Geography 3422A/B Study Guide - Photovoltaics, Syngas
23 Oct 2012
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Concentrated sunlight and carbon dioxide propel vehicles. Cheapest and most plentiful energy resource in the us as well as the major driver of climate change. Engineers have devised ways to strip carbon dioxide out of a coal plant"s exhaust before it enters the atmosphere: the process takes up 30 percent of the energy created by burning the coal in the first place. Problems could crop up at any time. Difficult to get it up to the plant level. A cooler based on magnets that eliminate energy hogging compressors are being developed. In conventional coolers, the compressor does most of the work, in magnetic coolers the motor that spins the magnetic wheel does most of the work, and motors are more efficient than compressors. New research into semiconductor crystals (quantum dots) could boost the maximum theoretical efficiency of light-absorbing silicon (solar cells) from 31 percent to 60 percent.
