Quote:
Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile
Why is nobody looking at the biochemical mechanisms used by plants (photosynthesis)? Plants are pretty damn efficient at converting solar energy into chemical energy and have had billions of years to refine the process. I imagine it's going to be difficult to get more efficient than that.
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People are. The dye sensitzed solar cell is one good example. As for the IBM discovery, it is a nice concept to cool better the concentrator solar cell, but higher efficiency is only one part of the equation. Multilayer solar cells as they use to get beyond 40% efficiency are absolutely the most expensive to make. And the efficiency I calculate with this IBM cells is 70W/230W= 30%, not so high at all. 40% has been achieved already.
Aurel