Check this out....a 12 year old has/is developing a solar cell that will gather 500 x the light absorption. They say that the 3D solar cell would make solar power a possibility for even the Pacific Northwest! Check out the article!

http://current.com/items/89312614_beaverton_boy_lauded_for_solar_cell_invention?xid=216


Wouldn't this be great?
CJK

Sure would be. Often it is someone who doesn't know it can't be done to do it.

However, I have read and heard of too many of these "magic bullets" for energy production. For example: 1. "nuclear energy will be so cheap, they will just give it away" (1960 or so) and 2. "Clean, fusion energy is only 20 years away [first heard in 1966, and about every 5 years thereafter].

Since we still have the same problems, I will believe it when I see it.

Yeah, its also hard for me to get excited about this, and I'm not even a jaded person. I've seen MANY different energy concepts that never seem to go anywhere.

The rule of thumb here is that you ignore it until you can actually buy it on the shelf at a store.

I didn't read anything about giving it away....they said he was looking for a manufacturer......

Even if the costs were twice what solar is now.....it would still be a bargain....

I can't wait to see how far this goes.....but I, too, remain a bit skeptical.....I've learned to wait....but still....it would be nice.......

It's a great story and an incredible idea.

Hopefully, the actual cells will bear out what the models showed.

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.

You have to read down in the comments, someone really knows more than the so-called author of this article. I've re-arranged the points to put the most damaging one at the top, which I've personally checked.

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What is very interesting is if you look at the animation of Dr. Ready's solar cell, at http://www-stage.gatech.edu/news-room/flash/CNTpv.html you'll notice that the graphics in the photo of this Oregon boy's presentation are the spitting image of Dr. Ready's.

The 3D Solar Cell was invented by Dr. Jud Ready of GA Tech in March 2005. See http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=1337

The 3D Solar Cell has the potential to be breakthrough in the solar industry. The global and exclusive license to the 3D Solar Cell intellectual property is held by IP2BIZ in Atlanta http://www.ip2biz.com/Offerings/ProofCoProjects.asp#Thr... The license is for sale to an firm that can further develop, manufacture and bring it to market.

Dr. Ready's PCT patent application WO/2007/040594 was published in April 2007 at http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/fetch.jsp?LANG=ENG&DBS...

If you read even further down in the comments or study the graphics yourself you will find that the graphics seen on the kid's board refer to current 3d designs, not the kid's. It's not damaging at all.

It really doesn't matter how much you improve the efficiency of PV solar panels for your home rooftop. What needs to be improved is the capital cost per peak kilowatt. No one ever talks about that.

The only economy of this model is that of scale. These 3-D type cells are probably going to cost 500 times as much to produce as current flat panels.

If you put a flat panel in the middle of an adjustable parabolic reflecting array, you can accomplish the same thing.

It is reminiscent of the development of the fresnel lens.