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Is the Future of Silicon Valley Solar?
Noryungi writes "In this provocative article, Brian McConnell argues that Silicon Valley, instead of staying in the saturated IT field, should apply its resources (including its chip-producing plants) into Solar Power/Renewable energy. Intel branded Solar Panels, anyone?"
Intel would anyone want Intel Inside solar panels.
The sun is strongest on the outside(sorry...bad joke)
...can we overclock these solar panels or do they come with anti-overclocking protection built-in?
I don't know about intel-branded solar panels. They'd work well and all, but they'd probably cost a lot. I don't see much of a need for OCing solar panels, so I think I'd prefer AMD panels...
=P
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
if the war in iraq and the rising cost of oil have showed us anything, it's that we need to look into more alternative energy sources. producing our own solar energy would not only leave us less dependent on foriegn oil, but would also help the enviroment. we should also look at wind and water power also. hopefully in a few years time we'll be able to have some kind of program running that promote this type of thing.
"Solar electricity can be produced by means of photovoltaic arrays (based on the photoelectric effect discovered by Albert Einstein) or by using conventional heat engines whereby solar energy is used to power a turbine. Solar heat is simpler still, requiring only a blackbody and a mechanism for storing and transferring heat"
Einstein didn't dicsover photoelectric effect, he has EXPLAINED it (and earned a Nobel Prize for it).
What about Sun Solar Panels?
Until Mr. Burns blocks out the sun.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Out here in sunny california, they have already been considering legislation to require a certain percentage of new built homes to have solar panels preinstalled on the roof by the contractor.
A house with these panels can provide most of its energy, and on sunny days even feed excess back into the grid (electric company pays YOU)
Considering the enery crisis, and terror threats to centralized power, it would seem irresponsible NOT to try and push for distributed solar power generation. It makes sense in almost every way (money, eco-friendly, security)
Anyone can post to that newsgroup. You get advertising and all sorts of off-topic posts.
I'd rather have sci.energy or even rec.energy.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Throw all your eggs in one basket.
my trusty solar powered calculator is always busy keeping the chicks away.
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
The Personal Computer has always been a very compelling product. It appeals to business, parents, students, teachers, gamers, etc.
This is the reason they've sold so well.
I just don't see it happening with solar panels. Personally, I don't want to be in the electricity production business. How many people actually do?
I'm more for the advancement of Fusion technology discussed yesterday. It's clean AND it doesn't waste my time.
Any increased attention to renewable energy would be fantastic. Not only would it in the long term benefit the environment but it would also give the IT industry something else to fall back on in certain areas. For example the silicon valley turn down that we all to well know about would have been stored for a little longer if they had some other industries that they could fall back onto for revunue during tough times.
See most large companies wont just be doing one thing often touching in many induustries to try and diversify the bussines model for tough times.
As a programmer I can honestly say that I don't think I want to work on an assembly line making solar panels. And, my science training is not at a level where I could work on new ways designing solar panels to be more efficient. I did a science fair project where I used solar energy to heat air, but I don't think anybody would want to buy boxes made of old paneling and filled with black mylar channels through which air passed. Hmmm... Maybe we could think of things that could be done with all the programmers. Surely there have got to be jokes akin to the lawyer jokes that talk about what lawyers are good for. I must admit that I've never heard any though.
Sean Lane Fuller - The truth is out there!
I don't know about AMD, but I know for sure that Intel owns and operates fabrication facilities.
They have a large facility in Ireland, which I've visited, and they certainly do chip fabrication there.
Also a friend and colleague of mine did a PhD that was sponsered by Intel. This research was entirely concerned with details of the fabrication process (using some data/input from the actual process being operated in Dublin).
Here in Michigan, during the winter months we may not see the sun for a week at a time. It is cloudy, overcast, and gloomy. During the summer, we do get a lot of sunny days, but we'd never make it on solar power only for the winter months.
I don't think solar power is a very good idea for us here, we'd end up being reliant on outside energy piped in from elsewhere. We could get some use out of wind generated power, we've got plenty of that most of the time, and hydroelectricity is awlways an option...I mean we do have the Great Lakes and tons of rivers all over the state.
So here in Michigan, I doubt the "solar revolution" we be all that fantastic here even if it is out there in silicon valley. I'd never be able to live if my house were solar powered, unfortunately.
