Check this out....a 12 year old has/is developing a solar cell that will gather 500 x the light absorption
And Spaghetti grows on trees.
Commercial bog standard PV cells already have efficiencies in the 12-18%. The record is currently around a phenomenal 40%, which is even better than photosynthesis. 500 times a standard 10% efficiency gives 50 times more electrical energy generated compared to the radiation energy in the sunlight to begin with. What this kid should then do is then produce some light using the latest LEDs powered from his 3D solar cell and then shine the light produced on to another of these 3-D solar cells and do this again and again until he can power a small city with the light from the light produced by the maglite solitaire at the beginning of the cascade!!
Anyone remember cold fusion and high temperature superconductors or even antigravity lifting gyroscope machines which was going to revolutionise the future of mankind! I suppose the next claim will be that zero point energy of the water in the carbon nanotube is some how being extracted during this solar conversion process.
Details of a very cost effective self replicating thermonuclear powered reactor solar energy collection device, which can provide industrial scale evaporative cooling in urban city scapes and which can also provide long term energy storage solutions and can also act as a global scale solution to reduce atmospheric global warming pollutants can be seen here at;
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/53/175637919_fc6b9f250e_o.jpg Talk about not seeing the woods for the trees.