From: Dan Clemmensen (Dan@Clemmensen.ShireNet.com)
Date: Tue Nov 03 1998 - 17:33:15 MST
Max M wrote:
>
> What most of this solar cell discussion really seem to strand on is the
> energy storage. Has anybody got any knowledge about how the state of affairs
> is these days concerning decentralised energy storage. Batteries, fuel
> cells, etc?
>
IMO by the time we have replicators, we can consider the biological model
for solar energy storage: plants store a lot of energy in a distributed
manner. I'm pretty sure that the energy density of biochemical storage
greatly exceeds the energy storage in a battery. For example, an adult
human, at rest, has a heat output of about 125 watts. This human needs
less than 1700 food calories per day to sustain this. (This is from
memory, not from a reference book, so I could be wrong.) Looking
at my cereal boxes, this appears to be about half a pound of
cereal. I think a nanotech-based device that stores energy like a
leaf will permit fairly dense distributed energy storage.
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