PC Solar Study: Working While Sleeping

Scientists at Harvard University and IBM are waking up to a new idea from dormant computers.  By putting a million idle computers to work, they are looking to develop a new and cheaper form of solar power.

PC users who have volunteered to participate are connected to a World Community Grid. Participants then download software which will run calculations as a screensaver program fed back to a database when the machine is in Sleep Mode. 

It is hoping that the data collected will help to gather research for humanitarian projects such as fighting cancer, AIDS and dengue fever.

Scientists also hope to discover of a new type of organic material that can be used to manufacture plastic solar cells. This technology could be used to coat windows, make backpacks or line blankets to produce electricity from the sun.

The technology to make plastic cells has already been invented but right now it is expensive and difficult to mass-produce. The plastic is cheaper and more flexible than the silicon-based cells which are currently used to turn sunlight into electricity.

So far, more than a million people have signed up for the massive network, creating one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. 

With that many volunteers, scientists are generating considerably faster results. Rather than collecting data for a laborious 22 years, the same amount of data can be gathered in just under 2 years.

Send a memo to your teenage kids: laziness has never been so useful.