lil tidbit about Solar

Not a funni comic and a bit nerdy, but i wanted to write about something that i find cool lol.

@AzulCrescent space age soon™!!

@AzulCrescent I mean, explaining how a solar panel actually creates electricity got Albert Einstein his Nobel prize, so...

@AzulCrescent There's also the Peltier effect, which is based on a thermal differential on either side of a junction material. Pump energy in and one side gets hot and the other cold. Apply a thermal differential and get a current out. So, also completely solid state.

@Infoseepage OOhhh i didn't know that. That's really cool. Thanks for sharing!

@AzulCrescent There's also a fun thing where LEDs and solar panels are fundamentally the same object, so you can use an LED as a (really crappy) solar panel, and you can use a solar panel as an LED (once)!

@thepi LMAO at the once ahahha

@AzulCrescent also, as I understand it, natural gas turbines are a liiiiiiittle different than the others? as in, they burn the gas directly in the turbine instead of heating water; this saves an awful lot on capital expenditures, and has helped make them very popular.

(still a turbine though so the general point applies either way)

oh and then there's thermoelectrics ... but like outside of deep space probes noooobody uses those

@AzulCrescentIt is indeed really neat. In the same vein, I am fascinated by Magnetohydrodynamic (big word) generators - they generate electricity directly from a hot gas without using a turbine too!

I recently had solar panels installed on the roof of my house; they're now generating more electricity than we use in a year. Which both looks cool on the roof and is good for the climate. Plus it saves on power bills, all good things.

@AzulCrescent Physics lessons with Azul lovely. You would have just needed a labcoat to complete the look..

@AzulCrescent There's also a form of wind power with no moving parts!

https://medium.com/greener-together/the-solid-state-wind-energy-converter-93204f14a1fa