Solar Laser: Possible Energy Source In Future prospect for future energy

[gaurdro 0]

I have a question and a correction. what is the efficiency of this converter? because with just polarizing light you can lose 50+% of the transmission from the sun right away. experiments with polarizing film is a great example of this. does this added lossy step actually not cancel the gain in efficiency of the solar cell? this is a really interesting subject. I'd like to here more about the physics of the matter. the correction is:Not all nuclear energy sources are a double edged sword. nuclear power is very safe but there are the potential problems with fission technology(radiation,meltdown etc.) the work i'm going to be doing is on fusion technology which has none of these potential hazards. if there is an error the production of hydrogen stops (lack of power to run the reaction) and the fusion core reaction also collapses due to lack of hydrogen input. even if the safety catches ALL fail there may be an explosion but no radiation hazard. fuel cells are limited by the reaction they use. it's quite slow. it also requires fossil fuels to make these work. ethanol is a non-option because to hold our current energy needs we would have to cover three earths completely with corn which isn't feasible.

[Florisjuh 0]

Um... no. No, no, and no.
This is NOT a superb idea. If someone would read my post, I explained that the conversion process from regular light to a laser would only use up energy, leaving you with less than you had to begin with.

You don't have to bash into his post, he has a nice idea and the way he is gonna use that idea is going to show us how efficient this way of generating energy is.

Nice read, I hope you'll get this to work, humanity will need it in the short future

[iGuest 3]

You wouldn't need a couple acres of mirrors to come up with enough energy check out this video. It takes 2 square meters of sunlight to melt anything so what's saying we couldn't harness that energy in a different way IE: through solar cells or through steam generation

 

http://makezine.com/2010/11/25/2-square-meters-of-sunlight-focused/

[NateP 1]

I think the OP has an amazing idea. I have just though of a way that this could be modified to add an additional power source to the system.As was mentioned in another reply, focused sunlight can create vast amounts of heat, that heat can also be used to create energy via steam or other methods. One of the more recent green technologies is thermoelectric generator cells. These convert heat to electricity. They can create about 1 watt per cell (at 100 degrees C) and they are about the size as a small cell phone.Lets imagine that the sunlight is focused to a certain degree but not enough to melt components, and then it is directed to shine onto a large boiler tank. The tank is connected to a network of pipes that circulate the water as it heats. The network of pipes would be lined with thermoelectric cells to collect the heat from the heated water flowing within. The small size of thermoelectric cells means thousands of watts of power could be generated in a somewhat small area with a fairly small network of pipes.Because of the small space requirements of the water/thermocell system, you could incorporate the solar idea in the same space by placing the solar cells on top of the water/thermocell system. Increasing your power output in the same area.I am no expert in the subject but maybe this could work. What do you think?