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ESA ACT

New Company Looks to Produce Space Based Solar Power Within a Decade - 0 views

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    In 10 years... Sorry Leo.
ESA ACT

Obama-Biden Transition Project: Space Solar Power (SSP) -- A Solution for Energy Indepe... - 0 views

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    in addition, the fact that Gates remains Defence Secretary might give some continuity to the Pentagon activities, -LS
LeopoldS

Low-cost, more efficient solar cells mostly plastic - 0 views

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    could not find any decent paper on this results, but they would be fantastic of course .... though am a bit sceptic
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    ok found one: doi:10.1038/nmat2635
pacome delva

Transparent material opens a new window on solar energy - physicsworld.com - 4 views

  • Researchers in the US have developed a new kind of organic solar cell that converts a small but significant fraction of the sunlight that falls onto it into electricity, while still allowing most of the visible part of that light to pass through. Thanks to this transparency, the team says that the cell could be mounted onto windows in buildings or cars in order to tap a currently under-exploited source of energy.
pacome delva

Solar power without solar cells - 2 views

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    not very advanced and maybe non practical but...
duncan barker

Metamaterials for solar cells - 2 views

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    old idea with some new twists
andreiaries

Solar Sinter melts sand into 3D-printed glass (Wired UK) - 5 views

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    "When in the desert he came up with the idea to use the two dominating features in the desert -- the sun and the sand -- in his next project.". I wonder where we should send him next.
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    Arts project with implications for space science... Awesome! Note how this guy is dressed in the middle of an Egyptian desert, lol...
santecarloni

Three electrons for the price of one - physicsworld.com - 0 views

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    Researchers have created a new material that can produce three or more free electrons every time it absorbs a single photon. This is unlike conventional semiconductors, which produce just one free electron per photon. Based on tiny semiconductor structures called quantum dots, the new material - developed by researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Toyota Europe in Belgium - could someday be used to make more efficient solar cells.
jcunha

Wireless 10 kW power transmission - 1 views

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    Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said Friday that it has succeeded in transmitting 10 kW of power through 500 m. An announcement that comes just after JAXA scientists reported one more breakthrough in the quest for Space Solar Power Systems (http://phys.org/news/2015-03-japan-space-scientists-wireless-energy.html). One step closer to Power Generation from Space/
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    from the press release (https://www.mhi-global.com/news/story/1503121879.html) "10 kilowatts (kW) of power was sent from a transmitting unit by microwave. The reception of power was confirmed at a receiver unit located at a distance of 500 meters (m) away by the illumination of LED lights, using part of power transmitted". So 10kW of transmission to light a few efficient LED lights??? In a 2011 report (https://www.mhi-global.com/company/technology/review/pdf/e484/e484017.pdf), MHI estimated this would generate the same electricity output as a 400-megawatt thermal plant - or enough to serve more than 150,000 homes during peak hours. The price? The same as publicly supplied power, according to its calculations. There are no results to boost these claims however. The main work they do now is focused on beam steering control. I guess the real application in mind is more targeted to terrestrial applications, eg wireless highway charging (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120312-wireless-highway-to-charge-cars). With the distances so much shorter, leading to much smaller antenna's and rectenna's this makes much more sense to me to develop.
Tom Gheysens

Quantum biology: Algae evolved to switch quantum coherence on and off -- ScienceDaily - 3 views

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    Scientists have discovered how algae that survive in very low levels of light are able to switch on and off a weird quantum phenomenon that occurs during photosynthesis. The function in the algae of this quantum effect, known as coherence, remains a mystery, but it is thought it could help them harvest energy from the sun much more efficiently. Working out its role in a living organism could lead to advances such as better organic solar cells.
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    very very nice! we tried already a few years back to find an angle to see how we could study quantum phenomena occuring in plants and photosynthsis is one of the great examples since somehow plants manage to make the phenomena work for them at elevated temperatures, a feat in itself ... any good idea most welcome!!!
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    Anna maybe? Joe?
LeopoldS

