/sci/ - Science & Math

>>1858699
If we find something that can outdo 45 MegaJoules per Kilogram, maybe. But even hydrogen cells barely match that and those are such a bitch to make it's not even worth it unless endurance and spatial efficiency are high priority optimizations in your application.

Look, I love solar just as much as the next dude, I think solar's a pretty cool guy. But .02 Watts/In^2 (I believe the current state of the art factoring in average output is typically %20 of peak output) has to go a long way before it matches up to 45 Joules/cm^3 (to put this in perspective, 1 J = 1 W*s, so while the most expensive solar cells available produce .02 Joules per second, good old gas produces 45 Joules for every cubic centimeter burned (albiet typically at 50% efficiency))

So it'll take a square inch of bitchin' solar paneling 37 and a half hours to produce energy equivalent to a single teardrop of gas. The answer here is to get a damn good control systems and an optimizations Mechanical Engineer (such as yours truly) and a bit more than a square inch of solar paneling. But if you're looking for something to replace gas in vehicles, military applications, and mass corporate equipment, we're going to need stuff revolutionary.