Anti solar panels - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2019, 01:06:16 am
content: Uses the coolness of the night sky - the same as what freezes your car windscreenhttps://www.intelligentliving.co/anti-solar-panel-generates-electricity-from-darkness/Not really dodgy, but not sure of the utility of it... 20cm panel to light an LED.Quote

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2019, 01:23:27 am
content: And they needed a "researcher" to glue a black aluminum disc to a Peltier device??? This article has a lot *wrong* (example: "While the solar panel uses the heat difference between the sun and Earth with the Earth being the cooler side"), and the rest is just hype.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2019, 01:38:35 am
content: It probably produces conventional current flow.

author: jon_nic
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 10, 2019, 01:17:50 pm
content: it could be used as a Cloud detector for a weather station. When its clear at night the temperature difference between black top and the bottom would generate a small signal for an MCU to detect, when its cloudy the temperature difference due to lack of radiation loss on the black side will be less and so can indicate clouds blowing over. just a thought.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 10, 2019, 01:32:24 pm
content: Technology is like 200 years old if thermopiles taken into account, and almost century with semiconductor TEC.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2019, 01:40:59 pm
content: Is nothing new and nothing dodgy with that. Radiative cooling works just fine.The atmosphere is transparent at specific wavelengths. Some of those wavelengths are in the IR (Infra Red) spectrum, so one can evacuate heat into outer space by simply making a directional antenna and pointing it to the sky. Works much better at night.It was used for millennia before, that's how ancient civilizations (in the Persian area) were making ice, passively, over night, in the desert.https://www.fieldstudyoftheworld.com/persian-ice-house-how-make-ice-desert/https://www.ted.com/talks/aaswath_raman_how_we_can_turn_the_cold_of_outer_space_into_a_renewable_resource/transcript?language=en

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2019, 01:56:40 pm
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on October 10, 2019, 01:40:59 pmExactly.IIRC, I think I first learned about that in a "Junior Woodchucks" book back when I was a young kid.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2019, 07:55:51 am
content: Thermoelectric generators have been used for decades to power deep space probes like the Pioneers or Voyagers. They work, they aren't very efficient, they need a source of heat (decay of plutonium or warmed-up Earth surface) and cloudless sky to radiate IR into.If you want to detect clouds, just point an IR thermometer at the sky. It actually is more or less the same thing internally, but made for less power output and more precision, go figure.editAnd I suspect that the power harvested by this device would otherwise get radiated into space during night, so that's a second day in a row we get a thread about some "eco" energy source that actually contributes to global warming

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2019, 01:40:05 pm
content: Quote from: magic on October 11, 2019, 07:55:51 amWell... that just describes, IMO, the huge majority of ALL current green solutions for energy, even the perfectly accepted ones. We're merely displacing the main source of "pollution" (or otherwise unwanted emissions) from one spot to another.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 11, 2019, 03:17:10 pm
content: Quote from: magic on October 11, 2019, 07:55:51 amI would not bother about that. However I suspect this device will never produce energy spent on it's production.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2019, 06:00:22 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on October 11, 2019, 01:40:05 pmYeah, solar and wind seem like a clever way of shifting shit to China.Hydro kinda works if you have space for it and enough water flow. Some country in America recently managed to run their electricity generation 100% from renewables, largely thanks to that.In the end I think people will have to suck it up and learn to live with nukes until some major breakthrough.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2019, 06:29:05 pm
content: Hydroelectric power is cool, but it's not without its environmental impacts either.