Self-Assembling Photovoltaic Cells 103
Posted
by
timothy
from the some-assembly-automatic dept.
from the some-assembly-automatic dept.
dhj writes "MIT scientists have developed a self-assembling photovoltaic cell in a petri dish. Phospholipids (think cell membranes) form disks which act as the structural support for light responsive molecules. Carbon nanotubes help to align the disks and conduct electricity generated by the system with 40% efficiency. The assembly process is reversible using surfactants to break up the phospholipids. When filters are used to remove the surfactants the system reassembles with no loss of efficiency even over multiple assembly/disassembly cycles. The results were published September 5th in Nature Chemistry."
Re:40%! (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder though if it's possible for energy costs to go down. It might be like bandwidth, where once the ISP has invested in the architecture to support a certain throughput it doesn't really cost them much to run it at full capacity and they don't save any money by turning things off and letting fiber go dark.
Hydroelectric and nuclear power aren't ever going to be turned down, and it makes no sense to do so because it saves no money. Oil is sort of the same thing: x barrels of oil gush out of the seafloor monthly, and it's a constant flow. All the infrastructure and support for a certain amount of power going to the grid is almost completely paid for.. if people don't use it, it's not saving the energy companies any money and prices won't budge.
Re:40%! (Score:3, Interesting)
"At 20 percent you get 27.6 m^2 = 5.5 meters (17.23 feet) on a side.
At 10 percent you get 55.2 m^2 = 7.4 (24.3 feet) meters on a side."
Ok, who owns/rents/whatever a house that's less than 25 feet per side in this day and age?
Re:40%! (Score:1, Interesting)
As long as it is acceptable to build houses as cheaply as possible, we will continue using more power than is required. So yes, solar can be way too expensive to supply even the power to just cool the house.
The sad thing is that building poorly insulated houses does not, by any mean, means that the house is built "as cheaply as possible". In fact, once you account for the projected energy spending, anyone will easily understand that cheapening out on the thermal aspects of any house ends up constituting an extra source of maintenance expenses. Any competent civil engineer who is employed designing the thermal behavior of any project is forced to design details such as the insulation as a function of the energy which is needed to preserve the interior with a comfortable environment. That means that the project must be based on a cost/benefit analysis, which is performed with a certain time frame in mind to be able to the investment in insulation/HVAC to break even.