Here's a headline that caught our eye the other day: "Teenager Invents £23 Solar Panel That Could Be Solution to Developing World's Energy Needs . . . Made From Human Hair."
“Slowly, natural resources are degrading so it is necessary to think about the future," Karki told the newspaper. "One day we will be in a great crisis regarding this fuel so it is a good thing to do today. This [solar panel] is an easy solution for the crisis we are having today. We have begun the long walk to save the planet.”
Karki's innovative solar panel reminds us of the Kenya-based inventor's solar oven that last spring won a $75,000 prize and which can boil water and bake food. It's this type of ingenuity that will help developing nations and the rest of the world find new sources of energy and also help the environment. e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook
UPDATE, 9/18/09: Looks like the above story might be a hoax, according to the stories on these links:
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/09/12/a-nepalese-solar-panel-made-from-human-hair-were-not-convinced/
http://blog.nature.org/2009/09/cool-green-morning-monday-september-14/
Essential information: In the October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports, our feature on alternative energy covers pellet stoves and solar water heaters (the illustration above diagrams how a solar water works) and provides you with strategies to save hundreds on your utility bills and the latest testing results for compact fluorescent lightbulbs.
Please don't perpetuate this story or lend it any credibility without researching it. The "Daily Mail" isn't a good reference for science and technology news. If you do some research, you'll find that many tech blogs are now retracting this story. Hair doesn't conduct electricity nor does it produce electricity when exposed to a light source. The invention is based on the action of melanin, but melanin can only be used together with a special dye to produce electricity when exposed to sunlight; it doesn't produce electricity when used alone. Research is ongoing, but existing organic cells don't have nearly the capacity to produce the amount of energy claimed by these students for the size panel they are demonstrating. A good start for debunking information is:
http://sites.google.com/site/edwardcraighyatt/hairsolarpanelnepal
This was a hoax.
It is somewhat disappointing that this story continues to circulate as truth. This so-called revolution in solar power is at best highly suspect, if not complete nonsense.
http://blog.nature.org/2009/09/cool-green-morning-monday-september-14/
http://sites.google.com/site/edwardcraighyatt/hairsolarpanelnepal
This story has been debunked as a hoax: http://sites.google.com/site/edwardcraighyatt/hairsolarpanelnepal
In you October story on solar hot water heaters you mentioned "professional installation" several times. Did you mean to imply that the heaters were designed and installed to withstand hurricane force winds. If not you and others who install them are creating missles come hurricane time.
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