SANTA FE -- Imagine being able to paint your roof with enough alternative energy to heat and cool your home. What if soldiers in the field could carry an energy source in a roll of plastic wrap in their backpacks?
Those ideas sound like science fiction -- particularly in the wake of the rising costs of fossil fuel.
But both are on the way to becoming reality because of a breakthrough in solar research by a team of scientists from New Mexico State University and Wake Forest University.
While traditional solar panels are made of silicon, which is expensive, brittle and shatters like glass, organic solar cells being developed by this team are made of plastic that is relatively inexpensive, flexible, can be wrapped around structures or even applied like paint, said physicist Seamus Curran, head of the nanotechnology laboratory at NMSU. Nanotechnology, or molecular manufacturing, refers to the ability to build things one atom at a time.
The relatively low energy efficiency levels produced by organic solar cells have been a drawback. To be effective producers of energy, they must be able to convert 10 percent of the energy in sunlight to electricity. Typical silicon panels are about 12 percent energy conversion efficient.
That level of energy conversion has been a difficult reach for researchers on organic solar technology, with many of them hitting about 3 to 4 percent. But the NMSU/Wake Forest team has achieved a solar energy efficiency level of 5.2 percent. The announcement was made at the Santa Fe Workshop on Nanoengineered Materials and Macro-Molecular Technologies.
"This means we are closer to making organic solar cells that are available on the market," Curran said.
Conventional thinking has been that that landmark was at least a decade away. With this group's research, it may be only four or five years before plastic solar cells are a reality for consumers, Curran added.
The importance of the breakthrough cannot be underestimated, Curran said.
"We need to look into alternative energy sources if the United States is to reduce its dependence on foreign sources," the NMSU physics professor said.
New Mexico Economic Development Department Secretary Rick Homans added, "This breakthrough pushes the state of New Mexico further ahead in the development of usable solar energy, a vital national resource. It combines two of the important clusters on which the state is focused: renewable energy and micro nano systems, and underlines the strong research base of our state universities."
A cheap, flexible plastic made of a polymer blend would revolutionize the solar market, Curran said.
"Our expectation is to get beyond 10 percent in the next five years," Curran said. "Our current mix is using polymer and carbon buckyballs (fullerenes) and good engineering from Wake Forest and unique NSOM imaging from NMSU to get to that point."
NSOM or near-field scanning optical microscopy allows them to scan objects too small for regular microscopes.
The development is an outgrowth of the collaborative's work developing high-tech coatings for military aircraft, a program supported by Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Curran said.
This story has been adapted from a news release issued by New Mexico State University by Science Daily
Interesting contribution; it just proves, if needed, that alternative energies can be developed. That's just a question of will.
The billions of dollars wasted in costly wars to secure oil resources abroad would be so better well used to promote those techniques ....
You're right, JY_French. There are many resources and opportunities to develop alternative energy sources. The sooner people realize, or care, that it can be done, the better off everyone will be.
People who "realize", as you say, in California are bashed by oil lobbies in America for not sticking with good old ideas of the past regarding overconsumption of oil by overpowerful SUVs. In France nuclear lobbies are very strong and discourage people to think "outside the box" in terms of renewable energies.
It's highly time democracy prevails and alternative ways of thinking (since the barrier is more in the heads than on a technical field) emerge.
People are bashed in Canada, too. The right is afraid that by thinking outside the box, that must make them some kind of radical left-wing, peace and nature loving tree huggers. They are under the false impression that they have to fit the mold that was tried and tested by the founding right-wingers. They are satisfied with believing that everything they stand for and represent has a set of rules and there can be no deviation or independent thought. I wonder what the punishment is for a right-winger to walk outside and compare the weather of today to the weather of ten years ago. Surely, they can see there is a difference, can't they? I think they can see a difference, but refuse to allow their brains to think beyond the right-wing guidelines and instruction manual on how to be a faithful republican.
If people are afraid to "go against" their political party, even on issues that only require a little common sense and research that isn't funded or touted by EITHER the left or right, that says a lot about mind control, doesn't it?
Here's an idea: Not only are alternative energy sources beneficial to the environment, if we can do away with our need for oil, we may also be able to do away with the need to politicize the heck out of everything in life.
I agree with you, you are right as soon as people are open-minded enough to ponder over these issues and find out on their own what should be the best options.
Unfortunately - and that's what The-way-it-is noticed .... some right wingers remain entrenched in their opinion and would dismiss innovative options as tree huggers nonsense. They would laugh at scientific facts that do not confort their certainties regarding the impact of human activities on the environment, they would ridiculise innovations that do not follow their routine based on oil overconsumption.
Extremism is of course existing among left wingers but regarding environmental issues the tunnel-vision problem comes mainly from the right (at least on the american political scene).
Not an easy categorization of mine, simply a statement from two years of presence on this board. I think we could easily name a few of the individuals symptomatically behaving that way ...
Now you may be an open-minded and learned individual whose political opinion is leaning to the right, and who can debate fairly about these issues. I think that's the case so welcome ...
Well, when oil backs world currency, no longer gold or silver or puca shells....it's next to impossible that such an occurence of the overthrowing of the oil monopoly will happen. Becker is right in a sense, because no one wants to give up their oil shares/stakes in oil....at least those who can afford such a thing.
Instead global wars over oil will continue and what was sown will continue to be reaped.
How many more natural disasters of such magnitudes as the last 11 months can the world sustain? They are occurring with ever more increasing frequency. I am not necessarily blaming them on climactic change....again, what we sow, we will reap.
10-11-2005 01:13 AM
