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Sharma Ishan Annotation and Article
Sharma Ishan Annotation and Article
" Make Solar Energy Economical - Engineering Challenges. National Academy of Engineering, n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2013. This article is an overview of the idea of solar energy, and how it is stored, used, and distributed throughout the world for cleaner energy usage. The article is divided into subsections where the storage, usage, and technical aspects of solar energy are analyzed. This source may be useful to those who are interested in learning more about the context of solar energy utilization. However, this source may not be useful for analyzing the effects of global warming on our climate, or for knowing more about global warming in general. All the information presented in this article is objective, and counterexamples are provided for solar energy usage in order to provide a wider scope of the phenomenon. The author cites several other scientists when stating facts, and refers to authors of certain works from where the author of this article got information from. Since I am not knowledgeable about solar energy and I have an interest in global warming and learning ways to prevent it, I decided to choose this article to analyze because I both would understand a broader context of global warming and at the same time, connect that to discourse communities and learn how certain communities are affected by this phenomenon.
As a source of energy, nothing matches the sun. It out-powers anything that human technology could ever produce. Only a small fraction of the suns power output strikes the Earth, but even that provides 10,000 times as much as all the commercial energy that humans use on the planet.
Prospects for improving solar efficiency are promising. Current standard cells have a theoretical maximum efficiency of 31 percent because of the electronic properties of the silicon material. But new materials, arranged in novel ways, can evade that limit, with some multilayer cells reaching 34 percent efficiency. Experimental cells have exceeded 40 percent efficiency. Another idea for enhancing efficiency involves developments in nanotechnology, the engineering of structures on sizes comparable to those of atoms and molecules, measured in nanometers (one nanometer is a billionth of a meter). Recent experiments have reported intriguing advances in the use of nanocrystals made from the elements lead and selenium. [Schaller et al.] In standard cells, the impact of a particle of light (a photon) releases an electron to carry electric charge, but it also produces some useless excess heat. Lead-selenium nanocrystals enhance the chance of releasing a second electron rather than the heat, boosting the electric current output. Other experiments suggest this phenomenon can occur in silicon as well. [Beard et al.] Theoretically the nanocrystal approach could reach efficiencies of 60 percent or higher, though it may be smaller in practice. Engineering advances will be required to find ways of integrating such nanocrystal cells into a system that can transmit the energy into a circuit.
References Beard, M.C., et al. 2007. Multiple Exciton Generation in Colloidal Silicon Nanocrystals. Nano Letters 7(8): 25062512. DOI: 10.1021/nl071486lS1530-6984(07)01486-5 DOE (U.S. Department of Energy). 2007. Solar America Initiative: A Plan for the Integrated Research, Development, and Market Transformation of Solar Energy Technologies. Report Number SETP-2006-0010. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Solar Energy Technologies Program. Washington, D.C.: DOE. DOE. Solar Energy Technologies Program Multi-Year Program Plan 2007-2011. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Washington, D.C.: DOE. Lewis, N.S. 2007. Toward Cost-Effective Solar Energy Use. Science 315(5813): 798-801. DOI: 10.1126/science.1137014 Ranjan, V., et al. 2007. Phase Equilibria in High Energy Density PVDF-Based Polymers. Physical Review Letters 99: 047801-1 - 047801-4. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.047801 Schaller, R.D., and V.I. Klimov. 2004. High Efficiency Carrier Multiplication in PbSe Nanocrystals: Implications for Solar Energy Conversion. Physical Review Letters 92(18): 186601-1 - 186601-4. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.186601