OT: Michigan Engineering studying Magnetic Solar Cells
So, it's offseason, and this is cool.
http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2011/04/story.php?id=7980&tr=y&auid=8154157
Basically these guys discovered that the magnetic component of light can be used to create an EMF. This is the type of thing that could revolutionize electronics.
April 18th, 2011 at 12:32 PM ^
This kind of thing is so absurdly beyond me, but it's great to see M making steps in all fields. They don't call us the leaders and the best for nothing...
Though I have no idea what this all means, I believe I am glad that at least Michigan is the one doing it.
April 18th, 2011 at 12:46 PM ^
This would finally allow solar cells to output more energy than is required to make them over the course of their life, especially since glass shouldn't break down.
Obviously all of this will have to be indepenently verified, but .. awesome! Pretty soon, your car's windows could help power the thing.
They say the beams have to be really focused, so I'm a little skeptical if windows would be feasible as a power source. That would be very cool if it were possible though. As somebody who works with building systems for a living, being able to use a window to mitigate solar gain and heat loss in a building with a relatively low carbon consumption* count would be incredible.
+1 for relating this to your industry
-1 for an asterisk with no footnote
+1 for xkcd footnote
total score: +1
April 18th, 2011 at 11:11 PM ^
Got me! I was going to input a little bit on how nothing is really carbon-neutral, but felt that it was unnecessary.
April 18th, 2011 at 12:49 PM ^
Thanks for posting this. I think solar energy is a really important topic for alternative energy discussion, and this a notable discovery.
I really like solar as a source, just because they're about the only energy source that you can buy and operate from home (assuming you don't want a windmill).
As solar becomes cheaper, it's definitely going to start being pretty normal for individual consumers to buy.
I don't know if it's cheaper in Europe to equip homes with solar panels, but I flew over several homes with solar panels on their roofs when I was flying to FRA/from MUC last week. Probably 5-10% of the houses I saw out the window of my flights had solar panels. And I coveted them.
Off the top of my head, I'd say they're probably equivalent in dollar cost, but less expensive in real terms, compared to the options available (they don't have coal/nuclear) in Europe.
Also, I would probably think they get heavy rebates/subsidies from European governments for more money than would be popular in the States.
If I remember correctly from my urban planning class, there are municipalities in Germany that mandate the installation of solar panels on roofs whenever a certain amount of remodeling is undertaken. And I don't believe the subsidies are very high.
If they can actually make solar panels economically viable, it would go a long way towards actually making sense in Europe.
Also, 15/27 countries in the EU have nuclear reactors, and it is their largest source of electricity(you might want to check your source for the no coal/nuclear claim).
Hmm I didn't remember that they had so much nuclear power. My bad on that, but they don't have coal like the US does.
I don't know about all of Europe, but the Czech's are big into subsidies. From Energy Business Daily:
"Solar subsidies are the highest in the Czech Republic, where 7.4per cent of electricity payments go to subsidize solar power, meaning 0.37 percent of GDP is devoted to producing a world-high 3.3 percent of the nation’s electricity."
Though the article also says that the UK and France are cutting subsidies.
Edited to add that .37% of the US GDP would mean ~$50b in subsidies, or ~$425 for every man, woman and child in America. I know comparing GDP's of countries as different as the US and the Czech Republic can get iffy, but I believe the point stands that this is much more than a passable policy in the US.
"If they can actually make solar panels economically viable, it would go a long way towards actually making sense in Europe."
If they become "economically viable," then it would make sense to use them everywhere.
Not so much. About 80% of all the electricity in France and Belgium comes from nuclear. Coal is still the second most used source in the U.K., at about 33%, and nuclear about 20%. Natural gas is #1 in the U.K. at 40%.
April 18th, 2011 at 12:50 PM ^
This could completely revolutionize how power is generated. Anything with glass could, essentially, become a generator.
Well done Michigan Engineering!
April 18th, 2011 at 12:56 PM ^
this has been the hold up on solar cell power for terrestrial use. the cost/kw of electricity generated by solar cells has still been a order of magnitude or more in lifecycle costs compared to traditional power generatino technologies. So the path in the past 20 years has been to either try and make the cells cheaper (see thin film cells that are starting to make traction) such that you're now able to buy a 150W panel at Menards for a couple hundred bucks, or try and improve the efficiency of solar cells (going from Si to GaAs, single tto double to triple junction), but that incurs more cost on the materials side. If you were able to increase the efficiency of a panel by 10 or 20% like the research paper suggests, NOW you're looking at a real costs comparison to traditional fossil fuel generation technologies.
