The biggest solar-plus-storage project in the US just came online.

[AntronX]

Hundreds of years...

So? Bury it deep if you don't want to use it ever again. Spent fuel stays solid and compact. I would store it for few hundred years for radioactivity to decay to easily manageable levels then pull it back up to reprocess and keep using it. Spent fuel from light water reactors still has over 90% of usable energy in it. "Waste" from today's reactors could become fuel for future generations.

 

[ksmithaz1]

Breader reactors can use the reprocessed waste as fuel, an cut the storage time of waste to hundreds of years from thousands of years.

Indeed

Hundreds of years...

I'll shut up and just let you realize what we're talking about here

We are talking about storing something for a relatively short time while it decays vs almost forever. Considering the total amount of spent fuel is relatively small it would seem to be much more viable. Chernobyl was almost 40 years ago, seems like yesterday to me.

 

[Checkthisout]

Can solar panels be made out of something else besides silica?

 

[ksmithaz1]

Can solar panels be made out of something else besides silica?

Yep, it's expensive but coming down. I forget what it's called, but it can be used in the flexible/rollup panels. Current demand is for that market segment where there are no other alternatives.

 

[houseofancients]

Can solar panels be made out of something else besides silica?

Silica is sand...

 

[ksmithaz1]

Found it https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/metal-perovskite-solar-cells-vs-silicon-efficiency-550212/

 

[ksmithaz1]

Couldn't find the other article. A Korean outfit was building a cell manufacturing facility, apparently they had a breakthru at a Korean university on keeping them from self-destructing. They are talking this tech competing with China's silicon based tech long term.

 

[Hedges]

Found it https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/metal-perovskite-solar-cells-vs-silicon-efficiency-550212/

"Silicon, the standard semiconducting material used in a host of applications—computer central processing units (CPUs), semiconductor chips, detectors, and solar cells—is an abundant, naturally occurring material. However, it is expensive to mine and to purify."

???



"Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient"
"could increase the perovskite’s light conversion efficiency by 250 percent"

Ok, article says how much more efficient.
But it doesn't say how efficient.
Maybe the linked paper does say how much, but is paywalled.

 

[SupraSPL]

Brand new bifacial gamma panels, the backside charges at night from caesium-137, guaranteed for 200 years. Perfect for exclusion zones. Depleted uranium bifacials for warzones, still in development.

 

[DIYrich]

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[Danke]

Brand new bifacial gamma panels, the backside charges at night from caesium-137, guaranteed for 200 years. Perfect for exclusion zones. Depleted uranium bifacials for warzones, still in development.

View attachment 191906

I already got one.