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New Solar Cells 20 Times Cheaper
handy_vandal writes "STMicroelectronics has announced a new generation of photocells made from organic plastics. Over a typical 20-year life span of a solar cell, a single produced watt should cost as little as $0.20, compared with the current $4. See also article @ cnn.com. On a related note, this article @ IEEE discusses new improved LED technology by the same team."
Does the phrase "Organic Plastics" strike anyone else as exceedingly stupid?
"Get this! It's plastic... made from LONG CARBON CHAINS! BRILLIANT! Why did we never think of this before!?!"
Someone want to explain that to me? Aren't all plastics "organic"?
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Laugh it up.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
A lot of it comes down to power density... even if you can afford solar cells, the power delivered per square length is low. Right now, power efficency is at maybe 15-20%, with pending increases as technology improves. What that means is that we get only 1/5 of the possible power out of our solar cells. Give it time... after all, fuel cells have been around since the mid 1800s...
#define DRM chmod 000
I don't believe this story for a second. Not a bit.
For decades I have been folowing solar cell technology, absolutely salivating at the promises that efficiency rating would soon rise above 15%, or that costs would no longer be prohibitively expensive or damaging to the environment (moreso than more conventional, polluting alternatives).
Well, I've given up. I've read shitty pie-in-the-sky stories like this almost every year for the last 25-years.
Now, if someone on Slashdot tells me that they bought these +50% efficient solar cells in Home Depot, that's when I'll get excited. Like I'll get excited when Chevrolet markets a flying car or my city puts a nuclear fusion power plant into service.
Even with existing prices, it is about as cheap to buy cheaper land in outlying areas and generate your own power as it is to pay a power company _and_ pay higher prices for land. The main problem is you have to have a fair degree of mechanical aptitude to keep one of these systems running reliably.
No, the main problem is that unless you are generating your power using only renewable resources, you are likely causing a disproportionately high amount of pollution. Almost all power generation from fossil fuels is much more efficient if done on a large scale at a centralized power generation station. If we abandonded the grid and went to a lot of localized power generation facilities, the overall impact on the environment would be severe.
Sailing over the event horizon
One thing you should also keep in mind is that when they talk about "initial cost", they are in part referring to the amount of energy (and thus pollution) needed to create the solar cells themselves. With current cells, it takes a lot of energy to make them, so although they are pollution free when they run, they caused a lot of pollution when they were made so the net benefit can be limited. As someone who lives in a relatively sunny climate, I can't wait for improvements to the technology so I can get my house off the grid!
To quote the CNN Article:
So, the question is, did Reuters screw up, or is there an announcement that didn't make it to the STMicroelectronics page that was linked to in the body?
Perhaps the United States govt. could spend just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars it is throwing at the oil companies, on some serious R&D into clean energy...Meh.
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