Page 2 - Diode arrays

nothing is 100% efficient, It would last for a long time, not for ever.

but it's a f**k load better than using a battery for a month, throwing it out and buying a new one!!

and it';s better than burning coal, to boil water, to make steam, to turn a turbine to create electricity!!

Dear Folks, here's an extensive disscusion, Donpatent's comments are great, and charlie brown makes many good arguments. enjoy

http://www.scienceagogo.com/cgi-bin...=1;t=000267;p=0

hes talking a lot but where's the proof, demonstrations, or diagrams?

Okay, you know the guy is full of it when extrasense throws down the bullshit flag.

Conveenient that one is unable to pull any useful data from the US Patent Office site regarding this patent. He's been spalshing this all over the 'net, too, I see at least a dozen unique entries with the same information.

I still say he's full of it.

I liked the idea but in that forum it was clear that he was beating around a fake issue. If I had an idea like that, do you think I'd be posting it to the net? Hell no - I'd be, a week after creating it, manufacturing it by the millions and putting almost every buisiness out of buisiness. Then a month later assassinated and the world goes back to oil

He's posting it around for support and to generate interest, as I said his open-sourse attitude is refreshing.

I did catch him with his pants down with my inquiries to Dr. Crowe at VDI (look at the time line of the postings)

Because he has posted it all over it should provide some good feedback, I'll keep ya'll up-dated

he needs some damn proof. I want a picture of this thing in action, a video, live demonstration, maybe a diagram of what hes talking about? SOMETHING!

[/size]Actually the concept is legitimate physics, well known as "Optical Rectena". It works on the principle of receiving light radiation with an array of (very tiny) antennae, just like microwaves or FM etc. Theoretically capable of sunlight conversion efficiencies in the 70%+ range with no doped crystals etc. like current photovoltaics. Being worked on fairly intensively in one or more US research labs, with some good progress reported. Biggest difficulty is building the tiny diode rectifiers required to convert the energy recieved on the antenna into dc electricity, because the required dimensions are a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than present semiconductor fabs are doing.

I can't believe, with how well known and published the concept is, that anyone might be granted a patent on it though

Here's a DARPA dicument from 2000
http://www.darpa.mil/dso/trans/ener...fings/11itn.pdf

interesting. but as with anything like this, if it takes money away from the big power companies - expect it to crumble and be defeated. god I wish the oil would just stop flowing.

You might actually get your wish. Remember the peak oil thread? I was skeptical...but this month's issue of Reader's Digest actually takes the idea seriously. I'm not saying they're always on the ball, but when you hear Reader's Digest talking about something, you have to wonder if there isn't something to it after all.

dont forget u need a hairdryer to start that computer

or, even better - a lighter! Would kick ass at a LAN. people press buttone, I crack open a windproof lighter and the beat comes alive.