NIAC 2014 Phase I Selections | NASA - 4 views

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    12 new NIAC 1 studies - many topics familiar to us ... please have a look at those closest to your expertise to see if there is anything new/worth investigating (and in general to be knowledgeable on them since we will get questions sooner or later on them)
    Principal Investigator Proposal Title Organization City, State, Zip Code
    Atchison, Justin Swarm Flyby Gravimetry Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218-2680
    Boland, Eugene Mars Ecopoiesis Test Bed Techshot, Inc. Greenville, IN 47124-9515
    Cash, Webster The Aragoscope: Ultra-High Resolution Optics at Low Cost University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309-0389
    Chen, Bin 3D Photocatalytic Air Processor for Dramatic Reduction of Life Support Mass & Complexity NASA ARC Moffett Field, CA 94035-0000
    Hoyt, Robert WRANGLER: Capture and De-Spin of Asteroids and Space Debris Tethers Unlimited Bothel, WA 98011-8808
    Matthies, Larry Titan Aerial Daughtercraft NASA JPL Pasadena, CA 91109-8001
    Miller, Timothy Using the Hottest Particles in the Universe to Probe Icy Solar System Worlds John Hopkins University Laurel, MD 20723-6005
    Nosanov, Jeffrey PERISCOPE: PERIapsis Subsurface Cave OPtical Explorer NASA JPL Pasadena, CA 91109-8001
    Oleson, Steven Titan Submarine: Exploring the Depths of Kraken NASA GRC Cleveland, OH 44135-3127
    Ono, Masahiro Comet Hitchhiker: Harvesting Kinetic Energy from Small Bodies to Enable Fast and Low-Cost Deep Space Exploration NASA JPL Pasadena, CA 91109-8001
    Streetman, Brett Exploration Architecture with Quantum Inertial Gravimetry and In Situ ChipSat Sensors Draper Laboratory Cambridge, MA 02139-3539
    Wiegmann, Bruce Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS) NASA MSFC Huntsville, AL 35812-0000
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    Eh, the swarm flyby gravimetry is very similar to the "measuring gravitational fields" project I proposed in the brewery
Thijs Versloot

Relativistic rocket: Dream and reality - 3 views

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    An exhaustive overview of all possible advanced rocket concepts, eg.. "As an example, consider a photon rocket with its launching mass, say, 1000 ton moving with a constant acceleration a =0.1 g=0.98 m/s2. The flux of photons with E γ=0.5 MeV needed to produce this acceleration is ~1027/s, which corresponds to the efflux power of 1014 W and the rate of annihilation events N'a~5×1026 s−1 [47]. This annihilation rate in ambiplasma l -l ann corresponds to the value of current ~108 A and linear density N ~2×1018 m−1 thus any hope for non-relativistic relative velocity of electrons and positrons in ambiplasma is groundless." And also, even if it would work, then one of the major issues is going to be heat dispersal: "For example, if the temperature of radiator is chosen T=1500 K, the emitting area should be not less than 1000 m2 for Pb=1 GW, not less than 1 km2 for Pb=1 TW, and ~100 km2 for Pb=100 TW, assuming ε=0.5 and δ=0.2. Lower temperature would require even larger radiator area to maintain the outer temperature of the engine section stable for a given thermal power of the reactor."
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    We were also discussing a while ago a propulsion system using the relativistic fragments from nuclear fission. That would also produce an extremely high ISP (>100000) with a fairly high thrust. Never really got any traction though.
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    I absolutely do not see the point in a photon rocket. Certainly, the high energy releasing nulcear processes (annihilation, fusion, ...) should rather be used to heat up some fluid to plasma state and accelerate it via magnetic nozzle. This would surely work as door-opener to our solar system...and by the way minimize the heat disposal problem if regenerative cooling is used.
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    The problem is not achieving a high energy density, that we can already do with nuclear fission, the question however is how to confine or harness this power with relatively high efficiency, low waste heat and at not too crazy specific mass. I see magnetic confinement as a possibility, yet still decades away and also an all-or-nothing method as we cannot easily scale this up from a test experiment to a full-scale system. It might be possible to extract power from such a plasma, but definitely well below breakeven so an additional power supply is needed. The fission fragments circumvent these issues by a more brute force approach, thereby wasting a lot of energy for sure but at the end probably providing more ISP and thrust.
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    Sure. However, the annihilation based photon rocket concept unifies almost all relevant drawbacks if we speak about solar system scales, making itself obsolete...it is just an academic testcase.
annaheffernan

Self-assembly and plasmonics could join forces to boost solar energy - 2 views

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    Bio-inspired assembly of fluorescent molecules boosts the fluorescence output.
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    Nice read! It is actually part of the Ariadna PETE study of one of the teams. You can supervise if you want :)
jcunha

More evidence for ninth planet roaming solar system's outer fringes - 2 views

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    The quest for finding Planet Nine is meant to stay apparently.
johannessimon81

Peel-and-Stick: Fabricating Thin Film Solar Cell on Universal Substrates - 3 views

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    any clue how? "With the peel-and-stick process, we integrated hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) TFSCs on paper, plastics, cell phone and building windows while maintaining the original 7.5% efficiency. The new peel-and-stick process enables further reduction of the cost and weight for TFSCs and endows TFSCs with flexibility and attachability for broader application areas. We believe that the peel-and-stick process can be applied to thin film electronics as well"
jcunha

The Stratobus could be the eye in the sky for government agencies - 3 views

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    Powered by solar energy, Thales Alenia's Stratobus has an operation lifespan of five-years and only needs ground maintenance just a few days a year Can hover 12.4 miles (20km) in the air and reaches altitudes of 20,000 meters.
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