There is no way we will explore alternative energy policy while Bush is still president. He is the Anti-Christ
We all know George W. Bush rigged the 2000 election so that Rush Limbaugh and white men could conquer The United Nations and steal the worlds oil.
George Bush Banned my IP Address!
pick it up Trinity!
Intel and AMD both still run their own production facilities. In fact, Intel makes sure that the layout of the fabs is identical, so that production parameters are transferable from one fab to another. As a result, their fabs are designed for producing microprocessors, and making major changes in this general alignment would be rather difficult. IBM, on the other hand, runs a more diversified system of fabs.
You are probably confusing this with companies such as ARM. They are merely a chip design and intellectual property company now, however in spite of the "merely" this is still an enormous economic asset in today's tech arena.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
I was surprised when power wasn't picked up as the next big thing to encourage after the Internet boom.
:)
More than just a source of power, you need efficient power cycles, where energy is not being wasted and material is efficiently recycled. The Rocky Mountain Institute (http://www.rmi.org/) are big into this kind of thing, as are various European countries.
As nerds grow older, they need more meaning in tech fetishism, as well as realizing they have to leave next generations something more than trippy 3d games.
FYI, this is already done in a way, as far as Intel helping to build solar panels goes.
Astropower is a US solar panel manufacturer that gets many of its solar cell silicon wafers through recycling programs with Intel. TI, etc. See here. They basically take bad/test wafers, clean them up, and use them for silicon solar cells.
I'm building a 100% solar home and already have a kW of capacity installed, and went with Astropower for several reasons, the above included.
The article goes on and on about how Silicon Valley can capitalize on the solar energy business (and other forms of high-efficincy energy production). There are a couple new and exciting renewable energy companies in the valley.
The first order of business for an energy consumer should be to minimize energy consumption. The economics are simple: a reduction in demand will reduce costs.
Many people are shocked when they learn that it's very easy to save $1000 in energy costs a year by spending less than $100 and an hour's worth of time. This guy and this guy seemed to do just about nothing for 50% energy savings.
Even though it's always exciting to look at the state of the art in the energy business, it's more useful (but less exciting) to look at how it impacts you personally.
"Intel Outside"
Its all fun and games until someone loses an eye... then its just fun.
Intel branded Solar Panels, anyone?
Intel Outside!ah.. but then they wouldn't be ON TOP OF THE GAME!
which is important for them - and to stay on top of the game they need to research the fabbing by themselfs.
with ramping up the clockspeeds fabricating(and related tech) is a quite important part of the process(hell, it's the most important).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Solar panels take a HUGE amount of energy to produce, and don't have an infinite lifespan. They will end up not returning all the energy it took to actually make them.
Intel branded solar panels, anyone?
I would personally prefer AMD branded solar panels, you insensitive clod!
Great source of info for residential and small-scale commercial solar/wind power solutions!
http://www.homepower.com
This post was obviously modded down by slashdots facist moderators, and is part of the karl rove disinformation conspiracy. Workers unite! Mod the parent up! It is about solar enegry and how it is being opressed by the current facist administration.
George Bush Banned my IP Address!
Personally, I don't want to be in the electricity production business. How many people actually do? I wouldn't mind being in the electricity production business. Over here (Belgium), you're actually rewarded by the government for installing solar panels (i.e. you get funds). And as other people pointed out, you can actually give back to the grid, for which you are, again, rewarded. You might ask why I don't have solar panels now. It's because I live in an apartment building. But if I were to build my own house, they would definitely be there.
Right, because not only was Iraq a war about oil, but increased electricity production will enable us to drive fewer cars somehow.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Gee, apparently all the companies who have decades of experience working on solar power to improve efficiency and lower cost are a bunch of nit wits. Yeah, I want companies with no experience designing power systems working on solar--that'll work. Gimme a break.
And to imply that a 30-50% improvement makes solar a viable market is absurd. Show me a couple orders of magnitude increase in efficiency and I'll believe that there can be a market for solar beyond the niche of granola eaters living in the desert.
The computer industry was successful early on because even back in the early days when computers took up a room and were one billionth as powerful as the machine I'm writing this on now, the companies building them could make money. There was a need which could only be met by filling a building with slide rule-toting engineers or buying an expensive computer. With coal coming out our ears and oil still not that expensive, there is no great market for solar unless it gets much more cheaper; a 50% improvement isn't even close.
