Comments on: High-Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal System From IBM Promises 80% Efficiency, Potable Water, And Air Conditioning

By: Michael Federoff

Michael Federoff — Thu, 26 Dec 2013 19:10:00 +0000

Than you Air Force for help in trapping in the green house gases with your chemtrails.ASSHOLES!!

By: UncleB

UncleB — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 20:24:00 +0000

Slow progress? Restricted by the Oil plutocrats? The Enriched Uranium secrets crowd?

By: Mariappan Sethu Pillai

Mariappan Sethu Pillai — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 13:03:00 +0000

Tell us about REhnu

By: Andrew Miller

Andrew Miller — Sat, 25 May 2013 11:02:00 +0000

Very interesting post. I suppose one might think that solar energy is a good source of energy to help save our envirnment from the effect of energy generated from coal. This project should be given more thought so as it to be perfected. http://www.coldtempair.com/

By: Lauren@GreenGlobalTrvl

Lauren@GreenGlobalTrvl — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:37:00 +0000

It would only take 2% of the Sahara desert’s land mass to power the entire world’s energy needs, amazing! What a great way to produce a greener way to air conditioning systems. Replacing compression with absorption chillers, genius! Way to go IBM. Thank you for sharing the details on this high-concentration photovoltaic thermal system.

By: Rhodomel Meads

Rhodomel Meads — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:01:00 +0000

I really need to see some numbers here as to the basis of their efficiency. As always, it should be total energy output divided by total solar radiation energy that falls into the entire footprint of facility. I don’t think it would reach that high.

By: Ronald Brakels

Ronald Brakels — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:18:00 +0000

A worthy competitor in the conventrated solar PV sector and their design or something similar is more likely to succeed than IBM’s in my opinion. It has been put to good use in the outback for offgrid use, but it’s not really suitable for sticking on your roof. It’s not really deployed throughout Australia as we almost entirely don’t do the utility scale solar thing, but I suppose that might change in the future. I don’t know what their cost per watt is like, or what they could get it down to, but it looks like it could be a winner. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

By: agelbert

agelbert — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 22:40:00 +0000

Well said. The Phylum mullusca, with about 85,000 species, many of them with calcium carbonate shells, simply cannot “evolve” around ocean acidification. We HAVE TO get the excess CO2 OUT of the atmosphere so, as has been said here, renewables need to be about 120% of the energy so we can use that 20% to get back down below 350 ppm of CO2 (or lower if that is what is required to stop acidification).

By: agelbert

agelbert — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 22:23:00 +0000

“Otherwise wouldn’t the Earth be invisible from space?”

Correct but that visible light reaching space is a tiny part of the Earth’s radiative profile. Anything that absorbs infra red light energy heats up the planet.

From wikipeda:

The various global temperatures that may be theoretically conceived for any planet in general in putative or theoretically conceived global radiative equilibrium are of considerable interest. Such temperatures include the equivalent blackbody temperature of a planet,[18] also called the effective radiation emission temperature of the planet.[19] Related putative or theoretical concepts include the global-mean surface air temperature,[20] which specifically considers the presence of an atmosphere.

By: BeachbikerCA

BeachbikerCA — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:02:00 +0000

Increases in the planet’s ambient temperature is bad enough with the consequential weather pattern shifts– droughts, more and more powerful hurricanes, tornadoes, etc., other deleterious effects– rising sea levels? But all should be aware of the other effects of increases in atmospheric CO2. It’s not just the heat… Remember that 9th grade physical science experiment– blowing through a straw into a glass of water and then testing the pH level? A weak acid is formed as the CO2 in the exhaled air reacts with water. CO2 transforms to H2CO3– carbonic acid. This is essentially what’s happening with rising atmospheric CO2 across 3/4’s of the earth’s surface– the oceans. The oceans are sucking in the CO2 and acidifying. The heat rise is bad enough as well– as heat reduces the quantities of dissolved oxygen in water– but this acidifying effect is adversely affecting many marine ecosystems in other ways– things like coral reef formation, shell formation in the larvae of thousands of marine species, and many others too numerous to list. I could save typing by suggesting looking at what’s known about the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 55 million years ago… And of course, no one should infer that because what we’re experiencing now happened before “naturally,” then no worries about humans continuing to burn fossil fuels– which is the usual errant logic of the climate deniers…

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:37:00 +0000

you have some documentation/links on that?

By: Patrick Herniak

Patrick Herniak — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:23:00 +0000

iBM is behind 15 years in CPV. Solar Systems Pty has the most advanced CPV module which has one of the lowest cost per watt. It competes directly PV panel pricing of today. They have already implemented the technology in the Middle East and throughout Australia.

By: sola

sola — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:37:00 +0000

It is quite high already in arid regions and is getting higher continuously.

The Arabs for example are already building desalination plants the question is only the power-source they use and solar can save them a lot of otherwise valuable oil/gas.

By: sola

sola — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:34:00 +0000

I definitely agree on the ICE needing to go. Even if they can run on biofuel (which is much less effective than battery electric cars) they still release a lot of harmful PM2.5 into the air.

By: Mohan Raj

Mohan Raj — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 03:08:00 +0000

Wonderful concept and design.
Hexagonal Dish with each segment having 6 cells for a total of 36 cells.
It provides electricity, fresh water, cooling. This should be installed in Desert and high sunshine places.

I hope its brought to market.

By: James Hilden-Minton

James Hilden-Minton — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:24:00 +0000

Does the levelized cost net out the value created by desalinization of water? What is a litre of drinkable water worth?

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:42:00 +0000

Isn’t light reflected back from the Earth’s surface sent back out into space as light? Yes, some may be converted to shorter band “heat” as it strikes molecules in the atmosphere, but a good deal of it gets through. Otherwise wouldn’t the Earth be invisible from space?

(ICE has to go so that we hang on to some ice.)

By: agelbert

agelbert — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:36:00 +0000

Albedo is more complex than mere reflection. All energy that reaches our planet is radiated back out exclusively in the IR band. The issue is not the albedo but the gases now present that trap the IR heat before it can reach space. For example, the good negative feedback of white ice cover versus dark ocean would be made useless as a heat shield by a high enough concentration of CO2, H2O vapor and CH4 in the atmosphere. The ICE (internal combustion engine) is the problem because it adds heat and greenhouse gases simultaneously. The ICE has to go.

By: agelbert

agelbert — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:25:00 +0000

Since the Earth radiates energy in the IR band, we only have a heat budget problem as long as we have an excess of tri-atomic molecules like CO2 gas and H2O vapor in the atmosphere that have large IR radiation energy absorption bands. Efficient solar energy harvesting in devices like these will lead to the elimination of the ICE (internal combustion engine) which, because it is only 20% efficient, adds waste heat AND greenhouse gases simultaneously. As we move away from the ICE for transportation and industry, we will kill two planet heating “birds” with one stone, so to speak. The transparency of the atmosphere to IR radiation so it can escape harmlessly into space is a matter of obtaining the proper ppm reduction of CO2 and other gases like methane. The ICE HAS to go.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:50:00 +0000

Yeah, that occurred to me later. I suppose the answer is to install these puppies over areas of black rock/sand. ;o)

Desert sand can reflect out as much as 40% of the incoming light. Grasslands, around 25%. Water only 10%. We could stand up a whole bunch of them in the Salton Sea (as long as its water lasts).

The big need is to reduce our greenhouse gas blanket.