Joint venture between Nissan and NEC (NEC Tokin) http://www.eco-aesc.com/en/

zpb, I thought that 10-15% was entry level on panels? hasn't somebody achieved 40%+ recently?

Agree though, if 60-70% efficiency can be cost effectively achieved, the world's going solar

It can easily be solved if every roof top were built with solar cells, a few battery packs in the basement or a shed, a few of other free energy goodies, but they (Money hungry, greedy bastards) wouldn't be happy with empty pockets. No need for power making companies and no need to have gas runing bellow a few cities.

Actually I think 20% is the newer typical efficiency, true, BUT, they need to be a low cost/Kw output, that is why panels efficiency vary so much, because in the end, a low output low cost panel is just as cost effective as a higher output higher cost panel. There is obviously a limit on the low end, as you run into area constraints, and would end up being MORE expensive.

Agreed as well, we need about 60-70% efficiency like you said to really get things moving with solar, and to meat energy use.

According to the info here, 277.8w per square foot of energy is produced by the sun on a sunny day. If we can get even 50% efficiency, it wouldn't take a lot of square footage to get 1000w. Not a lot to be sure, but it's "free".

The Australian Govt is handing out solar lollies (candy) at the moment...not as many since last week but still some

http://www.environment.gov.au/energy...ter/index.html

If you live in the right part of Sydney you get this...

http://www.blacktownsolarcity.com.au/

Huh? That is over 3 Kw/m2.. I have never seen that number been thrown around. Perhaps they are using the 'top of the atmosphere' radiation level, which of course, is alot higher? Even then, that is way too high.


Planet W/meter squared MAX - MIN
Mercury 14,446 – 6,272
Venus 2,647 – 2,576
Earth 1,413 – 1,321
Mars 715 – 492
Jupiter 55.8 – 45.9
Saturn 16.7 – 13.4
Uranus 4.04 – 3.39
Neptune 1.54 – 1.47

I too have seen higher numbers thrown around, and I am unsure of what is the true number, the most common estimate is roughly 1.3 - 1.5Kw/m2. We should get to the bottom of this, as it's kind of important to know... :tongue:

I imagine some of those numbers are simply being calculated for the theoretical power output of the sun, then divided the surface area of a sphere of a radius the distance of a planet's orbit from the sun, then multiplied by the surface area of the planet itself.

What is not specified is the type of radiation they are counting. Even from an Infrared to Ultra Violet range, I'm sure there are only discrete wavelengths that can be captured by solar panel tech. Even in the chlorophyll comparison, chlorophyll only captures a limited range of EM radiation (ie in the red and blue range) but everything else is missed. I wonder what the actual power availability is.

Have to do some more searching to find that out.

Yeah, panels vary in the light absorption effectiveness and spectrum effectiveness, two different but equally important aspects. Chlorophyll is not the only pigment in plant photosynthesis though, there are others as well, which have different absorption curves of light than Chlorophyll.

I wish I could simply plug myself into the car and have it draw calories to power it. Would be an effective and easy way to lose weight...

You can probably sell that idea in today's society.

Mm McDs can then tout how far you can drive on a double quarter pounder w. cheeze

Why stop at McDs when BKs are bigger :lol:. A lot of messed up elites will benefit from this idea :yes:.

Are you sure about that?

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:mdr:

Haha