Light bulb is a Reverse solar panel
'Reverse Solar Panel' Generates Electricity at Night
Submitted 3 days ago by Innerworld@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.extremetech.com/science/reverse-solar-panel-generates-electricity-at-night
Comments
xthexder@l.sw0.com 3 days ago
I guess we’re calling geothermal energy “reverse solar” now. This is silly marketing.
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Well technically everything is solar in some form or another.
Fossil fuels - dead plants that got their energy from the sun Nuclear(fission) - Uses elements only created from the dying phases of a sun Hydro - Energy that’s created from the sun heating and moving water around Wind - same as above just air instead of water Geothermal - This one is trickier but planets are formed from dead stardust. I guess gravity fits in here somehow. Biomass - see fossil fuels but without as much waiting
The only one I can think of that isn’t solar is nuclear fusion. And this is essentially recreating a star.
dddontshoot@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The system takes advantage of the heat difference between Earth’s surface and the night sky, with the ground radiating much of the heat it captured during the previous day.
It’s not a reverse solar panel. It’s not a solar anything. It requires a difference in heat… So it generates electricity in the same situation that a sterling engine uses to generate motion. Could you put one on a diesel generator to turn the waste heat into more electricity?
Does it have anything in common with those weird little solid state heat exchangers?
yesman@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s not a reverse solar panel. It’s not a solar anything. It requires a difference in heat…
The solar part is because the Sun is responsible for the heat differential.
Rubanski@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
Then you could argue wind energy is just solar energy because wind exists due to heat and thus pressure differential
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 days ago
So its a giant sterling engine?
Frenchgeek@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Or it’s a panel optimized for exploiting infrared light.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
This has more in common with a thermocouple than a solar panel.
solrize@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
The thing about deep space is confusing. When is it dark for long periods in deep space?
einkorn@feddit.org 3 days ago
Everywhere. You have to consider two points: Most light in our nightsky comes from the reflection of sunlight by the Moon. Secondly deep space is not the space between planets or even between the outmost planet and the Kuiper Belt.
It is the place between stars, which is lightyears in diameters and where every star is just a tiny dot in the sky. This is not enough available energy to power our current level of electronics via solar. Which is why i.e. the Voyager probes use RTGs as power source after they left the area of our solar system where solar power is viable.
solrize@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
In interstellar space there is no temperature differential for that solar cell scheme to work from. It only works when there is something that is heated by the sun part of the time, and radiates heat into space the rest of the time. Maybe the far (“dark”) side of the moon counts for that, but for a moon station you probably want batteries or RTG’s or whatever. I’m sure there are uses for this thing but they sound very niche. Radiating heat into space on hot nights on the other hand is quite interesting, as an alternative to air conditioning.
JelleWho@lemmy.world 3 days ago
thermoradiative diode sound more like perlier panels than solar panels
aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Could be interesting if the technology paves the way for more efficient Peltier-like devices
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah, that’d be great. Peltiers would be awesome and everywhere if they were dirt cheap.
DoubleDongle@lemmy.world 3 days ago
One watt per square meter. Not very useful.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 3 days ago
You’re getting downvoted for pointing out that this technology, at optimal efficiency on Earth, generates about 1/100,000 that 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.
cheesemoo@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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?
borkborkbork@piefed.social 3 days ago
even if it only helped eek out 1% returns, on missions depending on an RTEG that could be years added.
worth keeping an eye on.
db2@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Clearly you don’t know how much longer sketchy hallways get in the dark. It’s at least a 20 fold increase.
Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Could be good enough for light in dark places
But… yes
Generally not enough. But maybe with more work they could become better