--Len
From:
m ?k ey=992
http://americas.kyocera.com/news/news_detail.cf
KYOCERA to Begin Solar Product Manufacturing in North America
Tijuana, Mexico production capacity planned for 35 megawatts per year with support from new San Diego engineering and marketing office
SAN DIEGO, CALIF. -- (August 10, 2004) - Kyocera announced today that it will begin large-scale assembly of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules this fall at its maquiladora facility in Tijuana, Mexico, with plans to establish a regional office in San Diego for solar system engineering and marketing.
Kyocera's PV modules offer an environmentally friendly renewable-energy solution by converting sunlight into electricity with no moving parts or emissions. The Tijuana facility will produce state-of-the-art PV modules ranging from 35 to 190 watts, with a planned production capacity of 35 megawatts per year. This facility will eventually produce all of the PV modules that Kyocera sells in the Americas.
"The partnership between Kyocera's global solar group and our Tijuana maquiladora operations will help to make clean, reliable solar energy systems more widely available for businesses and homeowners throughout the Americas," stated Rodney N. Lanthorne, director of Kyocera Corporation and president of Kyocera International, Inc. "This expansion reflects both the growing demand for solar energy systems and the success of our Mexican operations in providing high-quality, cost-effective manufacturing."
In view of rising public acceptance of solar energy in the United States, led by California, Kyocera's decision to build PV modules at its Tijuana facility represents a natural evolution.
Steve Hill, president of Kyocera Solar, Inc. (http://www.kyocerasolar.com), indicated that the company's goal is to better serve its local markets. "This new assembly operation will support the vision expressed by both California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy to increase regional deployment of solar energy resources," Hill stated. "Solar energy now offers the most affordable and effective means of preserving our environment, promoting energy independence and relieving strain on overburdened utility infrastructures."
Kyocera Solar, Inc. will continue integrating PV systems out of its facility in Scottsdale, Arizona.
About Kyocera
Kyocera Solar, Inc., founded on the management philosophy that business should "coexist with nature and society," is one of the world's leading suppliers of environmentally sound, solar electric energy solutions. With operating headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz. and regional sales centers in Brazil and Australia, Kyocera Solar, Inc. serves thousands of customers in both developed and developing regions. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of San Diego-based Kyocera International, Inc., the North American headquarters and holding company for Kyoto, Japan-based Kyocera Corporation.
Kyocera Corporation (NYSE: KYO), parent and global headquarters of the Kyocera Group, was founded in 1959 as a producer of advanced ceramics. By combining engineered ceramic materials with metals and plastics, and integrating them with other technologies, Kyocera Corporation has become a leading supplier of solar energy systems, telecommunications equipment, semiconductor packages, electronic components, cameras, laser printers, copiers and industrial ceramics. During the year ended March 31, 2004, Kyocera Corporation's consolidated net sales totaled approximately US$11 billion (JP¥ 1,140,814 million) with net income of approximately US$655 million (JP¥ 68,086 million).
The first three posts to this thread have been modded down unfairly. None of them are particularly worthwhile, but hardly trolls.
the moderation system needs fixing badly.
seriously;
1. negative moderation should cost two points or three, not one. This would encourage upmods on good posts. 2. Metamoderation should be able to remove the Karma burn people get from unfair moderation.
3. Enough negative meta moderation should == no mod points for that moderator for several months, allowing the moderators who are using the system correctly to keep upping visibility on good posts and modding oftopic stuff (like this) into oblivion...
is anyone listening?
Just because you're not getting a lot of sunlight, the fact that there is ambient light coming through the clouds still does generate some power. It may be reduced, but it is still there. If you read the related article Hacking Your Way Off The Utility Grid he approaches it from a reducing his expenditures on power, and providing a cushion for any future price increases.
Additionally, depending on where you're at in Michigan, there are varying classes of wind power available. The inputs listed in the system in the article are pure DC inputs. That means anything that generates DC at the same voltage can be used for input, being a generator, solar, wind or even a generator attached to your gutters that takes the rain and does hydro power from it. The point is that if you approach it from an overall viewpoint of reducing your power consumption from a grid, you will be helping the system. If everyone reduced their needs from the grid by 1kWH/person/month it would count for a lot.
