<![CDATA[io9: Solar Energy]]> http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: Solar Energy]]> http://io9.com/tag/solar energy http://io9.com/tag/solar energy <![CDATA[Hitting semiconductors with a superfast electric pulse massively increases their efficiency]]> Researchers from Kyoto University have discovered a new technique that could dramatically improve the efficiency of some semiconductors. They took gallium arsenide, and blasted it with a terahertz range electric field pulse for just a picosecond, which lead to a 1,000-fold increase in exciton density. An exciton is a pair of an electron and a positively charged area it came from, which are attracted to each other and recombine to luminesce. They're how we get light out of LEDs and other applications, and this new technique could make them dramatically more efficient. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5869905&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Himalayas and the Andes are goldmines... for solar power]]> The world's coldest, tallest, and most forbidding mountains might soon be the new frontier of solar power. These tall, snow-capped peaks could retain way more sunlight than elsewhere, and the intense cold would actually make panels work more efficiently. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5851114&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[An artificial leaf and a gallon of water could generate enough energy to power your house for a day]]> The artificial leaf has been a target of solar research for years — an object that creates fuel sources out of sunlight, mimicking photosynthesis. But this solar energy breakthrough has always been thwarted by the need for rare components... until now. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5784956&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Ray Kurzweil uses math to prove that we have no energy crisis]]> Futurist and singularitarian Ray Kurzweil recently told PBS' Lauren Feeney that we don't need to worry about peak oil or carbon emissions. That's a relief. He's applied his "law of accelerating returns," developed to describe the way consumer electronics improve exponentially, to the field of solar power. Kurzweil tells Feeney: More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5766786&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Solar-powered hornet is the Superman of the animal kingdom]]> Plants use photosynthesis to turn sunlight into energy every single day. This ability appeared to be completely unknown in the animal kingdom, leaving the living solar battery that is Superman as the only animal to ever harness the sun's rays for power. But now we've discovered that a type of hornet is doing its own homegrown photosynthesis, absorbing sunlight and turning it into useful energy. It's the first animal we've ever discovered that possesses this ability...and we might be able to harness our own version of it for alternative energy. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5759323&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[New technology that captures "exciton" particles could replace today's solar cells]]> Even the most efficient solar cell loses a lot of energy in the form of wasted heat. But the electron-like particles that photons emit as they enter the cells could be turned into electrical energy, solving the heat loss problem. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5652404&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[African solar farms will power all of Europe by 2050]]> During the colonial era, European countries set up outposts in Africa where they could get cheap labor and natural resources. And today Europeans build solar farms in Africa, extracting sunlight from the Sahara to power high-tech cities in the north. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5569437&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[This Is What Kevin Costner Should Have Had In Waterworld]]> If the world really does get flooded like in Waterworld, energy supplies will be scarcer than ever. So we'll need this craft, the world's largest solar-powered boat, with 5,382 square feet of solar panels. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5480391&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Next Alternative Energy Solution? Human Hair]]> Milan Karki, an 18 year-old from a rural village in Nepal, has invented a type of solar panel that replaces expensive silicon with cheap, easily replenished human hair. Melanin, the pigment in human hair acts as a conductor for solar energy, and hair, unlike silicon, can be easily replaced, giving the panels a longer lifespan. The devices are also considerably cheaper than commercially available solar panels, costing £23 to make (and considerably less if mass-produced). Karki hopes his hairy invention will help bring electricity to remote populations. [Times Online via Slashdot] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5356197&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Scifi's Greatest Space Builders — And How We'll Copy Them]]> Click to viewOne day, when you hear someone is a construction worker, you'll have to ask whether he or she wears a spacesuit on the job. We're already assembling massive structures in space - like the International Space Station and Dextre, the "monster" robot that got built in space this past spring - but space construction will soon become more and more common. So it's a good thing science fiction is full of awesome examples of space construction, from Asimov to Star Trek. Space construction from