Huy Le ENGR1202 Writing Assignment - Final Due 3/17/2017

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Power and Energy Research - Improvements of Current Energy Harvest and

Research on Large Capacity Fuel Cells

Power and Energy has become a foundation for our everyday technology including
personal entertainment, spread of information and news, and the necessary power
source needed to sustain lights, appliances, and etc. There will always be a demand for
energy. As human civilization continues to grow and expand, that demand becomes
larger and therefore, the need for more energy harvest comes to mind as well as how
we can achieve that goal. There are improvements on the way now and more
developing as we speak and thats what I want to focus on. Thats why I want chose this
topic because I believe that humans can rely largely on solar power if we devote our
efforts to it. I think that solar power has large potential if harvested properly as well.
There is a focus on solar cell efficiency improvement, Space based solar energy
generation, and fuel cell storage. These three are what I want to focus on specifically
because I believe they are a necessary step to a power strong future. The methods
obtaining power are high level power harvest and the fuel cell research is needed to
store that kind of energy or that amount of energy.

One of the biggest methods we use today as alternative energy is solar power, the
ability to draw energy from the sun. We do this by building solar panels that point
towards the sun and produce electricity from its rays. The method itself is completely
safe for the environment as it produces no chemicals or pollutants as a result. It can
also be a source of energy for a very long time as the sun is far from gone. However,
collecting energy this way has proven to be not very efficient at all. Current market solar
cells today hasve an efficiency of about 55%, 85% on a good day, 35% for low cost
cells. [2]. This is because you would have to face the cells directly at the sun in order to
have the full effect of the solar cells. Also the sun pours out a lot of radiation that can be
harvested, and small, newly invented, solar cell technology is not going to capture all of
that power.

Recently, there have been research in the solar cell itself and how a special coating of
pentacene can potentially split photons and theoretically double the energy harvested
as seen in figure 1.[1]. These photons will hit an electric field in the cell and create a
flow of current. Since there are double the photons, the flow and power of the electricity
created will be doubled. One downside to this would be the limited range of spectrum.
The pentacene coating will only allow photons of the blue and green wavelength to
produce the double amounts of energy. The efficiency, therefore, would only go up
about six percent. [1]. This would still be a good step towards a future with efficient solar
cells. And as for the society, the high efficiency of solar cells would make them more
affordable to the public. [1]. Solar cell research is heading in the right direction and with
Huy Le ENGR1202 Writing Assignment - Final Due 3/17/2017
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more research in the coming years, earth based solar harvest can be much more
efficient as well as societally plentible.

Figure 1: Pentacene coating and Photon splitting

But perhaps instead of ground based energy capture, another method could be space
based solar energy harvest (SBSP). You would build giant solar panels in space and
capture energy there that would be billion times greater than the power we get today.
[4].On earth, only a percentage of the suns rays actually make it through to the earths
surface as well, having to pass various checkpoints within the atmosphere which can
bounce back some of the rays. Sometimes, there are overcast which can completely
render the solar cells ineffective for the time being. Thats why I think building solar cells
in space would be much more efficient and cost effective. The solar cells built could be
larger than the ones on earth and it would always face the sun without any interference.

Figure 2: SBSP Method and Power Transfer

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In Figure 2, the whole construct that would absorb sunlight and transfer the energy back
to earth via beam is 5km long meaning that the amount of sunlight that would be
absorbed would be tremendous compared to the harvest on earth. We could also build
bigger and sturdier ones that would absorb even more power or make the current ones
more efficient in energy harvest thereby making the process much more cost efficient.
The biggest obstacles in SBSP would be the cost and method of energy transfer. The
cost to build solar panels is already expensive, but to build one in space is even more
expensive. You would have to load equipment to space and build it there or build it on
earth and send it to space. Either way is expensive. As for the method of energy
transfer, beams are theory and they could be able to beam back energy but would you
lose some in the process? How would you go about beaming it back? How would you
store it? How would you distribute it? These are the questions when entering the world
of SBSP.

This brings me to fuel cell storage research. What if instead of beaming back the
energy, we would store the energy in fuel cells and then deliver them to earth? That
method is more feasible, possible, and readily achievable than energy beams. The
biggest problem with the storage cells is their storage. They are small and dont hold a
lot of power like the amount generated by the solar space cells. The method of transfer
would be easy to accomplish and we use fuel cells today. Batteries, pump storage, and
hydrogen fuel cells are available today. The biggest storage would be pump storage but
it doesnt last too long and still wouldnt hold as much power needed from the space
panels. [3]. Another big problem, and the obvious, is that current use of fuel cells are to
short-term power machinery or vehicles.

Taking a look at figure 3, most fuel cells used today are to power cars. They have small
capacity and they power up to certain distances because of it. Hydrogen cells are by far
the most efficient cells to date, so perhaps research focus should be on hydrogen cell
storage research. However, I feel that these fuel cells could be innovated to become a
source for storage and not quick power. Focus should simply be put into capacity
increase in order to become actual storage cells. Currently, fuel cells are not viable to
store massive amounts of energy, but if we focus our efforts into storage cells, then we
could ship cells back and forth from the solar cells in space.
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Figure 3: Energy Storage Capacity of Vehicular Fuel Cells

As an electrical engineer, I want to focus on improving our current energy harvest and
my passion lies in solar power. I think that solar power has the potential to become our
only source of power that is both clean and reliable. Therefore, I believe that our
research focus should be put into solar power and its energy harvest potential. If we
improve the ground-based solar cells then we could improve our current energy harvest,
by applying the pentacene coating [1], which would provide more energy for all of our
needs. The whole earth could be powered by the space based solar cells [4] and the
fuel cells, if researched into storage cells [3], could give us massive, long-lasting power
reserves. This kind of power availability is why I believe large scale solar energy harvest
is important for the future of an energy-strong civilization.
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References

[1] Tia Ghose. Solar Cell Could Dramatically Improve Energy Harvest. 2013.

[2] Steve Byrnes. Why are solar panels so inefficient? What is stopping us from
harvesting 80-90-100% of solar energy? How efficient are the most efficient plants?.
2013.

[3] Alex Chadwick. Storing Energy: Fuel Cells and Beyond. 2012.

[4] NSS members and contributors. Space Solar Power Limitless clean energy from
space. 2007.

Figure 1 David Chandler. New coating could enable major boost in solar-cell
efficiency. 2013

Figure 2 NSS members and contributors. Space Solar Power Limitless clean
energy from space. 2007.

Figure 3 Battery University contributors. BU-1005: Does the Fuel Cell-powered

Vehicle have a Future?. 2017.