I wrote:
However, if you want to tap solar energy, I think it would be more
efficient and cost-effective to make a 620 km^2 solar-electric
generator plant collection space. This is ~20% efficient, so it
would be equivalent to ~8 U.S. nuclear plants.
In December 2006, Boeing-Spectrolab announced a 40.7% efficient cell
that costs $3,000 per kW of capacity. That's remarkable. I did not
know these things were so advanced. See:
http://www.energy.gov/news/4503.htm
Ed Storms has emphasized that it would be better to reduce the cost
per watt of solar cells, rather than increase efficiency. This one
appears to do both.
This kind of conversion efficiency is far ahead of anything that can
be achieved with plant-life photosynthesis.
That would give you the equivalent of 16 nuclear plants in the 620
km^2 desert area. That's a 25 km square. There are plenty of
stretches of vacant land that large in U.S. desert areas.
It is a shame solar energy is not available at night. The Correas
claimed that the solar energy they tap comes right through the earth.
I asked them why, in that case, they did not try testing it
underground. They insisted on muddling up the test by running their
devices in sunlight, which they did not measure, thus mixing the two
putative energy sources together. This is like running a cold fusion
cell with a lit candle underneath the cell, without even measuring
the candle flame energy. I suspect that their results are entirely
caused by ordinary solar energy.
- Jed
