Solar energy is becoming more affordable and easier to produce every day. As the market grows, so too is the field of research. Solar scientists have been working with perovskites, a family of mineral and ceramic materials that are a top contender to replace silicon as the next … [Read more...] about Researchers use new AI to advance solar cell manufacturing
Solar energy
Ultrathin “honeycomb” solar panels achieve record efficiency
One day, cities and hopefully everything else will be powered by renewable resources like wind and solar. To do that, though, we will need to continue to improve on our renewable tech, like creating solar panels that can absorb solar energy in many different levels of sunlight. A … [Read more...] about Ultrathin “honeycomb” solar panels achieve record efficiency
How do solar panels break? And how do we fix them?
At the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, teams of scientists and researchers spend large parts of their day jumping on, twisting, smashing, and generally coming up with various ways of breaking solar panels. It’s not malice, it’s not … [Read more...] about How do solar panels break? And how do we fix them?
The James Dyson Award: a call to young inventors
The Optimist Daily has written about many winners of the James Dyson Award. This is an international design award that celebrates, encourages, and inspires the next generation of design engineers. It is open to current and recent design engineering students and is run by the … [Read more...] about The James Dyson Award: a call to young inventors
China pledges to build large solar and wind farms in Gobi Desert
China is, by far, the biggest consumer of coal power in the world. While at the moment its energy consumption is 70 percent coal-based — other industrialized nations average around 30 percent, the United States being 25 percent — China apparently sees the value in switching to … [Read more...] about China pledges to build large solar and wind farms in Gobi Desert