Solar power eliminates utility bills in U.S. home - Yahoo! News
Very cool. This fellow has a 3,000 sq. ft house in New Jersey and with 1,000 sq. ft of solar cells on his roof has met 100% of energy needs. In fact, during the summer, excess energy is enjoyed and he diverts this to an electrolysis machine and saves the resulting hydrogen for use in the winter and also in his fuel cells.
Still expensive, but oh glory the promises of tomorrow's nanotechnology seductively beckon. From Slashdot:
Kind of gives me a little hope...
What about other consumables? On Slashdot, folks mentioned the need for periodic battery replacement and the related issue of dealing with that toxic waste. I had never heard of this before but it is brilliant in its simplicity: Flywheels! Heavy (made out of concrete), buried underground, non-toxic (made out of concrete), low-tech (made out of concrete) and maintenance free. The concept being that a solar-powered motor (slowly) spins up the flywheel during the night, and the inertia of the device is transferred to a generator at night.
Neato.
Very cool. This fellow has a 3,000 sq. ft house in New Jersey and with 1,000 sq. ft of solar cells on his roof has met 100% of energy needs. In fact, during the summer, excess energy is enjoyed and he diverts this to an electrolysis machine and saves the resulting hydrogen for use in the winter and also in his fuel cells.
Still expensive, but oh glory the promises of tomorrow's nanotechnology seductively beckon. From Slashdot:
New solar cells developed with nano-technology at the University of Toronto (http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/050110-832.asp) convert light from the blue-yellow end of the spectrun down to the near-infrared (current cells work only in the bluie-yellow end of the visible spectrum). This could increase the conversion efficiency by a factor of 5. Additionally, this technology lends itself to be able to literally print the cells on a plastic substrate, significantly lowering manufacturing costs.Sprayable solar-cells that you buy by the gallon and are 500% more efficient than what we've got now.
Currently, a typical home solar setup produces about 4.5 KW (max) and costs about US $25,000 to install. Payback takes about 20 years. If this new technology could change both numbers by a conservative factor of say, 3, you'd be looking at 13.5 KW (max) systems going for about US $8,500, and payback times of 5 years or so. Then, you'd have something.
Kind of gives me a little hope...
What about other consumables? On Slashdot, folks mentioned the need for periodic battery replacement and the related issue of dealing with that toxic waste. I had never heard of this before but it is brilliant in its simplicity: Flywheels! Heavy (made out of concrete), buried underground, non-toxic (made out of concrete), low-tech (made out of concrete) and maintenance free. The concept being that a solar-powered motor (slowly) spins up the flywheel during the night, and the inertia of the device is transferred to a generator at night.
Neato.
