[ RadSafe ] Another recent article A low tec means to clean solar panels

[ROY HERREN]

Parthasarathy,

    The planet Mars has already provided NASA with the answe to this problem, 
see  

Mars Rover Solar Panels Thick With Dust at 
http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3068
 and Opportunity Rolling Again After Fifth Mars Winter at
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Opportunity_Rolling_Again_After_Fifth_Mars_Winter_999.html "Unless
 wind removes some dust from Opportunity's solar array, allowing more sunlight 
to reach the solar cells, the rover will need to work during the next few weeks 
at locations with no southward slope". 

   The winds on Mars have allowed for continued use of the solar panels on 
NASA's Opportunity rover long past their originally anticipated usability time 
frame.  A similiar man-made type of process could be used here on earth to 
remove dust from the surface of the solar panels.
 Roy Herren 




________________________________
From: parthasarathy k s <ksparth at yahoo.co.uk>
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List 
<radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>; "radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu" 
<radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu>
Sent: Sat, June 2, 2012 4:08:19 PM
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Another recent article A low tec means to clean solar 
panels

Friends,

Solar companies may try to develop a simple method to remove dust from the 
surface of the solar panels. Low technology will do, to ensure reliability!

Regards
Parthasarathy



________________________________
From: ROY HERREN <royherren2005 at yahoo.com>
To: radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu 
Sent: Saturday, 2 June 2012, 18:57
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Another recent article

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/40460/?p1=A3

I think it's interesting that China's "investment" into solar electricity 
generation has had such a disruptive effect in the market place.  "Even as the 
project nears completion, the future of solar thermal power plants is in doubt. 
That’s in large part because prices for solar panels—which convert sunlight to 
electricity directly—have dropped quickly in the last few years, causing at 
least one company to abandon plans to build solar thermal plants in favor of 
making ones that use solar panels".  I think that it's important to remember 
that Solyndra didn't go bankrupt because of a technology failure in their design 

or product, but rather they went bankrupt because they couldn't compete on a 
financial basis with the downward spiral in the price of solar panels being 
shipped to the US from China.  Only time will tell which technology will win out 

in the long run.  I am forever reminded of the battle between and Sony and the 
other electronic manufactures over Beta vs. VHS video tape decks.  The 
"so-called" better technology lost out to the power of the majority of the 
market place.  The amusing thing is that today the consumer market for video 
tape decks is all but dead.  My but the market and the technology hawked there 
is a fickle place.  How will Nuclear Power, fission, fare in the long run?  Is 
there any chance the Chinese government can be talked into investing billions of 

dollars into Nuclear Power and thereby reducing the price of global Nuclear 
Power?  If so, would we trust the reliability of Chinese manufactured 
Nuclear Power plants?  If there is a question of trustworthiness, why are 
consumers trusting the reliability of Chinese manufactured photovoltaic solar 
panels? 
Roy Herren 
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