Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Go U of T!

Researchers at U of T announced yesterday they have developed a new type of organic semiconductor, which could theoretically allow for plastic solar cells that would collect sunlight with 30% efficiency, versus 6% for converntional plastic solar cells today. If this can be produced at low cost (and it is plastic, after all) this blows a hole in our environmental and energy issues. Natural Resources Canada gives the number of 1000 watts/metre of sunlight, but that sounds a bit high to me for Canada. So, to be pessimistic, let's assume 750w/m in the summer and 500 in the winter. This means roughly 250w/m in the summer and 165w/m in the winter of actual electricity being generated . So, in order to power an efficient home (assuming 1 kilowatt peak use) using these 30% plastic cells, we need only 6 square metres to power the home. Most homes have at least 50 square metres of roof, so I think you can see the potential here.

There are a huge diversity of competing solar panel technologies coming out in the last few years, and many of them should be availble for domestic use before the end of this now half-finished decade. In some ways, this is a really exciting time to be aware of new energy solutions that are coming along. In other ways, it's frightening that we're cutting this so close (with global warming and the other more serious environmental crises heading our way). Bucky Fuller said that the race between Utopia and Oblivion would be neck and neck until the end. I guess he was right, but wish we'd gotten smarter since he wrote that in the 1950s!

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