What if we could print low cost solar panels on pieces of plastic and integrate this energy collecting material into buildings, infrastructure and product casings?
This is the future of thin film solar.
While traditional (rigid silicon substrate) solar panels are a relatively mature platform, we have not yet hit our stride in advancing the efficiencies of thin film solar.
Thin-film, or organic solar is attractive because it is low cost, flexible and can be integrated into existing materials and products. These systems can also be designed to tap broader sections of the light spectrum. Relatively low efficiencies mean that thin film solar will never be capable of providing a majority of our energy needs, but it is certainly part of a broader strategy of new distributed power generation.
Before we start asking when we might see thin film on the shelves at Home Depot or integrated into familiar product designs, the first step is to understand why thin film is different from traditional solar.
The following five video clips help to describe the future potential of thin film solar.
Nanosolar (Palo Alto-San Jose, CA) has long been considered a leading innovator in the field of organic photovoltaics or thin film solar.
Built on a faulty definition of intelligence, the Singularity meme is aninformal fallacywith limited utility that constricts our view of the future if we rely on it too heavily. As we continue to refine our collective model of a rapidly accelerating future dominated by convergence, we should look to more comprehensive scientific models to take its place.
Let me start off by saying that Ray Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines is one of the most important books I have ever read. It ably makes the case for accelerating change and a resulting Singularity, so I highly recommend it to those interested in exploring the possible futures ahead of us.
Each definition contains valuable nuggets about how the future may unfold. Yet I have come to believe all three are fundamentally flawed due to their reliance on the vague term: “intelligence”.
Intelligence Remains Undefined: There is no objective, comprehensive, scientifically valid description of the term. Though it’s easy to believe we understand what intelligence is and how it works, we humans have not yet achieved consensus on an overarching definition nor its constituent properties. There are many theories, but an objective law has yet to emerge.
According to an APA report titled Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, “when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen somewhat different definitions.”
The Wikipedia definition reflects this vagueness:
Intelligence (also called intellect) is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence. In some cases, intelligence may include traits such as creativity, personality, character, knowledge, or wisdom. However, most psychologists prefer not to include these traits in the definition of intelligence.
At the same time, the bulk of the AI theorists working to create Strong AI/AGI that matches or exceeds human intelligence are either 1) applying a very narrow definition of intelligence that equates one human brain or personality to a discrete unit of intelligence, or 2) building logical or neural processes step-by-step and refraining from venturing a concrete definition.
Definitions of the Singularity Rely on Vague Definitions of Intelligence that Don’t Hold Up: Singularity proponents and detractors alike go about making their arguments without questioning the underlying assumption that human intelligence is composed of discrete units. By and large, they either overtly or tacitly equate intelligence to the functions of an individual brain or system. This is not surprising considering how the brain likes to simplify subject and object so that we can go about living our lives. But that fundamental assumption appears to be wrong, and at the very least is far from verifiable.
How might storing electricity in the form of solid hydrogen change the future landscape of energy? We believe it could change the performance of mobile power, lower the cost of renewable energy production, and change the nature of refueling your car by ‘swapping out’ boxes of fuel.
Hydrogen & Electricity = ‘Hydricity’
Electricity powers the future. Look beyond the transportation sector of liquid fuels, and most devices and machines run on electrons. Today, we understand the important role of electricity in our world, and tomorrow we might understand its sister companion – hydrogen.
Hydrogen might be the most misunderstood and misrepresented piece of the future energy landscape. Devotees often overstate it as the savior of Planet Earth, and staunch critics underestimate its short term challenges for longer term potential in energy systems and materials science.
A ‘Hydrogen economy’ is an economy driven by electricity. The hydrogen is merely a way of storing electron power via chemical bonds of hydrogen. So hydrogen and electricity are one in the same thing. Ballard Power Founder Geoffrey Ballad has coined the phrase ‘hydricity’ to help people understand the balance of these electrons carriers.
Fuel cells capture energy released when coated membranes strip apart those hydrogen-hydrogen bonds and merge it with oxygen to get water. This is a much more efficient (and cleaner) process when compared to blowing up carbon-hydrogen bonds via combustion. But it is also harder and more expensive (at least today!).
Advances in Hydrogen Storage
The two challenges for hydrogen are production and storage. For now we’ll focus on an emerging platform for high density, low cost and safe storage systems based on ‘solid’ hydrogen.
News from Argonne National Laboratory on ‘crystal sponges’
Few people think of Brazil as an emerging global energy player. Even the most widely cited future of energy scenarios do not put Brazil into the elite group of energy resource-rich nations.
While it is best known for its domestically produced sugarcane ethanol, Brazil’s real source of energy wealth and future geopolitical power is likely to come from exports of oil and natural gas extracted from its deepwater reserves.
