October 2008 Archives

Renewable energy is everywhere. I didn't expect to find a session at the AVS International Symposium in Boston focused on "Energy Science and Technology."

Below is summary of a few interesting lectures.

W.S. Sampath's group at Colorado State University and his colleagues are exploring the role of copper in forming the back contact in CdTe cells. The goal is to move away from crystalline silicon to cheaper Cadmium Sulfide or Cadmium Teluride based solar cells. Dr. Sampath is one of the many researchers looking for cheaply fabricated solar cells that still perform as effectively as the expensive crystalline silicon ones. He ended his lecture with a picture of two of his cells that are functioning in rural India. CSU produced an interesting article about Sampath and renewable energy research.

John L. Daschbach from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, presented a nifty little lecture about sequestering carbon dioxide with a calixareme (tBC-4). The result is that the expanded tBC-4 can hold two molecules of CO₂ for every molecule of tBC-4. The material also absorbs H₂ and CH₄.

"Tailoring the Morphology of Organic Solar Cells with Surface Templates" presented by S. O'Donnell, University of Virginia and The MITRE Corporation was notable for her description of nucleation sites for fullerene layers that were created by damaging a graphite surface with ion irradiation (see article in The Journal of Chemical Physics). Dr. O'Donnell's goal is to "use tailored surfaces" as templates to create well defined morphologies, hopefully leading to, well defined behavior for organic photovoltaic cells.

Sylvie Rungan, from the Experimental Surface Science group at Rutgers University presented "Electronic Energy Level Alignment in Dye Sensitized Oxide Surfaces." Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSc's or DSC's) are a combination of organic and inorganic materials and can be considerably cheaper than crystalline silicon for the production of solar cells.

Having just come back from the Frankfurt Book Fair, I wonder why it is that a place like Frankfurt installed some very small, technologically simple devices for saving energy? For example, the escalators in the subway/train (Ubahn/Sbahn) stations do not run unless a person is approaching. Sure, during peak hours there will be no difference between this setup and one that runs constantly, but how much energy is being saved during the off-peak hours? Similarly, the lighting in the halls of the hotel are motion activated. In any given hotel then, the lights will be off much more than they are on. Now multiply this effect by all the escalators and hotels in Frankfurt and one could imagine a significant reduction in energy consumption.

I am sure that North America has such places, but it does not seem to be a widespread phenomenon.

In the most recent issue of The Economist, the basic energy policies of the two main presidential candidates are drawn out in parallel. While there are some party differences, it is refreshing to see that both seem to believe in global warming and that the US needs to do something to curb its ravenous consumption of fossil fuels.

Is there still too much grandstanding along party lines (note their views on nuclear energy)? Too much contradictory policies (let's do what we can to lower the gas prices while we urge Americans to drive less and to drive cleaner cars)?

Then there is Congress and the Senate for either one to deal with if elected!

Let's hope that reason and science prevail!