What is Digg?Sponsored by Dragon Age: Origins
Join the Dragon Age: Origins development team on Facebook view!
facebook.com/DragonAgeOrigins - EA presents BioWare's new dark fantasy epic Dragon Age: Origins. '9/10' from Game Informer.
53 Comments
- BossKey, on 05/10/2009, -1/+60"In the year 2000..."
Power windows will power Windows. - jboitnott, on 05/09/2009, -3/+43The future sounds like a fun place. Hope I live to see this technology spread everywhere.
- sneaker98, on 05/10/2009, -0/+23Very cool! I hope we keep seeing advances such as this. Now how about finding a way to make solar energy more affordable??
- diggydougie, on 05/10/2009, -6/+28OK. They get a max of 6% in the lab. And mounted off angle they won't be very good on top of that. Even if they make them dirt cheap you will need to make your entire southern walls out of this to even stand a chance of making enough power to run a house. And my guess is that with all of that sun coming into the house the AC draw would take more juice than they would generate.
Such issues should be addressed in any article such as this. - lamejoketeller, on 05/10/2009, -1/+16awesome, but how much more expensive are they?
- Dumbledorito, on 05/10/2009, -1/+13And you need to stop being so short-sighted. The purpose of a lot of this alternative energy stuff is to give you diverse sources of energy that all help in the long run. If I had these things, I don't expect them to "run my house," but it'd be nice to see my energy bill dip a little bit thanks to their help.
I wouldn't expect my local energy utility to go under, either, but I expect there'd be a hell of a lot fewer brownouts in the summer. - sonnybobiche, on 05/10/2009, -0/+11I haven't read the article, but I would assume that they absorb EM radiation below or above the light spectrum--infrared and ultraviolet. There's energy in them thar waves!
- i4mt3hwin, on 05/10/2009, -2/+13it's called aero.
- nmathew, on 05/10/2009, -1/+11The problem is that about 40-45% of the sun's radiation (exact figures won't matter for this explanation) falls into the visible region, and 3% or so into the ultraviolet. So, they must be going after near and/or near-IR light. I forget the exact values, but an ideal single bandgap solar collector is only low/mid 20% efficient. You lose the light that's too low in energy as it doesn't promote an electron into the conduction band, and photons with too much energy only promote a single electron, and the excess energy is wasted as heat. (Yes, there is research into multiple exciton generating materials, but they are years off form a production model right now) In theory, you could create a multiple layered system, with the high energy photons collected by a large bandgap material followed by a small bandgap material, but that would be expensive to produce. I believe that a few such devices are on the market, but the increased complexity would make them only viable for specialized systems. Therefore, they are almost certainly going after the IR.
Sadly, I can't remote desktop into work(damn computer isn't letting me tonight, grr), so I don't have access to the papers I'd need to run an efficiency calculation for a really small bandgap semiconductor, but it's going to look bad. There's a single and fairly straight forward equation that's been derived for the efficiency of a single bandgap semiconductor and the sun. You can probably find it via Google and have a go yourself if you want. Not only is visible light nearly half the spectrum, but it's more energetic than IR light. Simply put, you'll get less juice per photon optimizing for IR light as opposed to aiming for the entire spectrum. This is a real physical constraint, and cannot be overcome. The article states they are getting 6% efficiency in their labs, and that sounds about right to me. - directedition, on 05/10/2009, -2/+12Maybe I'm missing something.... solar power works by converting light into energy. So a transparent solar cell would do what exactly? Maybe it's like tinting your window, but instead of absorbing the light, it's converting it?
- dhughes, on 05/10/2009, -0/+8 I'd say it's in addition to other solar panels not in place of rooftop or other solar panels, in other words use every square inch you can.
- inactive, on 05/10/2009, -1/+9Have you never heard of curtains?
- DirtPile, on 05/10/2009, -1/+8It's no transparent aluminum, I'll tell you that much.
- BoneheadFarker, on 05/10/2009, -1/+8Of course not. Transparent aluminum cannot be used to generate solar electricity. Everybody knows that.
- breakneckridge, on 05/10/2009, -1/+7Visible light represents just one segment of the electromagnetic radiation frequencies that the sun puts out. The sun also sends out waves of "light" that are invisible to our eyes. These waves are exactly the same form of energy as visible light, except they happen to have a wavelength that is longer or shorter than our eyes are able to perceive.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/bbrc.ht ... - deanc, on 05/10/2009, -0/+5there is more space on the side of building than just on the rooftop, think of a commercial skyscraper in NY that has the entire south side of this covered in this material.
- BuckCynnie, on 05/10/2009, -0/+5So if you place that above run-of-the-mill photovoltaic cells you should get twice the energy?
hmmm...... - deanc, on 05/10/2009, -0/+5hmmm....not entirely transperant but gettign pretty close.
- themastersb, on 05/10/2009, -3/+8Do not want.
- inactive, on 05/10/2009, -0/+5office buildings.
that is all. - inactive, on 05/10/2009, -0/+5the future is the sun... one day (one scary day) we are going to run out of gas, and if we're not prepared to move on, we're not going to.
