Solar power breakthrough with titanium oxide

[Torsten]

I've been waiting for this for the last year and I am sooooo excited. This is the breakthough that will make solar power cheap. Very cheap. Cos there is plenty of titanium around and it is a lot cheaper to make than super pure silicon wafers.

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UQ makes solar-power 'breakthrough'

Posted 3 hours 57 minutes ago

Queensland researchers say they have made a major breakthrough in renewable energy technology.

Professor Max Lu from the University of Queensland says they have been able to grow titanium oxide crystals, which could be used in solar power cells and water purification and recycling devices.

He says the material is cheap and easy to produce and it will make solar energy more cost-effective.

"The promise of such a crystal is, because it's such a high-reactivity surface that we're creating, they will enable the boosting of efficiency in terms of solar energy conversion to electricity," he said.

"In other words, if this can be made into a solar cell it is going to be much more efficient."

He says the technology will make solar power more cost-effective, but concedes that it is up to 10 years away from being commercially available.

"This has shown great promise. The prospect of this in the area of renewable energy is huge," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/29/2258722.htm

[Yeti101]

Other cool applications as well including air and water purification and it can be applied like paint!

UQ Article: http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=14818

Letter to Nature with full hardcore technical details: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/...nature06964.pdf

Researchers here at Newcastle had been trying to get the 'Solar Paint' thing working for a while now, maybe this will speed the process up a bit (either through collaboration or competition).

[MindExpansion]

Excellent stuff ey,

Cheers for the read,

Peace,

Mind

[Jesus On Peyote]

Cool, iv been thinking alot more about solar panels lately, but this still seems ages away, its a step in the right direction tho

[Torsten]

Considering I had my first solar set up nearly 20 years ago, I don't think 10 years is really THAT long. Personally I won't wait for this new technology, but it means that i will keep it in mind when designing my new system. ie, rather than covering all of my energy needs immediately, I will probably just cover my peak needs and then expand with the new technology when it is ready.

Peak consumption is really where the main waste of energy generation happens anyway, so if everyone just covered their peak needs we'd probably only burn half as much coal. And it doesn't take much to cover your peak need.

[devance]

http://www.physorg.com/news131101595.html

'cold fusion sounds too good to be true'

'In their experiment, the physicists forced deuterium gas into a cell containing a mixture of palladium and zirconium oxide, which absorbed the deuterium to produce a dense "pynco" deuterium. In this dense state, the deuterium nuclei from different atoms were so close together that they fused to produce helium nuclei. '

Another perhaps another alchemist claim of easy transmutatioin of matter.

Is there such a thing, thats what they said about the sea as limitless source of protein only 50 years ago.

Know a limitless source of energy?

[alkatrope]

^ If real that's pretty awesome.

[Jesus On Peyote]

Good point T, i dident even know there were solar power 20 years ago lol ( i was 3yo )

just wondering, how much would a basic, modest setup cost these days? say enough to supply 500 to 1000wt of power a day? (havent checked exactly, but that seems like it would be at least about 50% of the energy used (fridge alone). or is that considered a bigger setup?.

Should do some more research on it, ah too many things to research and not enough time lol

Dev, i dont know anything bout cold fusion,cept from what i read from the link, and sounds like a lot of people are skeptical about it,till they get results at least

[reshroomED]

Rough price for panels is $10/W up to a few hundred watts, probably cheaper from there up.

Then add a battery bank and regulator.

Then an inverter if you want to run 240V gear (and you'll need about 2500W to run a lot of gear as current-draw on start-up is often 3 times it's operating current).

Then a genset for excessive use/heavy cloud days

It's more sensible with solar to run 12VDC equipment, but then you have the cost of replacing your equipment with 12V stuff.

Solar is not a cheap option when compared to a generator (less than $2K) and about 10l fuel/day, but will certainly pay for itself in the long-term.

I've got an old landcruiser set up for remote area camping for extended periods and seriously considered putting 120W of panels on the roof-rack a few years back. This was to cover lighting and fridge (60l) only and would have needed to top up the batteries via genset at least once/week in Victoria (would have been pretty self-sufficient in Northern/Central australia). Cost would have been under $1500 for materials only.

[Big George]

You'd be almost better off installing another alternator on the land cruiser and carrying around a few spare batteries.

Torsten, I hope this technology revolutionises the solar panel industry, however it seems to be the oil and energy companies who gobble up all these new technologies when the research guys need the funds the most, and then you never see it go any further.

It basically gets bought by a company like BP, AGL, Chevron, etc... early on in the show, and they either shelve the idea and file it under "Do not open this filing cabinet until 2025 or we run out of oil, whichever comes last..." OR they make it prohibitively expensive, and anybody wanting to do the right thing has to fork out $40,000 to make their home run on solar power, giving them a 50 year break even point.

The poor bugger who invented it, gets to pay off his research debts and becomes a TAFE teacher for the rest of his life.

I am optimistic, I really believe that we can make solar panels that are 5x more efficient than they are now.

But history has it's lessons for the future as well.

Currently, wind power has the upper hand for small power requirement setups, wattage for dollar / space required.

Edited May 30, 2008 by Big George

[reshroomED]

You'd be almost better off installing another alternator on the land cruiser and carrying around a few spare batteries.

He he. 4l engine at 2000rpm to charge batteries.

Alternator's more than adequate, but charges deep cycle batteries too fast (which trashes them). Lead/acids handle the fast charging but not the depletion that deep cycles can, and storage/gassing is problematic. Plus cabling to avoid voltage-drop becomes an issue with anything not under the bonnet. Mobile systems are definitely a compomise.

And battery banks are another major outlay for solar systems. You really need 4x your power requirements in storage, and that's big bucks.

Torsten, I hope this technology revolutionises the solar panel industry, however it seems to be the oil and energy companies who gobble up all these new technologies when the research guys need the funds the most, and then you never see it go any further.

It basically gets bought by a company like BP, AGL, Chevron, etc... early on in the show, and they either shelve the idea and file it under "Do not open this filing cabinet until 2025 or we run out of oil, whichever comes last..." OR they make it prohibitively expensive, and anybody wanting to do the right thing has to fork out $40,000 to make their home run on solar power, giving them a 50 year break even point.

The poor bugger who invented it, gets to pay off his research debts and becomes a TAFE teacher for the rest of his life.

I am optimistic, I really believe that we can make solar panels that are 5x more efficient than they are now.

But history has it's lessons for the future as well.

Unfortunately, I totally agree

Currently, wind power has the upper hand for small power requirement setups, wattage for dollar / space required.

It's bloody noisy though. I've seen small set-ups (*far* smaller than necessary for an average house) that could be heard over 1km away.

Hydro is the go, but you need a river.

ed

[iain]

I've been looking at recent breakthroughs in solar cells, very interesting.

Nanotechnology has so much potential, i don't know why greenpeace is so opposed to it, maybe they're just afraid of new technology.

have a look at this company http://www.nanosolar.com/

They have a nanoparticle ink that can be printed on flexible substrate to make solar cells very cheaply

[Torsten]

wow. I completely missed this development.

nano particles have shown the potential to be as damaging as asbestos, which is why there is a bit of opposition to the technology. I think with certain safety precautions this problem can be contained [literally]. After all, most nano particle applications are in some sort of solid substrate.

[Torsten]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosolar

[Yawning Man]

WOW!! That is awesome! If i'm ever lucky enough to own a house my dream is the have the roof littered with solar panels. It kind of makes sense to have them now days, what with petrol, interest rates and the like going up.