Solar Power Without Solar Cells
Submitted by Bob-45 on Thu, 04/14/2011 - 13:00A dramatic and surprising magnetic effect of light discovered by University of Michigan researchers could lead to solar power without traditional semiconductor-based solar cells.
The researchers found a way to make an "optical battery," said Stephen Rand, a professor in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Physics and Applied Physics.
In the process, they overturned a century-old tenet of physics.
"You could stare at the equations of motion all day and you will not see this possibility. We've all been taught that this doesn't happen," said Rand, an author of a paper on the work published in the Journal of Applied Physics. "It's a very odd interaction. That's why it's been overlooked for more than 100 years."
Light has electric and magnetic components. Until now, scientists thought the effects of the magnetic field were so weak that they could be ignored. What Rand and his colleagues found is that at the right intensity, when light is traveling through a material that does not conduct electricity, the light field can generate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than previously expected. Under these circumstances, the magnetic effects develop strength equivalent to a strong electric effect.
"This could lead to a new kind of solar cell without semiconductors and without absorption to produce charge separation," Rand said. "In solar cells, the light goes into a material, gets absorbed and creates heat. Here, we expect to have a very low heat load. Instead of the light being absorbed, energy is stored in the magnetic moment. Intense magnetization can be induced by intense light and then it is ultimately capable of providing a capacitive power source."
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yeah right.
10,000,000 watts is 10,000 kilowatts.
1 sq cm is 1/10,000 sq meters.
1 sq meter receives nominally 1 kilowatt from the sun.
That means you need 100 million 'suns' of solar concentration sent into "lenses to focus the light and a fiber to guide it." At their hopeful 10% efficiency, that's 90 million suns worth of light, and it's associated heat from imperfectly transparent glass to be dissipated.
Kind of like squeezing the Mississippi River through an eye dropper without it breaking under pressure.
Technology bump
Technology bump
Could happen
if the economy hangs in there. I'll count on what's available now, crystaline silicon cells, tried and true. (Besides that, I've already got 'em :-)
There are events that could collapse our fancy infrastructure back to the Middle Ages and make survival a day-to-day struggle. I don't want to be caught without the means to generate electricity for my survival needs. Putting off being prepared is like putting off auto, fire, or health insurance till you think you'll need it. Fact is, you don't know when you'll need it.
When the Ponzi monetary policy is exposed to all, when terrorism goes nuclear, when there's an EMP nuke or Cornal Mass Ejection (CME), there will be no time to prepare. Do it now!
New Hampshire and Ecuador.
I hope for the end of power
I hope for the end of power monopolies of all kinds.
Give the people the means to create their own energy and freedom will follow quickly after.
"The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that." — Alan Greenspan
Monopolies are power plays at the expense of citizens,
and the unaccountable degradation of resources.
And never forget, “Humans, despite our artistic pretensions, our sophistication and many accomplishments, owe the fact of our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”