Over at FuturePundit some comments on the latest step change in solar cell performance. Randall points out that new materials should be able to move efficiencies from the current 30 % or so to 60 %.It’s precisely these sorts of technological advances that are going to make Kyoto and similar greenie hysteria outdated : yes, technology really will save us.
I’m actually even more optimistic than Randall as a result of the day job, the work that my company ( motto, ” Scandium, yes please !” ) does with exotic metals.
Look at this. That’s talking about making LED’s from scandium nitride. This in itself, the rise of LED based lighting systems, is going to have a big effect on the environment : my calculations indicate that the roll out of this technology will reduce US electricity consumption by 15 % or so.
Yet I would go even further. And this is supposition on my part, not backed up by anything so formal as experimental evidence.
If you make an LED out of gallium arsenide, it emits in the red. If you make a solar cell out of the same gallium arsenide, it absorbs most of the red falling on it, and pretty much ignores the rest of the spectrum. If you make your LED out of gallium nitride, you get blue light, and a similar solar cell absorbs blue. Add in indium and this is what the Lawrence Livermore people are working on.
Great.
So the scandium nitride researchers have found that an LED made of it will emit the full spectrum, very close to sunlight (that’s not all that suprising as scandium is used in light bulbs to do precisely that ) . Does the other side of the observation also hold ? If you make a solar cell out of scandium nitride, does it absorb the full spectrum of sunlight ?
I’ve been in contact with the researchers and they have no answer as yet ( and yes I will, of course, provide free scandium oxide to someone who wants to try it out ) and are in fact looking for someone to sponsor more research, something we are not large enough to support.
But wouldn’t that be cool ? A solar cell that actually absorbs the full spectrum of light falling on it.
Then the problem would be scandium supply, but anyone with a spare $ 5 million can drop it in the tip jar above and I can sort that out. Lesser amounts will go to the beer fund.