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'Reverse Solar Panel' Generates Electricity at Night (www.extremetech.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 65 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

You're getting downvoted for pointing out that this technology, at optimal efficiency on Earth, generates about 1/100,000 the power of a solar panel. "Not very useful" is an understatement (it's currently fucking useless). Even worse: the title saying "at night" implies a terrestrial usage and misdirects from this technology's only potential useful application in the future once and if it becomes much better – namely on deep-space missions.

This research is interesting. I hope it yields something useful. Your comment is still 100% correct for the foreseeable future.

Edit: I was conflating the optimal efficiency of 1 W/m^2^ and the actual efficiency of 1/100,000 the solar panel. Sorry for introducing that confusion.

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    That 1/100,000 comparison doesn't seem right if these panels generate 1W per square meter as the parent poster said. It sounds like you're saying regular solar panels generate 100kW per square meter but I'm pretty sure that's orders of magnitude too high. Am I misinterpreting what you said?

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

    Agreed. It's 1/100 with old panels at 1/300 with modern high performance panels, being up to 300w/m.

    Edit: solar radiation is only 1.3kw/m2

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

    Edit: solar radiation is only 1.3kw/m2

    Outside earths atmosphere. Only ~650 Watts/m^2 reach the surface of our planet.

    Edit: I posted regurgitating some simplified assumption from a text book or something I must have read in the past, the 650 W/m² is wrong.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    No that's not right, it's about 1000 watts/m2 on the surface. But it is on a totally clear day with the sun directly overhead. So depending on your latitude you get less per m2 because the Earth is round.

    Wikipedia says it's 1361 watts per m2 just outside the atmosphere.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago*

    On the power outside the atmosphere I didn't comment because I was too lazy to look it up, the and I knew the number of the previous commenter was in the ballpark.

    Regarding the surface: my apologies, I quoted a number from university that must have been a simplification for a calculation exercise, and I made the mistake of never thinking about it critically. Turns out I was wrong.

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