Cool Earth has designed a simple and extremely cheap ’solar balloon’ that concentrates sunlight onto a photo-voltaic cell producing up to 400Xs as much electricity as the average photo-voltaic cell generates.
The Cool Earth Balloon
The solar balloon is made from thin film plastic that costs about $2/balloon. They are already working on launching a mini-plant using the technology and depending on its success they will be developing a full scale power plant in the near future.
Congrats to the Cool Earth team for producing a simple cost effective way to make solar power more efficient.
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James Thoburn is a student at the University of Chicago. He created Backyard Politics to bring together individuals interested in actively participating in the political discussion without giving up their day job. His other interests include running, golf, and music.
If you think this is cool, there’s a massive project underway in the vicinity of Hawaii that’s trying to use deep ocean thermodynamics to generate MASSIVE amounts of energy. Definitely as expensive project, but frankly i’d rather see government money going to science than condom companies.
Great page,, hope to come back again,,
Thanks Vek!