science fiction: Science fiction is full of lavish descriptions of objects being built or assembled in space, from small robots to structures the size of a solar system. And many mega-structures described in science fiction must have been built in space, since they're too big to have been put together inside a gravity well. Probably the most famous instance of outer space construction comes from Star Trek. There's a huge controversy over whether the USS Enterprise NCC 1701 (without any bloody A, B, C, D, or E) was built in space or not. And the long-simmering debate was boosted into a roaring flame-war by the teaser trailer for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie, which appeared to show the starship being constructed on Earth. There's evidence on both sides: supposedly Trek creator Gene Roddenberry stated the Enterprise was built in orbit, but there are also sources that said it was built in San Francisco. But we do know the earlier Enterprise, the NX-01, was built in space, and so were the NCC-1701-D and USS Voyager. Here's a picture of the Utopia Planitia shipyards, from Memory Alpha:There are also tons of other shipyards in space, including the famous "Mon Calamari Shipyards" and several other orbital shipyards in Star Wars. Pictured at the top of this post are the orbital shipyards of Kuat, from the Wookiepedia. And of course, the massive Death Star had to be constructed in space. Science fiction is full of space elevators and other "megastructures" that must be built, at least partly, in space. Arthur C. Clarke's Fountains Of Paradise and Charles Sheffield's The Web Between The Worlds both involve a kind of "skyhook" or orbital tower, which connects the Earth's equator to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. In the Clarke book, eventually five more "spokes" are built from Earth, to form a structure resembling a ship's wheel. Other space megastructures, such as ringworlds, discworlds, Dyson Spheres and artificial planets, would be impossible, or near-impossible, to build inside an existing gravity well. In the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, we get to see the massive planet-building area hidden in hyperspace and accessible through an opening in the planet Magrathea: In Asimov's I, Robot, the robot QT (aka Cutie) deduces that he's superior to the humans, partly because he has no memory of being assembled in space, from parts built on Earth. As far as he knows, he just turned up in space, fully formed.
"Something made you, Cutie," pointed out Powell. "You admit yourself that your memory seems to spring full-grown from the absolute blankness of a week ago. I'm giving you the explanation. Donovan and I put you together from the parts shipped us." Cutie gazed upon his long, supple fingers in an oddly human attitude of mystification. "It seems to me that there should be a more satisfactory explanation than that. For you to make me seems improbable."
In R. Cordwainer Smith's "Think Blue, Count Two," he specifies that the massive solar sails which people use to sail across the universe were constructed in the vaccuum:
Before the great ships whispered between the stars by means of planoforming, people had to fly from star to star with immense sails - huge films assembled in space on long, rigid, coldproof rigging.
Real-life applications: So what are the real-life applications of the idea of building in space? We've already proved we can put together a space station in orbit, but we're not likely to be building dozens of those any time soon. It's entirely possible that more robots like Dextre, with complex and multi-jointed arms, will be built in space to handle satellites and space junk. We're definitely not likely to be building space elevators, Dyson Spheres or orbital stations any time soon. But here are a few other ideas that are being batted around for big space construction projects. Some of them relate to mega-environmentalism. Some people claim we can halt global warming in its tracks by building mega-structures, such as space mirrors, or giant nanofiber "sun shades," in orbit. These would deflect some of the sunlight reaching Earth, and they'd need to be constructed in space. Also, a mooted solar power satellite, which would collect solar energy from orbit and beam it back to Earth, would almost certainly need to be constructed in orbit. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency wants to have one of these up and running by 2030. Also, when we get around to building long-range spaceships to explore or colonize outside our solar system, we'll have to build them in space. Some observers argue that these large ships could be constructed using some Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) as raw materials and maybe also as a shell for human habitats. But a lot sooner than that, big and expensive satellites may be constructed in orbit, to save on launching costs. Last year, some small Japanese "spider robots" successfully crawled out along a net linking three satellites in orbit. They only functioned for a short time, but scientists saw the test as an important proof of concept. In a few years, we could be launching big antennas and solar panels into space in pieces, using small, cheap rockets. And then tiny robots could assemble them in space. So for the sake of the human race, let's hope J.J. Abrams' Trek movie comes down on the side of the Enterprise having been built in orbit. Our future as a species may depend on getting people used to the idea of large-scale outer space construction. More »
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