An international group of scientists has developed a polymer-based solar cell with an ability not yet seen in similar cells: almost every single photon it absorbs is converted into a pair of electric-charge carriers, and every one of those pairs is collected at the cell’s electrodes.

The overall efficiency of the cell is six percent, meaning a total of six percent of the absorbed energy is converted into usable electricity when illuminated in the lab with similated solar light. This may seem low, but polymer solar cells to date have not yielded efficiencies better than five percent.

“These characteristics make our polymer solar cell the best of its kind produced so far,” said the study’s corresponding scientist, Alan Heeger of the University of California at Santa Barbara and the Heeger Center for Advanced Materials at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, in South Korea.

Heeger collaborated with colleagues from UC Santa Barbara, the Heeger Center, and the University of Laval in Quebec, Canada.

The group’s work is a good sign that it is possible to produce polymer solar cells with efficiencies good enough for commercial production. As alternative-energy media, polymer solar cells are already promising because they would be much cheaper to produce and far more lightweight than conventional solar cells or cells made using other materials. They would also be highly portable and physically flexible, making it possible to place them in locations that standard solar cells cannot go.

http://www.physorg.com/news164458857.html

Metal deposits may be key to green car revolution but government in La Paz yet to agree deal.

Bolivia is thought to possess 5.4m tonnes of lithium, half the world’s supply. “Lithium is very important for us and the world,” Bolivia’s mining and metallurgy minister, Luis Alberto Echazú, said. “We hope to extract 1,200 tonnes next year and that’s just the beginning. When we’re up and running we’ll be producing 10, 15 times that.”

Lithium ion batteries, first proposed in the 1970s but not commercialised until 20 years later, are the technology most likely in the short-term to make the clean electricity dream viable. Several times lighter than current rechargeable batteries (usually made from nickel compounds) and with a better performance and longer lifetime, ­Li-ion cells have already been developed for laptops and mobile phones. Now they face their biggest challenge. For cars, they will have to be more powerful, more reliable and – a big sticking point – far cheaper. Most experimental electric vehicles today use some form of Li-ion batteries and many experts agree the technology is ready for the first generation of electric vehicles. The other big hurdle is size: the batteries are still too big. Alok Jha

From guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/17/bolivia-lithium-reserves-electric-cars

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/10/729459/-Obamas-budget-funds-Polywell-fusion-

By Roger Fox at Dialy Kos

Some of you like me may have picked up on the story of this neat form of fusion research, maybe even from the same google video that sparked my interest in this spherical not donut shaped plasma research. Only the size of a clothes dryer, these little fusion reactors have a simplicity that Tokamaks don’t. For about 3 years I have followed developments in the research with anticipation.

And now in President Obamas budgethe looks to fund polywell with a line item, instead of thru a research slush fund from the Office of Naval Research (Bush didn’t fund it and the ONR thought it was too promising to not fund).

Dr Bussards developement of the Polywell started in the 1980’s with DARPA funding, then Navy funding. The Navy wants Polywell as a replacement for shipboard fission nukes, 100,000 to a million times less radioactive, and at as little as 30 ft across for an entire plant (1000-1200MW) using the PB-11 reaction. And in some circles, folks relish the idea of a compact 1200MW to power some laser or something, but thats a whole nother diary or 2 or 3.

http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/index.php

from the New York Times

Secretary of Energy, Stephen Chu:

“The goal is to set America on a course for a secure and sustainable energy future,” Mr. Chu said to a crowd assembled at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. The secretary restated President Obama’s target of generating 10 percent (PDF) of the nation’s electricity from renewables by 2012.

According to energy department statistics, in 2008, wind energy accounted for 42 percent of all new energy generation capacity in the United States.

Of nearly $100 billion in stimulus funds for energy, $26 billion have been authorized for clean energy projects since mid-February, Mr. Chu said. The Department of Energy’s goal is to award 70 percent of this total by Labor Day.

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