting his degree in Architecture there and it is where I saw my first Beastie Boys concert (when they were on tour with public enemy) so I believe in RPI!

Jasontrainer

isnt a quantum leap a very small change??

uli

So overall, how much more efficient does this make a PV array compared to previous tech that maxes out near 40% with current cutting-edge tech?

whiteknight

1. We use 1/6th as much energy as all the light that falls on the Earth.
2. Maine gets 3% as much light in the winter as Florida does in the summer.

bill_mcgonigle

@brundlefly76: The problem as it is is that the panels get more power with direct 90° light than with 45°, 50°, etc.
With this, we wouldn't need to use energy turning them for the majority of the day, because they would still be catching almost all of the light. During most of the day we wouldn't have any noticeable power loss with this; the only major loss would be when the panel becomes perpendicular to the sun, or close to it.

The Amazing Ant

@etimy: Besides the fact that even if we did offset petroleum use by that much, we're still fertilizing that corn with chemicals from the same middle east that we wanted to stop buying the petrol from...

The Amazing Ant

OH NOES, but this will make the sun wear down!
Sorry, had to say it.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

I'm hoping the Japanese make the space elevators, now that it seems the US have given up. Solar collectors in space with feeds to major cities would drastically change the energy situation.

benow

@bill_mcgonigle: Beat me to this comment. Yeah, I think he might have mis-stated. Usage is more like 1/6 of a days worth of solar energy yearly.

benow

@bill_mcgonigle: The projected surface area of the Earth is roughly 128 million km², or 128 trillion m². Solar intensity in Earths orbit is roughly 1.4kW/m², leaving Earth with some 180PW of relatively consistent solar power. Estimates of total world energy consumption are around 15-20TW.

That 1/6th value is really somewhere closer to 1/9000th.

wagnerrp

@Usama: heh, that gives us a bit of breathing room ;) Nuclear, fusion, underground gerbils...

benow

Oh YES. Here comes the sun.

alowishus

But what are we going to do when the sun burns out in 5 billion years?!??!?

Usama

@uli: Good try. ^_^

logikgr

@bill_mcgonigle: Ooh, ooh. I know this one. It's like that one with the two trains traveling to Chicago. Train 'A' is moving at 60 miles an hour. Train 'B'....

Jrsy is the dude, playin' the dude, disguised as another dude

@Usama: We'll just switch to using people as meat batteries...

Jrsy is the dude, playin' the dude, disguised as another dude

@Bokusatsu_Tenshi: and then wii will have to worry about our "Solar Footprint"

winmac

"so there's no need for panels to waste energy by mechanically tracking the sun in the sky."

Actually, there is, because the amount of "light-rays" from the sun hitting the panel is highest when the panel is aimed at the sun.

Knirfie

Fantastic. Now let's start plastering them over every building and structure that seems the light of day. Then we can start turning off the polluting powerstations.

Australia (with all your sunshine and coal-fired powerstations), I'm looking at you!

acoom

@TommyImages: Exactly! The amount of sunlight "absorbed" doesn't equal the amount of sunlight converted into electricity.

rshettle

@brundlefly76: Since the nanorods are cylindrical the light will always hit them at a 90° angle regardless of the angle it is hitting the solar panels.

Basically walk in circles around a tree, you wont be able to watch the trunk from an angles since it is round. So basically even light hitting the panels at an 178° angle will still be absorbed at max efficiency.

And since 180° pretty much covers horizon to horizon this means panels mounted horizontally will be able to run at max efficiency all day, which is huge.

TheLostVikings

My basic reason for wanting cheap and reliable alternate energy is simple. I'm a cheap SoB who wants to be off the grid.

jlhuge

@Knirfie: Yup good call. If this 96.2% is what I think it is, then assuming the panel is parallel with the ground (completely horizontal), 96.2% absorption at 1 hour before sunset or sunrise would be very different from 96.2% at noon.

Usama

sooner we stop paying that drugs/oil cartel the better! lol

h3r0

The article mentions solar and its quest for cheapness, but then fails to mention how this is cheaper. If it allows the cells to absorb more light, but causes production prices to go up too much, it defeats the purpose.

I'm all for solar though. If it can be made economical.

getabetterpic

@DigitalSciGuy: Yeah every hippie I know hates Ethanol and did from the start...

bpapa9013

@mrtallbones: Regular old Dino-Juice is only $1.98 in my town presently...

Ethanol is bullshit.

bpapa9013

@getabetterpic: huh? massproduction is the word.

sos10

There are other solar technologies much closer to production. One is:

[prismsolar.com]

jgrnt1

@mrtallbones:
That burns at twice the rate of McFossil fuel... so you are paying $3 gallon while regular is $2.75.. The e85 never gonna make it in the long run.

DssTrainer

@sos10: huh? They mass produce them now and they are not "cheaper." And, BTW, I think "massproduction" is 2 words.

ninjamurf

@Usama: Better to be perpendicular with the sun than parallel with the ground. Parallel with the ground doesn't automatically mean perpendicular with the sun at noon. All depends on the day, your latitude, etc. But I get what you're saying.

ninjamurf

@wagnerrp: How about just the energy which falls on land? Unless we want to cover the oceans in solar panels...

shawn_dude

@sos10: Or two...

GadgetPlay

@TommyImages: You're right, it's two separate issues, but this seems to solve half the problem, in that it plays well with most types of solar panel.

GadgetPlay

@bpapa9013: I hate hippies.

GadgetPlay

@DigitalSciGuy: I hate hippies.

GadgetPlay

Sigh it's gonna take to long to get here. The Hydrogen Collider goes on next year therefore we die before we get to save ourselves some energy :P.

DJTripleRRR

...correction: silicon solar cells have actually a maximum efficiency of about right now 21% and the theorical limit of efficiency is 25% ... This article seems very misleading ... sure solar panels are the future but lets first understand what are the fact before making any mistakes ...

VailGrimlet

The total number of photons hitting a flat plate is a function of the sine of the angle of incidence. This technology will not eliminate the need for alignment motors. Good job efficiency, but it's not a magic bullet.

RowenaAluminoid

They still have to track the sun if you want them to produce at maximum. If it comes in at an angle, it is still less light spread out over the same area. Just because you are absorbing more of this light doesn't mean there isn't less of it to absorb in the first place.

AsaHaedjinn