4 ms·

I get the maybes and the caveats, the misleading title but the direction seems clear - solar efficiency is a tractable materials science problem - and "we" shou

I get the maybes and the caveats, the misleading title but the direction seems clear - solar efficiency is a tractable materials science problem - and "we" should see this as a penicillin moment - invest hugely into the research and development until we find the right processes and approach to make cheap ubiquitous solar. Manhattan project levels of finding is what I mean - because the pay off is humans cutting their carbon output. Some projects have really big ROI

natermer 7y ago
The penicillin moment happened because penicillin actually came into existence and became widely available pretty rapidly. Research and speculation is awesome stuff, but the hard part isn't discovering new concepts. It is actually making those concepts into a marketable and affordable good. The evidence for this is that even though there is essentially a new 'breakthrough' discovery every other week for solar panels, or electric motors, or batteries.. We are still using what amounts to cutting-edge tech from the late 90's. In the modern era this means we generally have to wait till the patents expire and market competition kicks in in order to get the price low enough and the product perfected enough to see widespread usage. If it goes anywhere at all. It's also worth noting that Florey, the man who is largely responsible in making penicillin practical drug, refused to patent his early innovations to make it widespread as possible.
- afarrell 7y ago
  > wait till the patents expire If this is the case, then wouldn't "buy a bunch of patents and (with great fanfare) make them open-source" be a relatively low-complexity way for a billionaire who feels like making a name for himself to accelerate progress on fighting climate change?
- lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  Penicillin had to undergo decade long R&D to go from Fleming's petria dish to a cheap practical drug - I cannot find the article now but I believe the investment levels from the US Military were compared to Manhattan (obviously poorly compared) but the point is this was not the "gosh what luck" story it is in mass media. Having made that first breakthrough, world class teams across the globe fought to bring the efficiency up from "froth on the top of a brew" to "gallons of the stuff" Florey was a big part of the story but so were teams in US and Europe and then the US military scaled it up beyond belief. We spent money, targeted money, on the best teams globally and then put serious industrial might to it once they found the answers. That exact approach is what I am calling for again. And as for patents - if enough global effort is put in, with enough government funds, the pressure to put the results "in public hands" rather than hold out for patents is really strong https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_penicillin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_penicillin
GeorgeTirebiter 7y ago
This is not quite correct. Silicon solar cells have a maximum efficiency of 32%. Various ways, such as using e.g Carbon Nanotubes as Antennas to directly rectify visible light (http://NovaSolix.Com http://NovaSolix.Com) may eventually yield much higher overall efficiencies.
deleted 7y ago
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natermer 7y ago

The penicillin moment happened because penicillin actually came into existence and became widely available pretty rapidly. Research and speculation is awesome stuff, but the hard part isn't discovering new concepts. It is actually making those concepts into a marketable and affordable good. The evidence for this is that even though there is essentially a new 'breakthrough' discovery every other week for solar panels, or electric motors, or batteries.. We are still using what amounts to cutting-edge tech from the late 90's. In the modern era this means we generally have to wait till the patents expire and market competition kicks in in order to get the price low enough and the product perfected enough to see widespread usage. If it goes anywhere at all. It's also worth noting that Florey, the man who is largely responsible in making penicillin practical drug, refused to patent his early innovations to make it widespread as possible.

afarrell 7y ago
> wait till the patents expire If this is the case, then wouldn't "buy a bunch of patents and (with great fanfare) make them open-source" be a relatively low-complexity way for a billionaire who feels like making a name for himself to accelerate progress on fighting climate change?
lifeisstillgood 7y ago
Penicillin had to undergo decade long R&D to go from Fleming's petria dish to a cheap practical drug - I cannot find the article now but I believe the investment levels from the US Military were compared to Manhattan (obviously poorly compared) but the point is this was not the "gosh what luck" story it is in mass media. Having made that first breakthrough, world class teams across the globe fought to bring the efficiency up from "froth on the top of a brew" to "gallons of the stuff" Florey was a big part of the story but so were teams in US and Europe and then the US military scaled it up beyond belief. We spent money, targeted money, on the best teams globally and then put serious industrial might to it once they found the answers. That exact approach is what I am calling for again. And as for patents - if enough global effort is put in, with enough government funds, the pressure to put the results "in public hands" rather than hold out for patents is really strong https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_penicillin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_penicillin

GeorgeTirebiter 7y ago

This is not quite correct. Silicon solar cells have a maximum efficiency of 32%. Various ways, such as using e.g Carbon Nanotubes as Antennas to directly rectify visible light (http://NovaSolix.Com http://NovaSolix.Com) may eventually yield much higher overall efficiencies.

deleted 7y ago

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