Make solar energy economical
By economical, it means it just has to be cheaper than the alternatives.
By energy, it means mainly electrical energy. You could use solar energy to heat water, run machines, pumps, etc.
There are two kinds of solar generation that I can think of.
Solar Thermal – uses mirrors to focus incoming solar radiation to heat salts or a sterling engine.
Photovoltaic – uses photons pass energy to electrons.
I should probably do some thermodynamics calculation to figure out how efficient these processes can be since the sun is at some temperature and things on earth are at some temperature. Let’s see Carnot engine efficiency is 1-Tc/Th, which means maximum efficiency is about 94.8%. Do Carnot engines have anything to do with solar efficiency? I need to think about how these two heat reservoirare attached. Actually it is probably applicable, since heat from the sun, gets put through a system to do work and the heat has to dump to the earth eventually.
My background is more applicable to photovoltaics than solar thermal, but I should at least find some figures for solar thermal. Photovoltaics also have wider applications, because they can be put on a variety of places and have probably the most game changing results.
To Do list: Find solar thermal figures. I need to learn to be a better thief, because I went to a talk where someone outlined the maximum efficiency of a solar cell.
Next Time: Go over different types of photovoltaic technologies.