My approach i'm taking towards my home system i'm planning is to do a combined solar+wind system. Usually where I live (in Ann Arbor/Dexter area, Michigan) the wind is blowing or there is some sunlight. The average wind speeds combined with a wind generator may help reduce the power. If you're living near one of the great lakes, the amount of wind power you can generate is quite reasonable. I know today we're under a high wind advisory (again) so if I had my wind generators up and going now, it would help offset my other electricity costs.
There are more efficient fabrication methods than that used for the silicon used in chips. Evergreen Solar (ESLR) pulls silicon ribbons out of the melt. They just announced a process that is three times more productive than other fabrication methods and will have some larger furnaces online soon. With these efficiencies as lowering cost of wind power (why does this have to be an either/or proposition anyway?), green energy will be price competitive with fossil fuels much sooner than we might have thought a year ago.
Ask me about my vow of silence!
The problem with solar energy isn't that there isn't enough funding for them, it's that it's a bad way of generating electricity. The maximum efficiency from the current cheap silicon solar cells is about 21% - which isn't all that great. Theoretically you could build solar panels that are even more efficient - perhaps up to 70%.
Which is great, but that doesn't include the costs of transmitting that electricity. Currently electricity isn't stored, it's made as needed. You can't do that with solar. If you have a day with a high need for electricity but your production stations are getting rained on, you're screwed.
Solar has its uses, but not for widescale replacement of existing electrical infrastructure. It's not efficient enough, you can't ramp up production when needed, and it's limited to those places where you have a decent and predictable amount of sunlight. At the end of the day you can't break the laws of physics.
If we're really serious about reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, our only serious option is nuclear energy. Given that France gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear without any trouble, there's no reason that the rest of the world cannot do the same. Even the byproducts can be safely vitrified or recycled so that they pose no threat in the future.
The biggest obstacles to solar power are the laws of physics, which is why solar will never take off as a major source of power.
Oh sure, mod the parent as off-topic but not the grandparent. This is BULLSHIT. It is obvious that the grandparent has not been modded down because it reflects the attitude of the majority of slashbots. The parent, which is a more thoughtful post, is modded down because he expresses an unpopular opinion and is a well-known right-wing slashdotter.
I hate all you libs.
I favor more wind turbines outside of San Francisco.
I also favor more wind turbines off Nantucket Sound also.
I want alternative enegery sources even if they are in my backyard.
To head off a massivly polluting oil refinery in Tijuana, Mexico that would pollute San Diego off of the map.
You can use conspiracy theory to link Bush and the high oil price because he has strong relation with the oil guys. But high oil price is the number one reason in finding alternative energy source.
While not a Silicon Valley company but instead residing in The Netherlands, Philips already has a solar panels division. And it makes a lot of sense, because they're active in both lighting (solar panels are just the inverse of what they've been doing for over a century) and semiconductors (so they have lots of "waste" silicon which is useless for ICs, but not for solar panels).
;P
So, yeah: get with the times, Silicon Valley!
When this is released, they'll also be distributing hydrogen generators, enabling the average consumer to extract the gas from water at virtually no expense by using the electricity provided by such devices as wind turbines and solar panels.
Such an event would provide silicon valley with a much wider niche in the industry, should they elect to go that route.
This one's for real, folks! United Nuclear is a fairly high-profile company involved in everything from rocket science to personal defense systems.
So you think Pebbles will never do Bam Bam?
Another area might be monitoring devices. For example, it's an incredible pain in a large house with a lot of occupants to figure out who is using what electricity. Imagine being able to note that 25% of today's electricity was used in the bathroom between 7am and 9am. Or being able to check remotely as you leave the house whether any significant power consumption is still going on and where it is located.
Did I leave the oven or a heating iron on? Did the kids turn everything off when they left? Lemme check that on my PDA.
Solar energy production and adoption is great, as long as it is voluntary. Let's not legislate involuntary force to make it happen. It will succeed or fail on it's own merits in a free an open market. Oh, by the way, let's stop all government subsidy on the competing forms of energy production as well.
Solar cells = gigantic volume small value added CPUs = tiny volume, huge IP value added Silicon = completely irrelevant
It's a pretty safe bet that when your alternative energy project goes on line oil will be cheap enough to bankrupt you. OPEC has never been able to maintain a stable price. Hydro power sites have been exhausted, much of the desert wild lost in the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam has been restored by the drought.
Another, very important factor, why placing solar energy factories in the Silicon Valley could be wise, is that there is usually enough sun to actually use the devices for powering these factories (or at least the offices of the administration and designers).
