Over the weekend, Moore’s Law — the prediction that the number of transistors (building blocks) on an integrated circuit (computer chip or microchip) would double every two years — turned fifty years old. It so happens that the silicon solar panel, the dominant variety in the market today, is about the same age–roughly fifty-two years old. And over the last half-century, while the computing power of an identically sized microchip increased by a factor of over a billion, the power output of an identically sized silicon solar panel more or less doubled.[1]
Personal activity.
We replaced our $4,000 dollar, 200 gallon solar panels water heater with a gas water heater.
On cloudy days the sun doesn’t shine- hard to explain.
But on cloudy days the electric pump kept on pumping and costing me money.
Gas Never runs out of hot, sometimes scalding water, and our overall utility bill did not increase.
If anyone thinks solar heat is so great,
try taking a bath on a cloudy day..
Damn Shazzzam.
Sivaram is of course correct regarding the fundamental misapplication of Moore’s Law. And it’s noted that the efficiency growth in semiconductors has slowed dramatically from the pace of the 1990s. An historian like me would express it: “Continuing trends never do.”
Solar panel surfaces are not being structured. They are simply the random alignment of the silicon crystals. What I think might work is a simple diode with a tiny antenna tuned to various light frequencies etched and repeated over and over again on its surface like the millions of LEDs on a flat screen panel or computer chip. Maybe a whole bunch (yes, that is a scientific term) of IR receiver diodes all strung together might also work.
I had those things working in my youth many years ago circa 1956. A long wire, a diode (sirutor crystal) and a high impedance headset. Bingo, power enough to listen to a very local radio statio (RIAS Berlin to be precise). Tuned to the light spectrum, I can imagine a couple of million/billions of those things all tided together in series/parallel together and I could open a welding shop.
But then, I’m just an amature.
Just like the Electric Car, technology that peaked in 1898, when it lost out to the steam engine.
Enviromentalism is a new age malady cuased by watching AVATAR 1000 times watching those dumb Captian Planet marathons on Earthday and eating a steady diet of Nuts and Berries and listening to Al Gore,Robert Kenendt Jr and David Suzuki shooting off their pieholes all day long
The advent of smartphones and flatscreens necessitated advancements in glass, and apparently that glass has allowed solar panels to become significantly better in recent years. Still not a panacea, but it’s viable in certain applications.
Just an anecdote, a reminder that innovation sometimes comes unexpected places, and that becoming mono-focused on one type of tech leaves you with blinders.
for the Science is Settled category –
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/fitness/exercise-wont-help-you-lose-weight-research-says-what-is-life/ar-AAbzlAj?ocid=mailsignoutmd
And to make the comparison even worse: the supporting parts like hard drives, memory, network interface, etc. have also experienced “Moore’s law”. Whereas for solar power the installation, physical structures, power inverters, grid connection, etc. have had only incremental cost improvements (if at all) and if you factor in the cost of real estate it is in negative territory.
Solar energy is the power of the future…and always will be.
If we could harness all the Hot Air then Al Gore,Robert Kennedy Jr,David Suzuki and all those greenpeace activists would be very very useful
> Larry….”Solar energy is the power of the future…and always will be.”
As it has been for the last 3 billion years. It’s called the sun,son,NOT solr panels. You just graduate from one of them edumakational schools? When the sun is in a low SC(solar cycle), as is SC24,we get those funny things called ice ages. Give up the basket weaving womyn courses and try science.
The laws of physics and nature place firm limits on how much power you can get
out of anything. PV panels just hit the dead end long before Moore’s Law was
played out by circuit density. The main problem with solar power is that
sunlight is too diffuse after it made the 92.9 million mile journey to Earth.
That means that there is just so much sunlight that can fall on each square
foot of PV panel or mirror. Sunlight, like most forms of radiation follows
the law of inverse squares. The amount of PV panels necessary to power the
city of New York would require an array larger than the city itself. This
was true decades ago, and will be true decades from now!
But there are other examples of reaching the limits of efficiency or power
output;
Unless you are driving one of those “Smart Car” death traps, the best fuel
economy you can hope for is about 8 MPG more than my old 1969 Triumph
Spitfire Mk3.
With as much money that has gone into engineering batteries, the Chevy Volt
gets the same 40 miles to a charge the 105 year old Roberts Electric Car
did. The Tesla uses the same off the shelf batteries as the Volt, but
the Tesla uses a crap-load more of them! The brick wall here is called
battery density, and that brick wall is not likely to be broken.
Throughout my entire life (60 years,) every motor made has required the
same amount of current per HP to operate. Do not look for any quantum
leaps in electric motor efficiency.
When I was a young man, 100 HP per liter (or 100 CI) was the norm even
for world class GT’s like Ferrari’s using normally aspirated engines.
This may have gone up a bit, but not by much.
Nature places a lot of limits on our pursuits that cannot be broken.
Anyone who believes that we can continue to “Get more squeal out of
any of these pigs” is delusional and really does believe that Unicorn
farts are a viable form of energy!
Oops I meant batter power density, not battery density.