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Lightcell: An engine that uses light to make electricity

(www.lightcellenergy.com)
113 points curl-up | 1 comments | 14 Jan 25 13:36 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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ggm ◴[17 Jan 25 19:17 UTC] No.42742157[source]▶
less moving parts means it could work in contexts where moving parts demand lubrication, maintenance.

I felt it was a bit light on putting the system energy efficiency/losses up front. I am sure they're stated but it was hard to work out how it compared to normal PV efficiency, or steam turbine efficiency.

Heat exchangers are applicable to lots of things. I am skeptical that this is significant because almost any heat energy process does reclaim and preheat, and so the size of the thermal mass and efficiency here would be exceptionally well studied and if they have made improvements, they may be as, or more valuable as IPR overall. So while it looks amazing, unless they are spinning it out into wider industry it will be a small increment over things in deployment.

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detourdog ◴[17 Jan 25 19:21 UTC] No.42742196[source]▶
I read their statement of 40% efficiency would be compared to the currently available photovoltaics were generally 20% efficiency is normal.
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enragedcacti ◴[17 Jan 25 20:36 UTC] No.42742987[source]▶
the 40% efficiency is a claim about how much energy contained in the fuel can be converted into electricity*. It would make the most sense to compare this against either combustion engines or hydrogen fuel cells. Compared to those 40% is not breaking any records but could be extremely useful given the size, flexibility, weight, power output, etc.

Basically big if true, but this thing's 40% and photovoltaics' 20% aren't comparable efficiency numbers.

* They say wire to wire, IDK exactly what that means, but if it includes the losses from green hydrogen production then it seems like pretty wild efficiency. This doesn't line up with the numbers though, as H2 with 1250Wh/L * 0.4 = 500 Wh/L claimed density.

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1. cryptonector ◴[17 Jan 25 23:40 UTC] No.42744427[source]▶
I agree that 40% "wire-to-wire" seems wild. But if it was 40% nat gas to wire that'd be quite nice considering how simple such a generator would be, and it might be more efficient (perhaps significantly more) than traditional internal combustion generators. I.e., if you ignore the green aspects of this it sounds quite nice. Though you have to supply sodium. Hmmm.