99%? No. The Carnot limit is much lower than that for the temperatures at which ... | Hacker News

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		caf on July 25, 2011 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Twice the height of the Empire State - massive sol... 99%? No. The Carnot limit is much lower than that for the temperatures at which steam turbines operate. Besides, the thermodynamic efficiency isn't particularly relevant for technologies like this anyway - you're not paying for the input, after all. The efficiencies you care about here are watt/area, energy payback time and, ultimately, $/watt.

sliverstorm on July 25, 2011 [–]

thermodynamic efficiency should correlate pretty strongly to watt/area because the device harvests sunlight.

caf on July 26, 2011 | [–]

For this technology, but not for the competitors that you'd want to compare them with.

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