Why
Saturday, October 12th 2024
Our world is suffering from excess of energy, not from lack of it. Sun is the main source. Turning Sun rays into electricity is not optimal in several ways:
- Photovoltaics currently reach only around 21% of efficiency; direct heat transfer is close to 90%;
- Storing electricity is too often based on lithium and other rare-metals, which is big source of pollution and inequality;
- European households consume over 80% of energy as heat. It makes no sense to turn sunlight to electricity and back to heat.
The problem we recognize is more cultural than technological. We are not used to manipulate Sun rays the way we deal with electricity. We have plenty of technology to redirect Sun rays, store it in various thermoses and boilers, concentrate it into raw burning power if needed. But the demand for some reason is not there. Maybe we just don't have the experience and tacit knowledge? Maybe we can have extremely efficient and nice things if we learned to accept uncertainties of weather?