This is just too awesome...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell#Efficiency

doesn't really help, but I was wrong... the efficiency is 40% ish at best, but I think the common ones are much lower.

so 1% efficiency = 10 watts... I'm going to assume that is 10 watts per second or something like that.

Global warming is scientific. The controversy surrounding GW is political.

If there's some way to have a discussion on this board w/o it turning from one subject into the other, then go at it. But it prob'ly needs its own thread.

Is that what the plug in your butt is for?

Haha
And... agreed!

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

I only have so many holes to plug stuff into. How else will I power my light bulb?

Wouldn't it be easier to plug the wires into your ears? Less distance for the current to travel which means less heat loss to resistance which means longer/brighter lifetime?

They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!

@Starflier

Yeah, that was the most depressingly awesome film I watched that year ---> and I mean that in a good way.

Yeah, I was coming back to say something like this. Whether you believe in global warming or not, or any of the other environmental changes/ disasters/ doom, why not just try to cean up the earth anyway. I mean, even if you think GW is a load of bull, isn't it nice to have a cleaner earth anyway?

I saw it. I immediately noticed it was the same story as "Phoenix", a short story by Clark Ashton Smith, first published in 1954. I think it's rather scandalous they didn't credit it in the movie.

ok, do i just have a really raunchy mind? or was this several times dirtier than likely intended

I'd bet neither...

Funny, I was betting on both.

Awesome cast by the way.



And plus that would be a much cooler name

... You say that like it would be a good thing.

(Admittedly, a bottle of booze that did something like that did save Han Solo's life once back in the old Brian Daley novels... )

--CP

Well I don't think is mind is likely raunchier than anyone's and I'm bbetting whoever wrote that meant it to sound that way. The only way you really wouln't pick up on that is if you were massively naive.

This type of thinking is a problem... You're thinking it can't be stored or it's so little power it's not worth it. This is the wrong way to look at it.

Even the smallest amount of electrical generation will be favorable to our system now provided that the cell is durable enough that it doesn't require replacement so often that the electricy : money ratio is worse or equal to the grid's ratio.

A lot of people at the very least "want" to go green. They at least understand the situation in terms that see it as a good thing... some it's that green products cost less per month and others it is that going green saves the world. The fact of the matter is most people would have solar cells of some sort if they weren't such a massive investment. They're something like $10,000 and even though you can get money back from the government and all that good stuff, the fact is there isn't a good enough guarantee for most to bite in at that price.

Now let's assume the common efficiency of solar cells is 20% and these new ones are 1%. The normal one cost $10,000 + whatever install. The new ones apparently cost maybe $100-200 + install. Let's say the house is 100 meters and it gets light usually 12 hours a day... that's 432 million watts from the normal solar cell and 21.6 million watts for the new ones over the course of a month. The Normal house needs 6000 w / second apparently which ends up being 259.2 million watts per month.

The normal solar cells are definitely worth it when you see that you are 4times as much power as you'll likely ever need, but with that there are so many cost and risks with the area you live in plus if your roof is damaged you have to buy new ones and so much other junk that most people see the risk outweighing the reward of never having to pay an electric bill again and possibly getting paid by the electric company...

Now if we say put up these for $200+installation for $50-100 that $300 investment translates directly to probable 10-20% decrease in your monthly electric bill and hey if it doesn't work out, it was only $300. If it needs to be replaced it's rather cheap so not a problem. The decision goes from one of buying a car or one of being buying a game console. From a major home purchase to a children's toy.

This does quite a number of good things. It means that people can test the waters of solar cells cheaply. It means that instead of this instant fall off for electric companies there is a gradual fall off. It means that the electric company can repurpose itself into installers of solar cells and maintainers of the grid rather than electrical plants. It means that the company that produces these cell will be able to get money and data and then slowly improve them over time... Also if the layering ability is there as i mentioned in an earlier post, assuming that these only cost like $200 and 1% and normal cells are $10k and 20% you could get the same efficiency if you simply put 20 layers down and it would cost half as much.... but also if this is true it has the quality if providing the scale-ability fora market that ranges from just barely able to afford one layer to able to afford a thousand layers.

Further more...for those who are just barely able to afford it...
Let's assume that an average electric bill is around $100... with one layer on an average house this will drop to $80...meaning that they now ave an extra $20 a month... now if they were to save that over the course of 10 months they could get another layer and 10 months later they could afford 2 layers ten months later another 3 layers and you have your entire electrical bill paid for ever now. That's within 2 years. But more importantly... that money can now go elsewhere to help with the economy OR they could start buying more layers and feeding into the grid meaning that 1 solar cell house... within 2 years could start providing electricity to their neighbor hood... 1 house with 1000 layers = 20 houses of electricity.

Now you're worried where am i going to get power when its dark... the grid obviously. The Excess power goes to the grid and any needed comes from the grid. Because the grid already has power storage they already have the problem of where to get/send that power solved.

Durakken, it would seem either you misread my points, or I skipped over a couple of steps and didn’t explain it well enough. It would appear that I was thinking along the lines of end-game and you are extolling the virtues of mid-game.

To me, the whole logical conclusion of going with solar panels on every building is to have each building be its own ‘grid’. If every building everywhere that can get sun can generate all the power it ever needs, there’s no need for a “public” grid. The whole idea is to take all these coal-fired, gas-fired, and yes, even nuclear-powered plants and shut them down. Clean up the air a bit with them not putting tons upon tons of CO2 in the air every day.

So, we have a world where every building has the ability to generate all the power it could possibly want. This works well for the daytime. But what about nighttime? What if I live in North Dakota and get hit with a four day blizzard? Without some way to store this electricity that my house has been generating for me, there’s no reason to get rid of the ‘public grid’. Along those lines, if we don’t have a way to access this energy that we have stored, and possibly even recharge the batteries without the aid of or with only minimal support of the solar panels, we still need this ‘public grid’. Whatever storage solution we come up with, if we want to be free of the ‘public grid’ (and I think most of us would like that), we need that solution to be able to give us as much power we need every night, and for days on end, without the input of either the solar panels, or the ‘public grid’.

So, as I said, if we want to have this ‘green’ future utopia with all the electricity we could possibly use freely generated by solar panels on every building and we don’t have huge electrical plants polluting the air, battery/storage technology needs to make just as many leaps forward as the solar power does. One without the other really only goes so far.

Cheap, easy replaceable solar panels that generate all I need during the day are great. But if we don’t have a solution for night or when the sun isn’t usable, we only have half the answer.
Remember, the whole idea is to get rid of the "Grid". If my house, my car, cell phone, the train that brings cargo, the buses and light-rails around cities, and the trucks and ships that haul cargo around the world can all generate all the power they need, why would we need a Grid?
And right now if power isn't not needed it isn't generated. Well, for the most part. A few companies are experimenting on ways to store lots electricity. They are still thinking of today's Grid with a few tweaks. But, if the Electrical Company of today just translates into the Electrical Storage Company of tomorrow, we aren't at the end where we need to be.

So, I believe that the questions that I (and others elsewhere) raise about this future are valid. They are questions/problems that need to be asked and solved.
Does that help?


And it seems that the perfect solution, if it were to happen, for nighttime use is an electrical engine getting it's power from a battery, hooked to a generator that produces more electricity than the engine uses. The generator is then hooked into the battery the engine uses (thus keeping it charged) and the storage solution for the building (thus keeping things in the building powered). Of course, this is deceptively simple. And as such it will take decades to perfect, if at all.