The "Eat your own food" principle ensures that the producers know very well the problems that end-users face and therefore leads to better design and less bugs.
The article had no mention of Cypress Semiconductor, one of my poorer performing investments. Cypress has, in the last few years, made more news as a customer of photovoltaics than as a vendor. Powerlight has been converting/adding PV power to bay area buildings for over 10 years. But Cypress has a PV subsidiary ..so I am not dumping their stock just yet.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Dallas gets plenty of sunshine year round. So it sounds like a good candidate for solar panels on everyone's roof. But the frequent hail! The hail! Hail!
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Did it strike anyone else that the DC power is converted into AC to be fed into the house?
Where all the devices then proceed to convert AC into DC?
I know there would be issues with voltages/amps/watts, but wouldnt it be better to bypass all that heat generation ( unless it can be harnessed ) and go direct DC? Store excess in batteries?
And isnt that the full circle? Edison's wish was for the power to be provided DC, not AC.
emt 377 emt 4
This previous post deserves to be modded up for containing this sentence.
Yes, please consider this advice, fellow geeks: how many monitors are always on even when they're not used for hours? And who pays attention to buying energy-efficient servers? Green PCs with power-saving modes? Recently left on the light when you weren't in the room for hours? Do you drive a car that needs more gas than the state of the art per 100 km? You don't even know how much your car needs?
If only more people had constant awareness of such issues, and taught their children to treat energy as something precious that must never be wasted, then this might have a higher impact than technical advancement in engergy effectiveness.
--
Coolbeans! The patent-pending Nuggets , SMS search engine -- text your questions, get your answers from the Web.
In Sunny California the Electrical Company Pays You!
How is this a troll?
Fusion does not exist. Pebble bed reactors do exist.
2010: The nascent solar panel industry has just been outsourced to China. Newly laid off Silicon Valley workers goes back to burning trash in oil drums for energy.
Silicon Valley has already done its part. Inverters are available for around a dollar a watt, produce good AC waveforms (early units output square waves, causing excessive heating in inductive loads), will synch to and intertie with the power grid, and work reliably.
In California, there are huge tax incentives, the power company has to buy power back from solar installations at retail rates, and adding solar won't increase your property taxes.
And still nobody does it. You have to pave the roofs of the world with solar panels. In fact, solar power production in California dropped slightly during the 1990s. Wind power is way up. But wind power is not a home solution. As Real Goods puts it, "We generally advise that a good, year-round wind turbine site isn't a place that you'd want to live. It takes average wind speeds of 8 to 9 mph and up, to make a really good site. That's honestly more wind than most folks are comfortable living with."
Don't worry about it too much. When the price of oil doubles, we'll see more solar panels.
There is no special reason to build or design the panels in Silly Valley. They can be just as easily built and designed elsewhere. And less expensively.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Solar energy can power your home even during overcast, so that shouldn't matter for those living in Michigan or wherever. However, besides the fact that Intel isn't doing so well recently, solar panel fabrication costs more energy than they provide before breaking down, so solar panels aren't the way to go if the environment or global heating is your concern. They may be however when we want to prevent economic wars like Iraq, as Nobel prize winner recently said.
I guess that I don't see how it's such a good fit for Silicon Valley. I'll admit that the area is perfect for research and development and there are scads of people out there in various engineering and research capacities to draw upon. The feeling I got from Brian's piece, though, is one that the pace of development for computing and materials technology in the area is waning and there's a vacuum that needs to be filled.
(As I read it, I visualized a bunch of software and computer hardware engineers sitting around in beanbag chairs, sipping tasty beverages, gazing out the window looking at the near-empty lots in the office park and saying to each other "Whew! What a ride. Too bad we don't have something else to do. Hey, howsabout we make solar electricity cheaper?")
Sure, some of the economics of the area have hit some rough spots, but there are all kinds of other research and development activities that go on in the region that don't tie directly into the consumer computing market. Sure, maybe it's a place where consumer solar electricity could be added to the mix, but why not do that somewhere, dare I say it, -=other=- than California? What about Phoenix, Santa Fe, Las Vegas, Denver, Austin, Oklahoma City, Lincoln, K.C, et al.? I'm thinking sunny western states, mostly, but the point is why not foster that kind of product development in a new place?
