The city of tomorrow is going to have vast energy needs. For a renewable future we are going to try and cover those needs without using fossil fuels. The problem of course is that we might not have enough space for our wind turbines and solar farms. And that is why we seek smart and space creating solutions. So let us cover one of these smart solutions here.
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The solar panels
More or less everyone does know what a solar panel is. A black or dark gray panel that absorbs photons from the sun in order to convert them to electricity. We use to create huge farms of those panels that cover up great amounts of space, in further research about solar panels you might even come up with some information about changing the micro climate in some cases of the surrounding areas lowering the temperature 2-4 degrees (that is not a bad thing since there is global warming). Of course there are drawbacks, they need a lot of space that we could use to produce food and the tech we are using on our current panels is very very old, we have already made huge breakthroughs but we haven't add them into production yet. So in order to change all these panels that we already have with the newer generation is going to take a lot of time and money, on the other hand we are supposed to be trying to lower or carbon footprints as much as possible which is very difficult if we are bound to use fossil fuels in order to light our civilization.
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The Transparent Solar Panel
You read that one right, that is a transparent panel, the main concept is the same but it does not stop the light. Researchers at Michigan State University created a fully transparent solar concentrator, which could turn any window or sheet of glass (like your smartphone’s screen) into a photovoltaic solar cell. If a material is transparent, by definition it means that all of the light passes through the medium. And that is why most of the previous "transparent" panels were creating a colorful shadow. The researchers of the Michigan State University used a different method of gathering sunlight. A transparent photovoltaic cell is impossible, so they used a transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC). TLSC is consisted of organic salts that absorb specific non-visible wavelengths of ultraviolet and infrared light, which they then glow as different wavelength of infrared light (also non-visible). The emitted infrared light is guided to the edge of plastic, where thin strips of conventional solar cell convert it to electricity.
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How can we use this tech
Our cities are in need of more and more energy, our production is getting more and more difficult since the world is becoming unstable by wars, climate change, and political and economical agendas of companies and super powers. We need more energy, our cities buildings can all be converted to have these panels as windows, this could produce a big percentage of their need, their carbon footprint would be lowered and last but not least, people could create some kind of energy independence and safety in case things go the wrong way. More over our smart devices could be charged "by themselves" which would make our lifes more affordable economically.
Source Links:
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/188667-a-fully-transparent-solar-cell-that-could-make-every-window-and-screen-a-power-source
http://www.britesolar.com/
http://ubiquitous.energy/
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You can find more articles of mine here: @diasdr For all personal thinking content, i am sorry if you find it in any way offensive, i didn't mean to offend anyone just to discuss/express my opinion.