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Sprinkler-of-salt t1_iy05upz wrote

Reply to comment by Korvanacor in News Release: NREL Creates Highest Efficiency 1-Sun Solar Cell - 39.5% efficiency by TimeSpentWasting

What if we don’t aim for the conductive band of electrons? What if there’s another way to harness the incoming energy?

Or what if there’s a way to “prime” the electrons in the cells such that the valence electrons are already at the conductive band, or somehow less than 2eV away?

If this requires a new atom, why not make one?

What if we forget about atoms altogether, and capture energy at the quarks and gluons?

What if we forget about photons, and harness dark energy instead?

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Haquestions4 t1_iy0cia2 wrote

What if we just forget all this science and get energy through our outlets?

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Sprinkler-of-salt t1_iy0ftr3 wrote

Nah, come on now, that’s unrealistic. The outlets have to get it from somewhere.

Maybe they should be fiber optic instead of electric… then we could send the light directly from the sun into devices!

Sun-powered blender would probably make even healthier smoothies!

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