another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells

notsobright
notsobright Solar Expert Posts: 247 ✭✭
in Solar Skeptics, Hype, & Scams Corner #1
found this on another forum. is it all hype? I havent read about it anywhere else that is solar related.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/william-yuan-invents-3d-nanotube-solar-cell.php
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #2
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells

    If it isn't commercially available it isn't real.

    I mean some of us are still waiting for our flying cars! :D
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  • boB
    boB Solar Expert Posts: 1,032 ✭✭✭✭
    #3
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells
    notsobright wrote: »
    found this on another forum. is it all hype? I havent read about it anywhere else that is solar related.

    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/william-yuan-invents-3d-nanotube-solar-cell.php

    Hey.... It's on www.treehugger.com.... what do you expect ?? :D

    boB
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  • dwh
    dwh Solar Expert Posts: 1,341 ✭✭✭
    #4
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells
    Cariboocoot wrote: »
    If it isn't commercially available it isn't real.

    I mean some of us are still waiting for our flying cars! :D

    And Moller is still working on it:

    http://www.moller.com/

    He gets closer every year...or should I say every decade...

    What irks me about his setup is that it's designed from the start to NOT allow independent operation...he wants them all to be controlled by central traffic control computer.

    Which, considering the 300-400mph speed does make *some* sense - even if it isn't so hot-shot gee-whiz fun as flying it by hand would be.
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  • notsobright
    notsobright Solar Expert Posts: 247 ✭✭
    #5
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells
    Cariboocoot wrote: »
    If it isn't commercially available it isn't real.

    makes me so mad!

    I fully expected Nicola Tesla would have saved us from beyond by now too
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #6
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells
    notsobright wrote: »
    makes me so mad!

    I fully expected Nicola Tesla would have saved us from beyond by now too

    Considering the amount of electric power we use today in the world ... If all that were being 'transmitted' through the air I think the electro-magnetic field and microwave naysayers would have a real point. :p
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  • tallgirl
    tallgirl Solar Expert Posts: 413 ✭✭
    #7
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells

    Considering that my Kyocera's are about 14% efficient, I'm thinking that anything more than a 7 times improvement is impossible.

    Unless it's a light sucker that vacuums up photons from somewhere else. Plunging the entire world into DARKNESS!
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  • Windsun
    Windsun Solar Expert Posts: 1,164 ✭✭
    #8
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells

    It's like those old Dark Bulbs that used to suck the light from a room to make it dark when you turned the switch on...
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #9
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells
    Windsun wrote: »
    It's like those old Dark Bulbs that used to suck the light from a room to make it dark when you turned the switch on...

    Contra-polar energy! :p

    (Okay, how many others remember that?)
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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    #10
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells
    Cariboocoot wrote: »
    Contra-polar energy! :p

    (Okay, how many others remember that?)

    remember what?:confused::p
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,634 admin
    #11
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells

    Wow--something even before my time:
    When the April 1955 issue of Popular Electronics arrived in the mail, one of the inside photographs displayed an incredible sight - a desk lamp emitting not a cone of light, but instead, a cone of darkness! My eyes bugged-out when I saw that. What wondrous science was at work here, I gasped (metaphorically speaking, of course, because what fourteen year old kid do you know, other than in a TV sitcom, who actually talks like that?) The secret, according to the accompanying article, was that the lamp was not plugged into a normal power outlet, but rather into an outlet delivering contra-polar power. Another photograph showed a soldering iron plugged into the contra-polar power outlet it was covered with ice! And another displayed a frozen ice tray on a hot plate, except it was now a cold plate because it was plugged into contra-polar power! I looked at those three photographs and I remember my pulse rate elevated and I felt a momentary spell of faintness. This was simply wonderful! If that was what contra-polar power could do, I wanted contra-polar power!

    Well, of course it was all just a huge editorial joke, aided by some nifty photographic retouching. When I showed the article to my father after he came into the room to see what all the excitement was about, he glanced at it and then looked at me with what I now know was a mixture of pity and amusement. Dad wasn't an electrical engineer or a physicist, but with a PhD in chemistry he wasn't totally ignorant of technical matters that fell outside the realm of benzene rings and molecular bonds. He immediately suspected that 'contra-polar power' probably violated perhaps seven different fundamental principles of physics. Rather than laughing at me, however, he simply said, "Son, look at the date on the cover." I had not noticed the 'April' before, or even the sub-title "In keeping with the first day of April", but I quickly understood the significance. I still remember my enormous embarrassment at having been so completely taken in.


    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #12
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells

    :p Yep! That was it! :p

    I remember that joke even after all these years.

    Pity I can't remember why I went to the store once I get there. :blush:
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  • icarus
    icarus Solar Expert Posts: 5,436 ✭✭✭✭
    #13
    Re: another kid with a "break through" this time 3D PV cells

    I don't know what you guys are laughing at. I have many of these devices in my house. Flip the switch, and the "bulb" sucks all the light out of the room! They are not powerful enough to overcome day light, but in a completely closed room, it can make it black as night!

    Tony
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