- inactive, on 05/10/2009, -0/+5This sort of thing is a godsend in an emergency. Sure you may wish you could power everything everyday, but when there is a disaster, you will be saying "i'm glad I can use the internet, and after I turn the computer off I can run my water pumps" without complaining you are too hot.
- inactive, on 05/10/2009, -1/+6OOO we're there!
Damnit it's gone.
No wait, we're there!
***** I missed it.
I always feel like I'm stuck in the present. - solmakou, on 05/10/2009, -0/+5Translucent not transparent.
- say592, on 05/10/2009, -0/+4Who says just this would power the house?
Combine it with typical panels, maybe some small wind turbines. Sure, you might only get 1-3% efficiency, but thats still extra power. Every little bit that you arent using can always be fed right back into the grid. Takes some load off of our already stressed electrical grids, and is a little bit more green at the same time. - inactive, on 05/10/2009, -0/+4It could turn a high a rise into a 1.21 gigawatt electricity factory.
- FaceDog, on 05/10/2009, -0/+3This is a way. Those solar cells are made from plastic semiconductors. What's cheaper than plastic? They can be roll to roll printed much like newspapers (or exactly like film).
- dhughes, on 05/10/2009, -0/+3Like this?
http://solarwall.com/en/home.php - Paulish, on 05/10/2009, -0/+3Indeed. We must walk before we can run. I am tired of people, on any issue, seeing only a little initial innovation dismiss a technology.
Would we ever have desktop computer if people abandoned computing because the original machines weighed thousands of pounds and were highly impractical? - Rudegar, on 05/10/2009, -0/+3<insert something about renewable energy being evil eco-maxist plot to overthrow the western world"
- inactive, on 05/10/2009, -2/+5STFU?
- brownsound00, on 05/10/2009, -0/+3Nice explanation. Thanks.
- brownsound00, on 05/10/2009, -0/+2It's not saying that the windows are better than the rooftop, it's just a supplementary measure. So it doesn't hurt to have more panels around the house to add to the ones you have on the roof.
Moreover, if you live in a complex where someone lives above you, perhaps this is your only option. - tza999, on 05/10/2009, -1/+3Ooo I see what you did there..
- FaceDog, on 05/10/2009, -0/+2Fair question. The article is somewhat misleading. Their 6% cells are not at all transparent (they look reddish and are ~100% opaque). The efficiency given is a power conversion efficiency and therefore is calculated based total photons from the sun which are mostly in the visible spectrum. They can be made more transparent and they can be made to appear different colors, but either of these will be at the expense of efficiency. However, there may be many applications where you need some light coming through a window, but don’t need all the light were this technology will be appropriate. While it may have a lower efficiency it is better than nothing at all. Over a very large area this could produce a substantial amount of electricity.
- brownsound00, on 05/10/2009, -0/+2Sounds like a good idea! Especially on those all glass sky scrapers. If anything, it will reduce their power bills
- twiztidsinz, on 05/10/2009, -7/+9....to learn proper English?
- Nefir, on 05/10/2009, -2/+4It always makes me happy to see new advances in solar technology.
I hope it won't be too difficult or expensive for big city skyscrapers and office buildings to convert to something like this. It could greatly ease the power drain. Will we see something like this on your local skyline in the near future? I sure hope so... Unfortunately I'm afraid a lot of real-estate companies and building owners will need a much stronger incentive (or coercion) than just saving a bit of money and saving the environment, in order to change their ways.
What do you think? - gwhenning, on 05/10/2009, -0/+2I'd like something like that. It wouldn't change the aesthetics of the house, and might produce enough electricity to run ceiling fans which would in turn help cut my AC & Heating costs. (I understand why it would cut heating, but not the AC, but the utility companies swear it does.)
OR, it could charge a whole house UPS to cover the small electrical spikes and brownouts that we get here in Idaho. - Nebarik, on 05/10/2009, -1/+2that highrise might go back to the future
- braveryonions, on 05/10/2009, -2/+3I don't see the advantage of this over rooftop panels. Please explain. Thanks.
- manjar, on 05/10/2009, -3/+4I'm all for solar energy, but except for steel-and-glass skyscrapers, why would windows be the best place for solar panels? Even after the rooftop, wouldn't it make sense to go to the non-transparent siding sections of the building, if not out into the yard?
- Culyt, on 05/10/2009, -1/+2You could probably coat the transparent aluminium with the same solar cells, just like coating window glass.
- dhughes, on 05/10/2009, -2/+3 No , you won't *see* it.
- Phazon77, on 05/10/2009, -2/+3lawl
- FaceDog, on 05/10/2009, -0/+1You have no idea what you are talking about. It is not even close. A reasonable estimate for the solar power of a horizontal surface area averaged over a typical year for an average latitude and for average weather conditions is about 600 W/m^2. At 6% percent efficiency, this is a large amount of power, and keep in mind that this is a very young technology where the efficiency has been increasing at ~ .8% a year.
- je12u, on 05/10/2009, -2/+2TESTING!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUzfEqq3rpU - w3ber, on 05/10/2009, -5/+5me too, but then THE'll tax out air.
-
Show 51 - 55 of 55 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is