[ExI] [tt] Smaller, cheaper, faster: Does Moore's law apply to solar cells?

[spike]

... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl
Subject: Re: [ExI] [tt] Smaller, cheaper, faster: Does Moore's law apply to
solar cells?

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 08:08:54AM -0700, spike wrote:

>> It isn't only numbers, or even primarily numbers.  Energy policy seems 
>> to get hopelessly mired in political considerations...

>I think the biggest problem with renewables at the moment is retrofitting
the grid. Apparently, the local deadlock on new high voltage (underground)
lines has been just lifted. We will see.  In any case we need to progress
from large scale realtime electricity market to dynamic pricing and smart
meters within a decade...

There is that, and also getting consumers to understand.

For instance, every time I do an energy audit around my house, I recognize I
have lower hanging fruit by utilizing negawatts.  I still have incandescent
light everywhere.  I have one bulb that is inside a grandfather clock, 40
watts, burns 24/7.  I have wanted that off for a long time, but my wife
loves it.  That one bulb burns about a kWh per day.  At local insolation, it
would require about a 250 peak watt module to run just that.  A 250 is about
a meter by about 2 meters.  Those 250s are in the region of 400 bucks.  All
that could be cancelled by turning off one single light bulb.   

...
> 
>> Houses facing north will be more valuable than houses facing south, 
>> since north facers don't need PVs on the front of their houses.

>Tell me about it. If our house was suitable I'd put up a solar thermal
(also for the pool) and a >10 kWp PV a while ago...

I have enough south facing roof for about 1.5 kWp with no heroics or
optimization.

...

>The best thing so far I've seen is WhisperGen, which is a Sterling
(hitherto I wanted to get a Honda microCHP). That way you don't have to deal
with fiddling ignition parameters if you're running a variable
methane/hydrogen mix.

--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org 

I need to look into that.

spike