GE places solar bets on thin-film cells

March 18, 2010 12:11 PM PDT Hey, I am no physicist or chemist or metallurgist or whatever, but I have a very strong feeling that everyone involved in green tech is too focused on the generation of electricity from alternate means . Whatever happens to solar ovens, solar water heaters , or even solar cigarette lighters is shoved aside. You see, all you need is basic shiny aluminium foil and a solar tracker mechanism to track the movement of the Sun to focus to almost unlimited applications. The biggest home application is the traditional electric, natural gas or fuel oil furnaces which usually comprise well over half of every utility bill often running into the hundreds of dollars monthly. Hey, we want to keep manufacturiing obsolete water heaters (even tankless types) or furnaces. Home light fixtures are also energy guzzlers despite the rise of flourscent bulbs with toxic mercury. Cooking is another energy consumer. Why cannot we try to experiment fiber optics as a conduct of lighting or even for cooking . I dont know if fiber optics will melt on itself if we made it too thick enough to cook food?? We can concentrate the sunlight into fiber optics , cannot we? Duh? We have skylights, of course which helps. Why is it that everyone is too tunnel visioned toward the inefficient conversion technologies to electricity which is still stuck in the teeny percentages. Direct reflection of sunlight is pure 100% conversion into many potential applications. Cannot we reflect the sunlight into the households without blinding dwellers indoors through new developments of materilals that can separate glare from the heat (radiation)? Are we avoiding aluminium simply on the numbskulled assumptions that we cannot keep on producing ever more aluminium due to high electricity required to produce aluminium from bauxite which is the most abundant on Earth topping iron! Why is it that everyone freaks out every time aluminum is mentioned?? Sure, we have uses for photovolitaics but it is not gonna be the only game in town, isnt it? As matter of fact, I built a crude array of aluminum foiled plywood boards that do nothing but reflect light and heat from the Sun toward the shady northern backside of my house. I was fortunate enough to have couple of large windows on the right side that is in the shade which I can concentrate all the sunlight through with total abandon. By golly, my home is so warm that I dont need stinking firewood at all... Sure , I can tear off the tiles off my roof to maximize the soak in of the Sun if I care! I rather have those solar wonks move their research efforts into the plain old sunlight where it counts the most . So much for efforts to convert electricty from the Sun,. while an average minded Joe Six Pack like myself is already soaking in countless kilowatt-hours of solar energy with my crude array of aluminium foiled plywood boards. I am waiting for solar tracking mechanisms to come down in price since it is still reserved for the astronomers and the heliostats still in experiment laboratories.. All I need is a solar shack where I can go to buy solar parts and put together my dreamwork of solar energy! Now, the question I am asking you is whether you will ever bother to look for any upstarts that already move away from the photovoltaics or concentrated solar gizmos and toward the basic application of lowly aluiminium foil or plastic mirrors that is the cheapest means of capturing the solar energy. Will you look for them? You can check out my YouTube site at www.youtube.com/junkyardnut and look for yourself...! Like this Reply to this comment by Dumbpeni March 18, 2010 12:24 PM PDT Dont you know that those millons and millions of brick chimneys dotting all over the world that are located on the wrong sides of the houses that is south facing. This is the worst location to put a brick ro rock chimney because bricks and rocks soak in the southern sunlight and release unwanted heat indoors during the nights . There is no statistics that can tell you how much electricity we can save running air conditioners to keep indoors cool from the glowing fireplaces during the summer nights. Maybe there should be a new building code prohibiting installations of such crummy chimneys on the southern facing sides of houses. New homes are still energy dumb as far as the chimneys are concerned.. As matter of factly, I tore down my brick chimney from top to bottom because it faces the blistering hot summer sun and soaking in negative kilowatthours everyday and making my sleep so miserable!! it is gone now! Hooray!!!! No more firewood smoke as a bonus for heatlh care reform!!!!! There is so much unmet needs in cost unifications as far as health costs are concerned.. We are still breathing neighbors' firewood smoke everyday and keep monitor of no burn days... What a numbskull! Like this Reply to this comment