islander wrote:
 

To whom should I send it? 

 Red_Dragon wrote:
 
Interesting, but there just isn't much energy available in a system like that. Triboelectrics had a bit of a burst a few years ago, but energy yields are tiny.  I spend a lot of time managing people's expectations for solar as it is now, I can't wait to see what I get when they find this article. 

New solar panels created by Chinese researchers take energy from the friction of falling raindrops, as well as the sun, so it’s an effective source of renewable energy all year round.

Update On Wind Turbines and Birds

 cc_rider wrote:
 
Good point, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him pay for the drink

 haresfur wrote:
 Sounds really cool. It's a shame it's so hard to get alternative energy projects going. To be fair, they require a big initial investment.
c.

 cc_rider wrote:
 

Actually, the neat thing was that their system was much simpler. The sunlight was focused onto a linear-drive Stirling engine. Basically a shaft held by bearings that looked like the inserts for 45 records (I assume everyone here are old farts and I don't need to explain what those are). In a nutshell, the heat drives the shaft back and forth through a coil, generating electricity. The parts were simple enough that they thought they could repurpose a closed auto manufacturing plant for production. If I recall, their biggest unit was 3 kW.

I can't remember the conversion efficiency, but it was significantly higher than photovoltaic panels and didn't use fancy silicon. Also solar panel efficiency degrades with time. The tradeoff is having the disk reflector and having to keep it tracking the sun.

They were selling units to the military as generators using diesel as the heat source. More efficient than conventional generators. Not that the price is significant to them, but it turns out driving fuel trucks around a war zone is a dangerous job and the less fuel you move, the safer your troops. As a sideline, they could essentially run the system in reverse as a refrigerator. You can get people to stay hydrated with 30 C water but it's really hard to get them to drink 40 C water.

The boss was trying to set up systems in little villages in Bangladesh. One person power companies that could make a living charging cell phones, etc.

 haresfur wrote:
 
The idea is pretty simple: use focused solar energy to heat water (or other carrier: I've heard liquid sodium is ideal) to make super-heated steam to power turbines. At night just use a gas burner or excess heat from a cement kiln or whatever.  The big solar arrays I've heard about have a problem with too much heat. They have to de-focus the mirrors to keep from burning up the piping.

A big problem is birds, though. As you get closer to the 'furnace', the solar rays get more focused, i.e. hotter. Apparently it'll vaporize anything that gets too close. Your Thanksgiving turkey is ready in three seconds flat though.
c.

a friend worked for a company that had a very efficient generator for turning heat from a solar tracking mirror into electricity. the cool thing was that it could use any heat source so they could park the mirror at night over a gas flame and continue to generate

the company failed because of cash flow, not because of the technology

 Red_Dragon wrote:
 

i'm not sure how significant this is, and it's an incremental improvement, not a new technology as the article acknowledges. The cement industry thing is a bit misleading. Yes it uses a lot of heat to make, but a lot of the CO2 release is from turning the limestone CaCO3 into lime CaO and you can't get around that

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:
 

wear your sunglasses, Mr. ant 

 kcar wrote: 
It will be interesting to see if the industries this technology is tailored to, cement, steel etc. will invest in the change over from fossil fuels. Or is it just easier for them to keep what they have in place, continue to use fossil fuels and still make boat loads of money. Its a positive step to develop the tech though. Not holding my breath it will be the new standard. 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:
 

Amazing development. If you applied this technology to heating living/working spaces as SFW suggests, I think you'd have to work with large apartment/office buildings.

This is also cool:

Heliogen said it is generating so much heat that its technology could eventually be used to create clean hydrogen at scale. That carbon-free hydrogen could then be turned into a
fuel for trucks and airplanes."If you can make hydrogen that's green, that's a gamechanger," said Gross. "Long term, we want to be the green hydrogen company."

 Red_Dragon wrote:
 

That's neat, and I wonder about smaller systems on cold days just for heating. Solar cells are cool but it seems more simpler to just gather the heat and warm the house.

Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Great for removing tartar! 

NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

That's why it's fizzy! Just crack the can open slowly.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Isn't that stuff under enormous pressure?

Manbird wrote:

I would but I'm in the pay of greedy oil companies who give me free plastic straws with their logos on them so I can't make the breakthru that would make me a jillionaire because then how would I sip my fracking water?

 Lazy8 wrote:
 

We need another form of energy besides stupid old fashioned electricity. Right? One that's almost free to collect and doesn't require physical means of transmission and storage. Right? That would be so cool. Can you work on that?  Oh, and it's completely clean, too. But maybe gives of precious metals and gems as a byproduct. But not too much, just enough so everyone can have about $100,000 per year. (Except stupid old rich people.)