I have argued in some recent papers that that we do not have an energy shortage–we have a knowledge shortage. There is enough energy in the water flowing into a bathtub to drive the entire US economy. We just don’t know yet how to pry the free energy out of the bonds holding the particles together without blowing the place up. A new development in Switzerland illustrates the kind of work that is going on all over the world to solve the problem. Inexpensive Solar Cells Made More Efficient With New Sensitizers
Solar cell technology is marching ahead, though it still struggles with the two problems: efficiency and high production costs. In collaboration with Satoshi Uchida at the University of Tokyo, Michael Graezel and his research group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne have now developed new sensitizers that should help an inexpensive type of solar cell to be more efficient. The sensitizers are based on the dye indoline.
JR