I'm sure someone will point out to me, as I've heard it said in the past "Well, if you're going to innovate and make new products, you have to go to where the innovators and the production centers are." At one point, I'm sure it was true, but now we have the innovation and production centers in places all over the world. I'm sure that Brian wanted to keep the scope of the paper pretty narrowly pointed to California for obvious reasons: he lives there and he has a sense that the state has had a rough ride on both the electricity and computing technology fronts. Yet, since the boom in the Valley, airfares are cheaper than ever, engineers are cheaper than ever, telecommunications is cheaper than ever, and cities outside California will bend over backwards to make setting up innovative new businesses a cheap-to-free activity.
So, while I find Brian's parallels interesting and compelling, I think the job would fit better elsewhere.
One more thing -- a few posters on this topic have asserted that because they live in cloudy places, solar would not be a good fit. I was in Tahiti a few years ago during the rainy season and while there are small diesel-generated electrical grids on most of the more populated islands, solar-electric power for water heating is pretty common out there and the water is hot even on the cloudy days. And the cloudy days can last for weeks. Daylight is pretty much all you need to keep the water hot. Where folks don't use solar hot water, they heat on-demand with liquid propane gas.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Let's see now, hmm, let's say that I'm an Intel stockholder. I see my company trying to capitalize on solar cells. I see my company proposing to use current plant for said solar cells. I see that these cells make less profit than the computing chips that Intel normally makes.
Well, that's the end of THAT proposal.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
In fact, it may even be the case that they will be able to contribute in this industry. (Disclaimer, IANAEE, I don't know how much of this would really be a good idea). They could develop embedded software into the solar panel system to make it more intelligent. The panels could be made to tilt as the day passes, it could try to predict what the demand will be and determine what to do with excess energy (store it in a battery or send it back to the power company for a profit), it could be made to link to a computer inside so the home owner knows how much of their power is being generated for free by their panels and how much they are paying for, etc. And I'm sure someone with some expert knowledge could think of some much better ideas.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
And this is why OPEC, specifically the Saudis, try to keep oil prices down. As long as oil is cheap, we won't find alternatives, and keep sending money into their pockets.
Me, I'd like to try what some countries & large companies did with microsft. Threaten to switch away from them(fund alternative research), forcing them to drop prices.
Realistically speaking, even if the USA went completely alternative, there'd still be a huge oil market consisting of the rest of the world.
I don't read AC A human right
Astropower went bankrupt in February and was bought by GE's PV division in March.
Recycling bum wafers may be a great way to get more value out of the chip making process. But as a standalone business, buying wafers, turning them into solar cells, and turning the cells into panels, it probably doesn't compete well with Evergreen Solar's string ribbon fabrication process.
It might work better if the chip companies did the recycling themselves, and also built panels themselves and/or put standardized cells on the market and let the price find its equilibrium.
Some downsides to this sort of recycling:
The market price of a wafer as a solar cell is a drop in the bucket compared to even one or two of the chips on it (let alone maybe half) being good enough to cut out and sell - and deliberately building extras for the cell trade would drastically increase the cost of the cells. That means any money to be made by selling solar cells will not be factor driving their production quantity (beyond trying to convert all the bad wafers).
The supply of such recycled-as-solar-cell wafers will thus be completely driven by the market forces on the company's underlying chip business and the yeild percentage of its processes - with the incentive always being to fix the process to improve the yeild of chips - which cuts into the yeild of cells.
This makes it hard to build an independent business based on building a fab to recycle bum wafers from the chip companies into cells as a necessary step in making panels. The supply of raw wafers is too iffy, and using it to make more cells from fresh wafers to meet production targets makes the cost-of-goods fluctuate too much.
A better model might be for the chip manufacturers themselves to add fab steps to recycle their bum chips into cells themselves, and sell them on the open market to panel assemblers. Ideally some of the steps could be done with the same equipment as the chip fabrication (without risking contaminating it and lowering chip yeilds), minimizing the capital cost. Bum wafers could be stockpiled and processed when market fluctuations created gaps in the fab's schedule, or on older equipment or in older fabs that otherwise would be retired or taken out of production for refurbishment. Multi-company standards for the characteristics of the recycled-wafer cells would let a panel manufacturer use cells from multiple fabs, smoothing out market swings between products of different chip manufacturers.
