10 Tech Concepts You Should Know for 2007 195
mattnyc99 writes "Popular Mechanics has a new list of wide-ranging technology terms it claims will be big in 2007. From PRAM to BAN and SmartPills to data clouds, it's a pretty nice summary of upcoming and in-the-works trends across the board (with a podcast embedded). Though these aren't technologies they expect to be in everyone's homes next year, they're sure this tech will be in the headlines. How do their predictions from a year ago stack up now?" From the article: "Printed Solar Panels - Tomorrow's solar panels may not need to be produced in high-vacuum conditions in billion-dollar fabrication facilities. If California-based Nanosolar has its way, plants will use a nanostructured "ink" to form semiconductors, which would be printed on flexible sheets. Nanosolar is currently building a plant that will print 430 megawatts' worth of solar cells annually--more than triple the current solar output of the entire country."
Salor Power is not yet viable (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if they can make a 5% efficient solar panel. I will buy it.
Why? It all comes down to cost. Solar power is too expensive for me. It takes over 5 years for a solar panel to pay for itself. Also, a solar panel only lasts (the efficiency declines over time) about 20 years. The capital cost is too high.
So companies should focus on reducing the per watt cost of solar panels. Not on improving the efficiency. If you can make solar panels for $5 per 100 watt panel
A 100% efficiency solar panel can take up 1 m^2 and generate a kilowatt, a 10% efficiency solar panel would need 10 m^2 to match that up
based on last year's predictions... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm waiting for SmartDrugs (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the business model (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who is your financial advisor? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:data cloud (Score:4, Insightful)
Consumer bandwidth is the problem for those services, really.
Also see my past comments on SOLAR (Score:2, Insightful)
I also have another one somewhere here on slashdot, but couldn't find it.
Home owners Associations (Score:2, Insightful)
There was an article in the WSJ a couple of years ago where a guy in TX had to move out into the country so he could put solar panels on a house.
Now, having a solar generating station out in the country would help me greatly.
Short Term Impacts? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about 2006? (Score:3, Insightful)
I dunno, Ajax [popularmechanics.com] was on that list, and it became pretty big.
Re:Who is your financial advisor? (Score:2, Insightful)
No. I don't think so.
Re:Who is your financial advisor? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that it is now worth a small fraction of what it was worth when you bought it. Just like a car (which also has about a 20 year lifespan), it loses value quite rapidly as it becomes less efficient and closer to being a pile of junk that you have to pay to get rid of.
Re:units? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you make a 43W cell, and you can make 10,000,000 of them in 12 months, then you can make 430MW worth of cells in a year. Units are ok, just a question of whether they have the technology and resources to achieve it.