Anti solar panels

[hamster_nz]

Uses the coolness of the night sky - the same as what freezes your car windscreen 

https://www.intelligentliving.co/anti-solar-panel-generates-electricity-from-darkness/

Not really dodgy, but not sure of the utility of it... 20cm panel to light an LED.

potentially raise the device’s energy production to 0.5 watts per square meter or more

[fourfathom]

And they needed a "researcher" to glue a black aluminum disc to a Peltier device???  This article has a lot *wrong* (example: "While the solar panel uses the heat difference between the sun and Earth with the Earth being the cooler side"), and the rest is just hype.

[Circlotron]

It probably produces conventional current flow. 

[jon_nic]

it could be used as a Cloud detector for a weather station.  When its clear at night the temperature difference between black top and the bottom would generate a small signal for an MCU to detect, when its cloudy the temperature difference due to lack of radiation loss on the black side will be less  and so can indicate clouds blowing over.  just a thought.

[wraper]

Technology is like 200 years old if thermopiles taken into account, and almost century with semiconductor TEC.

[RoGeorge]

Is nothing new and nothing dodgy with that.  Radiative cooling works just fine. 

The atmosphere is transparent at specific wavelengths.  Some of those wavelengths are in the IR (Infra Red) spectrum, so one can evacuate heat into outer space by simply making a directional antenna and pointing it to the sky.  Works much better at night.

It was used for millennia before, that's how ancient civilizations (in the Persian area) were making ice, passively, over night, in the desert.
https://www.fieldstudyoftheworld.com/persian-ice-house-how-make-ice-desert/

https://www.ted.com/talks/aaswath_raman_how_we_can_turn_the_cold_of_outer_space_into_a_renewable_resource/transcript?language=en

[SiliconWizard]

It was used for millennia before, that's how ancient civilizations (in the Persian area) were making ice, passively, over night, in the desert.

Exactly.

IIRC, I think I first learned about that in a "Junior Woodchucks" book back when I was a young kid.

[magic]

Thermoelectric generators have been used for decades to power deep space probes like the Pioneers or Voyagers. They work, they aren't very efficient, they need a source of heat (decay of plutonium or warmed-up Earth surface) and cloudless sky to radiate IR into.

If you want to detect clouds, just point an IR thermometer at the sky. It actually is more or less the same thing internally, but made for less power output and more precision, go figure.

edit
And I suspect that the power harvested by this device would otherwise get radiated into space during night, so that's a second day in a row we get a thread about some "eco" energy source that actually contributes to global warming

[SiliconWizard]

(...) some "eco" energy source that actually contributes to global warming

Well... that just describes, IMO, the huge majority of ALL current green solutions for energy, even the perfectly accepted ones. We're merely displacing the main source of "pollution" (or otherwise unwanted emissions) from one spot to another.

[wraper]

And I suspect that the power harvested by this device would otherwise get radiated into space during night, so that's a second day in a row we get a thread about some "eco" energy source that actually contributes to global warming

I would not bother about that. However I suspect this device will never produce energy spent on it's production.

[magic]

Well... that just describes, IMO, the huge majority of ALL current green solutions for energy, even the perfectly accepted ones. We're merely displacing the main source of "pollution" (or otherwise unwanted emissions) from one spot to another.

Yeah, solar and wind seem like a clever way of shifting shit to China.
Hydro kinda works if you have space for it and enough water flow. Some country in America recently managed to run their electricity generation 100% from renewables, largely thanks to that.
In the end I think people will have to suck it up and learn to live with nukes until some major breakthrough.

[SiliconWizard]

Hydroelectric power is cool, but it's not without its environmental impacts either.