In this scenario a panel manufacturer could invest in only assembly equipment. He could make a recycled-wafer model when the supply of such cells was adequate, and use new-material cells built by a different process (such as string-ribbon) with a less-pricey start point, to make another model when the supply of recycled wafers was inadequate for the demand for panels.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
In Silicon Valley, although there are tech giants, it's the startups that are critical to the system. Intel, Apple, et. al. are continuously spinning out employees who start their own ventures. The big players then gobble them up. The founders get rich, the big guys get richer, and everyone is happy. In a few cases the small fry actually make it to the big leagues on their own, but it's a tough road.
The road is made tougher by VCs, who in the late 1990s dumped staggering quantities of money in poor investments. Now they've reacted in typically sheep-like fashion, by only investing in operatiions that already have a product and are already consistently profitable. VCs only like to accept true risk if all of the other VCs are doing so (social networking sites, anyone?). They're a vast herd wandering the Valley, all of them looking for that last bit of untrammeled ground.
In order for solar power to work become even remotely attractive to Silicon Valley companies, it has to be something that will entice startups. Big companies will not take the risks. But most small companies won't do so in absence of VC money and more importantly in absence of a perceived unmet demand. Consumers simply are not clamoring for solar power, because the pain threshhold of petrolium isn't high enough.
If no small, nimble startups are formed around a particular market, in Silicon Valley that market is not likely to ever be formed. This equation might change if one of the larger players poured a lot of time and money into making solar products, but most of the large Silicon Valley companies are at the point in their lifecycle where they have become reliant on the small startups for high-risk innovation.
A region without this long-established pattern might have a better chance. But the only thing outside of computers that the Valley seems interested in right now is biotech, and that's only because all of the South San Francisco companies are taking the real risks in that market, and happen to be in close physical proximity to the Valley.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
While I chose solar electricity as an example the intent of the article is to start a discussion about clean energy technology in general and how Silicon Valley can accelerate its development.
.. and creating consumer markets for new classes of products.
What SV has that the renewable energy industry lacks is a well developed system for financing new businesses and technologies
This can be applied to many different ends and is not limited to PV arrays.
Also I meant no disrespect to companies already making clean energy systems. The point of the article is to pose the question of what might happen if SV were to invest heavily in energy whether through startup businesses or acquiring in established firms.
Brian McConnell
Maybe ./ uses the wrong software
People fight over water, food and natural resources.
When our resources get scarce, we go to war over them.
In managing our resources, and in sustainable development,
we plant the seeds of peace.
-- Wangari Maathai (Nobel Peace Price)
By that definition, anarchy is a "stable society". I'd say that in a stable society, schoolyards don't get gunned down in the first place.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It's happening a lot slower than I thought it would when silicon ribbons were first demonstrated thirty years ago.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
It's doubtful that alternative power systems will attract the venture capital because it doesn't do anything new and exciting. It does something we've always needed in a less expenisive way. There's not much new about solar, fuel cell or power conversion technology. There has not been any sensational breakthru in any of these areas which has attracted the attention of the layperson, venture capitalist or otherwise.
The next big thing will be a surprise. Solar ain't it.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
The article speaks of 15% inprovements in efficiency. This is tiny compared to distribution costs. In suburban Silicon Valley, my neighbor pays $0.235/KWH for their last KWH, while relatives in rural Arizona pay only $0.06/KWH.
We've let our regulated monopoly distribution get so fat that the most expensive renewable option (solar) actually returns better than CA muni bonds.
First big problem - why is is that Silicon Valley should do this, vice everyone else that already knows how to build solar cells and has been doing so for years? A few years ago, my aerospace company decided to go into the railroad car business, to "bring them in to the 20th century". Well, predictably, companies that have been building railroad cars since the Civil War turned out to know *far* more about it than we did, and our "improvements" were nonsense. This seems like the same sort of arrogance/hubris.
Second, and far more fundamental, *it takes far more energy to make a solar cell than it can ever possibly collect*. So, to build these renewable, "environmentally-friendly" solar cells, results in fantastically *greater* use of fossil fuels (mostly coal) or nuclear plants. And it's not just start-up costs - it's still a net big loser even with the entire life-cycle. The cell degrades before it ever breaks even.
And if you have to build nuke plants to make solar cells, you might as well send the energy directly to the grid and cut out the intermediate process.
I want to help the environment at least as much as anyone, but doing things that are conceptually faulty won't get it done.
Brett
Something many people don't think about...
There is a themostat on the hot watter tank.
