On 28 Jun 2022 at 10:18, Peter Eckhoff via EV wrote: > Might be that it's 1000% better than silicon on a $/kw basis. > didn't have time to read the article.
The posted article is *not* saying that the experimental device is "1000% better than silicon." It says, "Researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg achieved an increase in the photovoltaic effect of ferroelectric crystals by a factor of 10 by creating crystalline layers of barium titanate, strontium titanate and calcium titanate, which they alternately placed on top of one another." They discovered a possible theoretical improvement in ferroelectric PV. Whether that will prove useful in real-world application remains to be seen. I'm not an electrical engineer, so I'm not qualified to judge the value of this research. However, what little I've read suggests that there's been quite a lot of work lately on ferroelectric PV. This page https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aat3438 says that "Ferroelectric materials for photovoltaics have sparked great interest because of their switchable photoelectric responses and above-bandgap photovoltages that violate conventional photovoltaic theory. However, their relatively low photocurrent and power conversion efficiency limit their potential application in solar cells." So this is just one of many projects looking for ways to improve the efficiency of ferroelectric PV, which I read somewhere is typically around 2%. Is thist a "breakthrough"? Who knows? At the moment the article title is pure clickbait. As for whether "it's the end of fossil fuels," it's probably not. Slipping on my tinfoil hat here, even a 100% efficient PV device wouldn't be the end of fossil fuels. As long as there's a drop of oil left and money to be made from it, the petrocriminals will keep pumping the oil up, the money in, and the CO2 out. David Roden, EVDL moderator & general lackey To reach me, don't reply to this message; I won't get it. Use my offlist address here : http://evdl.org/help/index.html#supt = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Life is short. So is money. -- Bertolt Brecht = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org No other addresses in TO and CC fields UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/sub/index.html CONFIG: http://lists.evdl.org/options.cgi/ev-evdl.org ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
