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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (2293)	10/1/2005 10:15:08 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 24242

A Newly Electric Green – Sustainable Energy, Resources and Design see all posts in this category One of the ideas underlying the Bright Green Future is the greater use of radically distributed energy generation. Although this has the most visible manifestation in the development of (for example) micro-wind turbines and gas-optional hybrids as mobile power sources, one of the more intriguing applications will be the greater integration of energy generation materials into the construction of objects and buildings. Although there will undoubtedly be a variety of intrinsic power generation technologies (such as the suspended-load power backpack), the most commonplace form will be integrated photovoltaics. Widespread adoption of integrated solar power is still a few years off, but this last week saw a two developments bringing that day much closer. Konarka, a pioneer in polymer photovoltaics (solar cells made of flexible plastics instead of silicon sheets and glass), has teamed up with Textronics, a company specializing in "electronic textiles" to begin the production of photovoltaic cloth. This material could be used in bags and upholstery, but is said to be soft end flexible enough to go into clothing, as well. The companies argue that this pv-embedded textile would be easily used for charging portable electronic devices, but it seems to me that another obvious application would be in making the bags or jackets themselves "smart," able to (for example) sense the air and display air quality reports, keep an electronic eye out for open WiFi networks (with a tag that glows brighter as the signal gets stronger), even intercept incoming phone calls or text messages and display relevant information about the message. Potentially more radical is the work by researchers at the Technical University at Delft's Sustainable Energy program concerning spray-on solar. We've talked about spray-on solar before; the idea that any material object could have a photovoltaic layer is an exciting one, as it opens up the possibility of being able to reuse existing products rather than having to make entirely new objects. The Delft research, published in the September 14 issue of Nano Letters, concerns an improved compound of materials going into the spray-on solar. Previous spray-on methods relied upon organic photovoltaics, which have a limited lifespan, usually just a few years. According to Technology Research News, the Delft method uses ...a mix of copper indium sulfide and titanium dioxide nanoparticles sandwiched between a thin film of titanium dioxide and a layer of titanium dioxide nanocrystals. The copper indium sulfide nanoparticles absorb sunlight and the titanium dioxide nanoparticles convert photons to electrons. This compound should have a longer usable life than the organic spray-on technologies, and should lower the cost of spray-on solar "significantly." Most importantly, the Delft pv has efficiencies of 5%. While a fraction of standard silicon-glass photovoltaic efficiency, it's close to double than the 2-3% usually found in spray-on organic solar methods. The Delft team argue that, once turned into a marketable process, the resulting cost per kilowatt would be "competitive" with other power generation methods. As with all lab breakthroughs, of course, it remains to be seen how well the process translates to commercial applications. But both the Delft research and the Konarka-Textronics announcement demonstrate that we're getting closer to a world where the potential for energy production is an important part of the design of material products. Products that make their own power, or include the ability to make power for other products, could well trigger a new world of sustainable design. worldchanging.com