Yeah, I think storage of solar energy is also an issue holding it up too. Nearly our entire transportation system is based on a liquid fuel system. Also, for terrestrial use, any given place on earth only has access to the sun for about half the day, so storage is a limiting factor there as well.
However, I am very excited at the prospect of harvesting solar energy large scale. I always chuckle when I see electric cars being portrayed as this super clean option when in most parts of the country the electricity is probably generated from a coal power plant. Coal is even dirtier than petroleum based fuels. Electricity production from truely clean sources such as solar energy are indeed exciting advances and can finally make the electric car a truely clean option. Hopefully equally impressive advances in energy storage are around the corner.
Alternative energy really has three components, but only two get most of the attention. Sure, Environmental and Consumer Economics issues are what most people see day-to-day but there are also a National Security and Macroeconomic components to the problem that aren't typically discussed.
Petroleum is a expensive product the the US imports by the boatload, literally. That's a meaningful contributer to our vast trade imbalance and results in a lot of American Wealth leaving our borders...that wealth often goes to areas of the world that aren't down with the USA. In this way, finding alternative sources of energy can/should be considered a National Security issue as well as a way to improve the US economy.
From an environmental standpoint, fighting pollution at one source is easier than fighting it at millions of sources.
Is this discovery a panacea? No. Is it a BFD? Yes.
I cannot wait to see what the Solar Car team does with this knowledge. You thought UM had an advantage before now there will be no stopping them.
Sounds like they'd be too low efficiency to really be utilized on the car at this stage of development. Still a cool article though
why cant things be powered by farts?
actually, a lot of livestock farming operations (think pig farms) capture the methane gas released from the feces for fuel.
Dairy farms too.
I saw a show (might have been dirty jobs) that had a home built system for methane power. The farmer installed a conveyor for the poo which sent it to a big vat where it was mixed with enzymes that broke it down and released methane. The gas was captured and sent to a steam generator. The rest of the waste was fertilizer.
The farmer and his family built the whole thing with a lot of stuff they had around the farm and the power generated accounted for a good % of their usage (I forget exact numbers, but remember thinking, wow).
My uncle told me a story about how great MSU's agricultural school is one time. He is not from Michigan and has nothing against sparty so I don't know how he found this out, but I don't think he would make it up. Anyway, he said that MSU made a slotted floor in an area that they kept cows so the poo would fall through and be collected underground. After a bunch of it had collected they realized it hardened and used something to stir it up to try to use it or clean it out or whatever. When they stirred it up, it released gas into the area where the cows were and ended up killing all of the cows. Typical dumb sparties. So has anyone else heard this story?
Methane can be used to power all sorts of things. You just don't generate enough of it to do much (except vibrate your sphincter).
April 18th, 2011 at 11:21 PM ^
That gets a lot of ab muscle movement though. Sooner or later there's bioelectricity and kinetic energy to harvest.
As J Pierpont Morgan reportedly said to Nikola Tesla when he withdrew funding for a similar project a little over 100 years ago: "If anyone can draw on the power, where do we put the meter?"
This seems to be a case where public money could be put to work to produce a technology everyone would benefit from but may not be otherwise produced because of the issue you cite.
Then again, if it could actually get cheap enough to siphon off even some demand from the grid
100 years ago they didn't have global warming, OPEC and declining oil supplies etc. We're trying to get beyond that way of thinking
If we had more dinosuars to die off we wouldn't have that problem with declining oil supply.
Heck, we still don't even have global warming.
Poor Nikola. Imagine power sources today if his warehouse had not 'accidently' burned down and he was then left to rot in a one bedroom apt. speaking gibberish about light ray cannons? His work has been squashed ever since his death and Crossdresser Hoover scooped up his remaining notebooks.
This will be vaporware. Scientific journals publish that a team has discovered a breakthrough and the next big thing is just around the corner all the time. With the right materials, and ignoring the limitation of needing a concentrated light source greater than the sun, they could possibly achieve 10% efficiency. Don't hold your breath.
I consider myself a pretty bright guy... but reading this article made me feel as much like the ICP as I have felt in a long time.
