As you might perhaps have read in an earlier blog post, I am giving part of my computer calculation capacities to scientific projects close to my heart such as cancers, AIDS and of course, solar energy via the World Community Grid.
As I was wondering if all this energy – and thus money – had been wisely invested, I went to the World Community Grid official website and found news that made me quite happy as The Clean Energy Project data has been published !
” Thanks to World Community Grid volunteers, Harvard has published data about the suitability of 2.3 million organic compounds for converting sunlight into electricity. “
Now that’s quite an achievement !
The WCG article goes on by stating that the calculations took only three years instead of a whooping 17,000 years if they had been done with a single one. Now that’s the power of a crowd !
IBM’s website has more information on this :
The search for more versatile and less expensive materials for solar energy received a boost today as Harvard launched a free database that catalogues the suitability of 2.3 million organic, carbon compounds for converting sunlight into electricity.
Harvard’s Clean Energy project — which screened the molecules using World Community Grid, an IBM-managed virtual supercomputer that harnesses the surplus computer power donated by volunteers — is believed to be the most extensive investigation of quantum chemicals ever performed.
As you can imagine I am really happy about that as I am thinking that this will bring in a near future better and cheaper solar panels.
I strongly encourage you to join me and the thousands of others that are contributing to this and many other projects via the the World Community Grid official website.