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>A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan. A cube 3 meters on a side can also contain almost 160,
by inflatableDodo 7y ago
>A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan.
A cube 3 meters on a side can also contain almost 160,000 meters squared of solar cell wafers, given a common wafer thickness of around 170 micrometers.
Assuming around ten square meters per car, that could keep nearly 16,000 cars on the road for decades.
edit - to take this further, a standard shipping container could contain enough wafers for nearly 20,000 cars and in 2012, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there were 254,639,386 registered vehicles in the US.
So that comes to under 14,000 shipping containers full of wafers, which could fit in one single ship delivery, for all of the vehicles in the USA.
- jhoechtl 7y ago> given a common wafer thickness of around 170 micrometers > So that comes to under 14,000 shipping containers full of wafers, which could fit in one single ship delivery, for all of the vehicles in the USA. Taking the thickness of 170 micrometers and extrapolating this measure of a solar waffer to the needs of US cars is just ... unreal. The OP came up with a serious relation. How many containers would be needed when you measue the thickness of handable solar cells, like 3mm?
- kwhitefoot 7y agoAbout 40 times as many. So 40 ships.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoI don't quite see why you think transporting wafers 170 micrometers thick is unreal or in some way extreme. 170 micrometers is the same thickness as 135 gsm art paper. edit - Also, 170 micrometers is positively beefy compared to what is coming down the line. 1 micrometer thick flexible cells have already been developed - https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/06/20/New-flexible-solar-cells-just-1-micrometer-thick/4201466448364/ https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/06/20/New-flexible-sol... -