Solar cell hits 40.8% efficiency

10/01/2008 23:07

I'm going to start this log with what is perhaps the best news I've heard this year.  The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has announced they have achieved an efficiency of 40.8% conversion for their latest gallium arsenide solar panels.  While the exact design is not known to me, they appear to have made the jump using a spectrum approach in the manufacture approach.  This is good news as manufacture is cheaper, in the long run, than materials.  And since the NREL is a U.S. Department of Energy brainchild, that means we have the patent. 

Now, this design is apparently tailored to a mirror reflection apparatus, namely for use in a sun harvesting field.  But that doesn't mean it can't be modified for modular home roof use.  And a low-cost, high output solar product has the capability to repeat the great computer revolution that kept this country at the forefront of an economic boom. 

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Seth Jaffe

Are you on Google looking for Seth Jaffe? Or perhaps Seth E. Jaffe or even Seth Elliott Jaffe? You have found me in Houston, Texas working at NASA Johnson Space Center. Seth E. Jaffe is an aerospace engineer, photographer, and law student. Seth E. Jaffe and Seth Jaffe attended Casady High School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma graduating in 1989. Soon after he attended Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. He graduated in 1996 from University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Aerospace Engineering.  He also attended Rice University were he studied Portuguese.  This little write-up has served to help Google and all of the rest of the crawling search engines find me so that I may turn up in your web search for me as opposed to the actor or the environmental attorney--both of whom have stolen my name. Happy hunting.