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"We follow the scientists around and look over their shoulders. They're watching their feet: provable mistakes are bad for them. We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes."
- Larry Niven
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| Solar Electric Paint - Black Power | ||
| A black-colored paint that can be sprayed on, making any surface a solar power generator. |
This is such a great idea - there must be an engineer who can make this happen. All you would need as a flat surface that is angled to receive solar radiation and presto, you have solar power ready to use.
| What's finally knocked the bottom out is this new solar electric paint. Black Power, they call it. It turns sunlight into electricity, just like any solar power converter, but you spray it on. Place your cables and then spray over them. All you need is sunlight and room. |
| Technovelgy from The Woman in Del Rey Crater,
by Larry Niven. Published by Flatlander in 1995 Additional resources -
|
You can already use black paint (matte black) to solar heat a room; if you have a big south-facing wall try it out. The conversion of solar power to electricity, though, that's a tall order without a panel full of ICs.
Read more about the history of photovoltaics, as well as a very early reference to solar power in sf, at the article on the sunpower screen - solar cell array for vehicle power from Robert Heinlein's 1940 story Coventry.
'Black Power' has seen a remarkable confirmation in real life - see Niven's 'Black Power' Now Available In Infrared.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Woman in Del Rey Crater
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven
Tech news articles related to The Woman in Del Rey Crater
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
Solar Electric Paint - Black Power-related
news articles:
- Niven's 'Black Power' Now Available In Infrared
- Cheap Paint-On Flexible Solar Panels
- Photovoltaic Paint On Steel Sheets By The Corus Group
- Spray-On Nano-Ink Solar Cells
- Solar Power Paint For Any Size Solar Cells
- Printable Liquid Solar Cells
- Transparent Solar Cell Film Has Clear Advantages
- Peel And Stick Thin Film Solar Cells
- Low Cost Spray-On Solar Cells
- Colloidal Quantum Dots Make Spray-On Solar Cells Possible
- Your Solar Electric Paint Is Ready, Larry Niven
- Mercedes Benz Solar Paint
| Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram |
| Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable |
| Darpa 'Defiant' Unmanned Autonomous Ship |
| DNA Printed Book By Isaac Asimov Now Available |
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
