Our methods for harnessing solar energy have drastically improved recently, but those methods are still very expensive...both financially and environmentally.
Soon, however, generating solar energy may not involve silicon-based photovoltaic panels at all. Forbes says,
Light has electric and magnetic components. Until now, scientists thought the effects of the magnetic field were so weak that they could be ignored. What Rand and his colleagues found is that at the right intensity, when light is traveling through a material that does not conduct electricity, the light field can generate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than previously expected. Under these circumstances, the magnetic effects develop strength equivalent to a strong electric effect.
"This could lead to a new kind of solar cell without semiconductors and without absorption to produce charge separation," Rand said. "In solar cells, the light goes into a material, gets absorbed and creates heat. Here, we expect to have a very low heat load. Instead of the light being absorbed, energy is stored in the magnetic moment. Intense magnetization can be induced by intense light and then it is ultimately capable of providing a capacitive power source."
What do you think? Should the solar energy industry be moving away from expensive solar panels or should it be refining and streamlining it's current infrastructure?
[Photo: ChandraMarsono/Flickr]
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