Me with nuclear power. It is probably a good option at the moment, but some people are just so braindead about insisting it’s the best possible source of energy with no downsides

“Descent”? Which way is down when you’re at the bottom?

Sick. Seems like something to keep an eye on

Ooh cool I hadn’t heard of them! My understanding from the wiki page though is that the 90% efficiency refers to energy transfer efficiency within the microwave range, rather than the conversion rate from sunlight which is theorised to be about 70%. The stuff about generating power in space using solar cells then transferring it back to earth sounds awesome, though possibly a bit impractical compared to regular solar farms.

Surprisingly not! I’d have expected photosynthesis to have similar energy efficiency to man-made solar panels, but it’s actually only around 11%. I suppose since leaves have more functions than just energy generation for a plant, it’s not usually an evolutionary imperative to maximise efficiency. There’s probably a bit of variation between different geographic regions, I’d imagine.

For a p-n junction based cell, the theoretical maximum efficiency is about 33%.

You can game this a bit using tandem cells with layers of varying bandgaps, but even as the number of layers approaches infinity the theoretical maximum only increases to about 68%. They’re also not hugely practical or cheap, obviously, and in practice they barely reach above the regular limit of 33% due to engineering constraints. There are some other ways of trying to get around it, but I don’t know of any that can approach 95% efficiency.

Worth noting that this is staggeringly high efficiency in comparison to most other energy sources, given that at the end of the day all of them ultimately come from sunlight.

It’s also a physical impossibility iirc

Literally in what fucking universe could anyone have thought that would fly. Obviously they’re not gonna keep the straight open if theyre under naval blockade