Energy pundits are now tracking early indicators hinting that Brazil is awakening to its full potential as a uniquely diversified energy economy growing around traditional hydrocarbon resources while simultaneously expanding its own renewables and bio energy solutions. Brazil’s rise as a global energy powerhouse will take decades to unfold, but it might turn out to be one of the more interesting geopolitical energy stories of the next century.
Who might follow in Anadarko’s footsteps
On Thursday, Houston, Texas-based Andarkoannounced a successful deepwater field discovery offshore of Brazil in its Campos Basin region. This could be the beginning of a string of announcements to come from energy majors tapping the deepwater oil fields of Brazil.
Announcements are likely to come from companies based around the world. Everyone is looking to partner with Brazil in advancing deepwater drilling and securing access to their growing reserves. While the general public might see the oil industry organized neatly into brand names like BP, Shell, Exxon and Chevron, the reality is that these companies are all betting on each other. Most projects have a lead company, but the financial risk is spread with smaller stakes held by competitors and specialized development firms.
Brazil’s emergence as an energy giant might be quiet, but they are not going to do it alone. Now that it has overcome the technical challenges of deepwater drilling, it must navigate the complex geopolitical landscape of energy politics.
Brazil: Deepwater brings new opportunities & challenges
In addition to our weekly awards, every week MemeBox releases a Top 10 List of the most interesting and useful Future Scans posted the during the preceding week. This list is a great way to get acquainted with what the Future Scanner has to offer and to quickly digest some great information.
October 01 2008 / by joelg Category: Energy Year: 2010 Rating: 2 New
It’s tough as an everyday consumer to participate in changing how we generate and use power. If you don’ t work for an automobile manufacturer, an energy company, a utility, or the government, it seems you’re pretty much out of luck in affecting real change. For transportation, you can either ditch your car and use public transportation, ride your bike, or buy a Toyota Prius or other hybrid vehicle.
But soon, there will be another choice, which takes a Prius from 40-50 mpg to 100+ mpg. By adding more batteries to a hybrid and giving it a plug, you now have what’s known as a “Plug-in Hybrid Electric”, or PHEV. But you can’t buy one…yet. You could build your own from plans on the Internet today from the PriusPlus Project, but not every Prius owner is into DIY car hacking, or violating their warranty. You can hire an after market company to convert your Prius for $8,000 to $24,000. Or, you can wait 18-24 months before the first vehicles arrive from Toyota, etc.
The basic idea is this: for the average driver, most trips during the day are surprisingly short. Let’s say less than 10 miles. Errands, grocery shopping, chauffeuring kids, etc, all generally happen within 10 miles for the average driver. A PHEV has at least a 10 mile capacity with its additional battery packs, so effectively, for 80% of typical driving, a PHEV is an electric car because it will will not need to to turn on its gas engine. The benefits: no fossil fuel combustion to foul up our air, or burn up our dollars…at a cheaper price per mile. It’s the best of both worlds: an electric vehicle for most of your day to day driving, plus a gas engine as back up when you need it.
But today, about the only thing you can do is follow the news, read bloggers, or read, Plug-in Hybrids: Cars That Will Recharge the America by Sherry Boschert (2006, New Society Publishes). In it, Boschert weaves the story of the GM EV1 electric car and it’s demise with a number of related stories including one about how a group of enthusiastic hackers, makers, and activists converted a Prius into a PriusPlus PHEV, with another story of how activists and a former CIA Director are stumping for PHEV’s as the best way to help us out of the energy crunch. Along the way she brings to light how the automobile companies change (or not), how a small group of people can help affect change, and how the PHEV activists trash hydrogen.
If there’s one thing that separates the two presidential candidates distinctly, it’s their use of technology. We’ve all heard about how John McCain doesn’t know how to use a computer, and it’s no secret that Obama does. So it’s not surprising that the Obama camp has come out with a nifty new iPhone application to help their supporters help out even more.
The application, free from the iPhone App store, promises to change the face of activism through making difficult tasks easy.
The reason?
For starters, the application gives you stats on yours calls to friends in support of Obama (heck, it even tells you what friends are in battleground states). It tells you how many calls you’ve made and how you rank compared to other application users. You can get updates from the campaign, latest news on the candidates, and even local event information such as volunteer opportunities or visits from the Obama campaign.
The Obama campaign has raised the standard in political activism. You can bet that within the next few months (if they’re smart) you can expect to see applications from all types of organizations. The McCain Campaign, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the ACLU are probably not far behind. Heck, you may even see an app from the Sea Shepherd before next whaling season is on.
