Sep 20, 2008 8:43 am US/Central
In The Know: 7th Grader Trumps Energy Scientists
(WCCO)
Every year schools sponsor science fairs. "Rubber band powered cars," you might be thinking. Well, times have changed, and so have the brains of the kids. Don Shelby said, investing in education is wise, but investing in the kid might be wiser.
Great advancements have been made in solar technology, but the truth is, they're not that efficient.
Well, that was until 12-year-old William Yuan did some work on the problem in his basement and created, in the seventh grade, a solar cell that can harness 500 times the light of conventional solar cells
It has a seventh-grade sound, too: "A highly efficient, 3-dimensional nanotube solar cell for visible and UV light," and already the energy industry is beating a path to his basement.
See, the lad figured out what no one else has ever been able to figure out, and that is how to capture invisible light rays and turn them into electricity. Isn't that cute.
No. That isn't cute. It is a sign of the times.
The solution to our energy future will not come out of a national laboratory, but out of the basement of seventh graders. We may be perfectly content to leave the problem of future energy supplies to the next generation.
Maybe we should. Starting now.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
