Bureaucrat, staff, administrator
4,335
edits
Changes
m
→Summary
== Summary ==
There have been a lot of new developments on the renewable-energy front, and yet solar energy is not a good candidate for boat propulsion. A few years ago powering a trawler boat with solar energy would require towing a solar-barge larger than the boat, and in 2015 2016 not much has changed.
But still the headlines persist about the miracle of renewable wind and solar energy:
* [http://www.solvoltaics.com/ Sol Voltaics] in April 2016 announced a photovoltaic (PV) module with efficiencies of 27% or more.
* Holographic foil that is twice as efficient as typical photovoltaic (PV) solar cells, using light selection, deflection, and concentration. The Dresden-based company Apollon GmbH & Co claims this has 28% efficiency compared to a typical 17%.
* Modern silicon and indium-tin-oxide-based solar cells are approaching the theoretical limit of 33.7% efficiency but a research team at Princeton has used nanotechnology to create a mesh that increases efficiency over organic solar cells nearly threefold.
* Solar
* [[FuelCell|Hydrogen]]
Wind is a non-starter for propulsive power because, well, if you want to use wind power, get a sailboat! Right?