With online involvement increasingly becoming more mobile, the era of TV ads and the stereotypical inactive voter could be gone within the next decade or two. In 2020 you could run your entire campaign, everything from fundraising to polling constituents, from your home. Today you need the bankroll of a small country to run a campaign — in 2020 you may only need a programmer
The latest edition of Sony’s Reader, the PRS 700, marks another significant step forward in the race to replace traditional paper books with easy to use digital counterparts.
Sporting a six-inch interactive touch-screen display the new model allows readers to flip pages with the slide of a finger. In addition, readers can easily search terms within a document or book, create notes using the virtual keyboard and highlight text with the included stylus pen.
Five pre-set text sizes are available so readers can find the one most comfortable for them.
Expanded memory offers enough capacity to store about 350 average digital books. By using a removable memory stick, that number can be upped to thousands of books and documents.
The new PRS-700 will be available next month for about $400 just in time for a holiday shopping season that may not respond all to well to the relatively high price. At the same time, it appears to be the closest thing to a paper book killer to hit the market so far.
There was once a color deemed so dull, and expensive that no artist would touch it. It produced weak colors. It looked bad. And, soon it was forgotten.
That is, until, one day, over two hundred years later, when a group of researchers at the University of Washington found something that would change Cobalt Green’s legacy forever. The discovery? Cobalt Green has the potential to revolutionize the way we use computers. Imagine turning on your computer and within seconds getting immediate access to your hard drive instead of having to wait on end for everything to boot up. Imagine a hard drive with almost infinite storage. Imagine that all this would only leave a footprint the size of a pea.
It’s simply a matter of color.
So, how does work?
Swedish chemist Sven Rinmann invented Cobalt Green in 1780. Also known as Rinmann’s Green, it was originally produced by using a mixture of zinc oxide and cobalt. What makes it so valuable to scientists today is its unique magnetic properties and what they mean for the emerging field of spintronics.
Current technology relies on the movement and accumulation of electrons. Spintronics, on the other hand, exploits the spin of electrons to increase computational power in a device. More power means a faster and efficient machine.
Thus far, researchers have run into problems with temperature. Most materials work well only in extremely cold temperatures. Cobalt Green, however, can be used at room temperature.
You’ve just closed a huge deal, beat a seemingly impossible team, or finally got a date with that girl you’ve been staring at in the coffee shop for the last few months. You’re excited. You feel like you can take on the world. To help make the moment more magical, you whip out your MP3 player and frantically scroll through your thousands of songs, looking for either “Eye of the Tiger” or “Final Countdown.”
Your fumbling has taken the edge off of your excitement and now you just feel silly.
I have to admit, I wish my own life had a soundtrack for moments like these. Metallica for when I’m driving, Portishead for when I’m depressed, Korn for when I feel like smashing things with my forehead. In fact, I have been wishing for my own personal soundtrack since I first started imagining John Williams songs playing as I trudged through forests (I swear, it felt like Endor).
And now someone has gone and done just that.
MUSINAUT, a company based out of Paris, France, has developed a brain scanner (the brainwave) that monitors your moods in order to play appropriate music. So whether you’re feeling stressed, sad, happy or angry, the appropriate music will begin to play over the headphones.
“Our lights may be on, but systemically, the risks associated with relying on an often overtaxed grid grow in size, scale and complexity every day.”
What if our greatest energy dependency challenge was not related to the global flow of oil, but the one way flow of electricity coming from distant power plants to our wall sockets?
The world runs on electricity. Demand for electron power in emerging economies is often 3-4 times greater than demand for oil. Because the old model of the electricity grid does not seem adequate in meeting the new demands of the 21st century, many energy pundits argue that access to electricity is the world’s biggest strategic energy issue.
Realizing the ‘Smart Grid’ Vision
The conversation about electricity infrastructure is likely to change very soon as governments and the private sector build out the vision of a smarter, electricity web that is infinitely more reliable, robust and profitable.
The US Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability is hoping to push the ‘smart grid’ meme out into the public sphere. The office has released a 50 page publication The Smart Grid: An Introduction in an effort to advance the public’s ability to talk about smart grid infrastructure.
‘The electric industry is poised to make the transformation from a centralized, producer-controlled network to one that is less centralized and more consumer-interactive. The move to a smarter grid promises to change the industry’s entire business model and its relationship with all stakeholders, involving and affecting utilities, regulators, energy service providers, technology and automation vendors and all consumers of electric power.‘
A Smart Grid means many things. At The Energy Roadmap.com we believe that the most disruptive elements are software,sensors & storage. The good news is that these three systems might finally be reaching a tipping point in cost and performance that allows us to turn the ‘smart grid’ vision into a reality. While this US DOE Guide might not be the definitive guide to the future of smart grid systems, it is certainly a step forward in helping to spread the meme and outline the fundamentals!
If there’s one thing that separates the two presidential candidates distinctly, it’s their use of technology. We’ve all heard about how John McCain 
