Hair Solar Panel A Hoax?

Posted on 22. Sep, 2009 by Stenberg-Tendys W.L. in Society

The following was written for tropic post by Craig Hyatt, as a follow-on from the article we published on the19th September. At Tropic post we encourage people to submit to us opposing, or different points of view. Craig writes:

A reporter for the Daily Mail makes a compelling case: an 18-year-old schoolboy in a rural Nepalese village invents a world-changing $38 solar panel made from human hair. The reporter witnesses the solar panel in operation and photographs it powering fluorescent bulbs. There’s even a video of the students demonstrating the panel to a group of dignitaries.

This story has everything: the romance of a small town genius with big dreams, plain folks in a rural village gaining self-sufficiency, and appeal to the green movement. Reputable tech blogs like Wired, Gizmodo, Geek.com and even Consumer Reports bless the story and it quickly spreads.

But, as engineers and scientists read these sites and post comments questioning the story, it begins to look less credible.

The Daily Mail story reports, “[Mr. Karki] was originally inspired after reading a book by physicist Stephen Hawking, which discussed ways of creating static energy from hair.”

As it turns out, energy can never be created and static electricity has nothing to do with the photoelectric effect.

The Daily Mail story quotes Mr. Karki as saying, “I realized that Melanin was one of the factors in conversion of energy.” and the article continues, “Melanin, a pigment that gives hair its color, is light sensitive and also acts as a type of conductor.”

Commentators note that hair is an excellent insulator and that the melanin in hair is useless for producing solar energy without being isolated, purified, and combined with photoelectric dyes. Engineers and scientists also question Karki’s claim that his panel can produce the power he claims it does.

Soon, skeptical articles and retractions appear on outlets such as the Christian Science Monitor, and Greek.com and on Craig Hayatt’s website.

It turns out that the author of the Daily Mail piece, Olivia Lang, didn’t examine the panel closely and she backpedals a bit, “Please do remember that Milan is an 18-year old with an idea—he is not a scientist working for a big corporate energy company.”

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