Why would you want it hotter than you can touch!
If you find the hotwater that comes out for your
taps too hot turn down the heater.
A better technology has been created. "Solar Fabrics". Several companies are using "Nano-materials" based on titanium-oxide to do "roll to roll" printing of Solar-to-electric energy fabric. Cost is less, is much more rugged ,integrates with buildings better, more usable capture space. Yield not equal to Solar Panels, but it is new and is improving. It is likely to surpass traditional panels on a volts per unit of area basis.
Two companies already doing this: konarka and nanosolar:
One possible application: building materials (roofing, exterior siding) which can generate power.
http://www.konarka.com/ http://www.nanosolar.com/
Most of the commenters are hung up on the current shortcomings of the solar industry, but the article talks about the inevitability of improvements to the efficiency of existing technology, as well as research and development of future technology. So when you say that current solar panels cost more in energy than they produce over their lifespans, that's beside the point. It stands to reason that the existing equation - that hydrocarbon based energy is cheaper to produce than alternatives - is bound to be reversed by the decreased supply of the former alone, to say nothing of the decreased cost of the latter once it is subject to proper manufacturing efficiencies and engineering improvements. If current PV cells cost too much and go bad quickly, what makes you think there won't be a version of Moore's law that describes advances in PV technology?
Those who say that solar cannot be relied on in northern lattitudes are also missing the point of the article, and missing an understanding of the economic laws in play. Lets say that we could supply all of the energy needs of only that part of the world (and only in the daytime) by solar. Would that not allow us to make our hydrocarbon supplies last longer? To think this is unworkable is like saying it's no use to read a book by the light of the day because what happens when you want to read at night. Furthermore, the grid can be supplied by a mix of wind, hydro, geothermal, etc. Because 100% of our power cannot be replaced by solar does not make it useless.
Now, of course, the nature of the free market and of human nature lead me to think that we won't come up with the replacement to a given technology or energy source until we reach a crisis in the supply of the old one. Horseshit was piling up in the cities and causing a health hazard before the automobile really caught on, and soot filled our skies before we switched over to an electrical grid for our power. I believe we are just a few years away from another such crisis with oil, and it might be a good idea to work out the kinks in alternative energy technology before we're forced to use it. A few wisely spent government dollars spent on this technology might keep us from having to rely on other countries for this technology when we need to make the transition.
Brian McConnell isn't the King of Silicon Valley. He doesn't get to decide what directions companies will take, or who gets to start a startup. As much as it may mangle his fragile ego, he isn't the ultimate well of business advice.
If he has a hardon for this, then HE can start his own damned startup. But he needs to stop acting like innovation's traffic cop. I'm already working in Silicon Valley building products that save hundreds of lives every day, and that's not good enough for him?. Screw him!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I believe that this goes against what most of us have heard. Please provide references (at least three) that involve different people doing different studies.
If you'd like a little more credibility still, show that these reports weren't paid for by the nuclear power industry.
To help with later responses, I suggest that you check that the reports in question have not been discredited by later study.
Still there???
hello???
In short, I think you are talking shit - put up or shut up.
this would be fantastic. Silicon valley would actually have a use ;) (just kidding.. they already do.. I'm just joking)..
Got a question about UNIX ask it here : Unix/xBSD Forum
Yes, you read that right. I hate to rain on the parade here with a dose of reality, but solar power is not nearly "clean" as so many seem to think it is. Yes, the sunlight itself is "clean", but the massive quantities of materials needed to collect and convert it to usable energy are not so clean. It turns out that solar is far and away more harmful to the environment that nuclear power.
Don't believe me? Go to my webpage, Ignorance about Nuclear Power is Killing Us and click on the link called "The Hazards of Nuclear Power" by Prof. Bernard L. Cohen. Then take a look at the table near the end of the paper.
Then direct everyone you know to the same link. Your help is needed to defeat ignorance.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
Will somebody please site the actual data behind this rumor about PV costing more than it earns? The guy who just posted on the O'Reilly site gave a whole bunch of statistics that specifically showed he did have a sizable positive return on investment.
And another poster pointed out that people are calculating PV "lifetime" using the *warranty* duration, while actual PV panels keep running fine until you physically *break* them, which is indefinitely.
For all I know, this argument may be like those airheaded bromides we have been hearing, about wind power being "unsightly" or "affecting the climate". So far all I am seeing is fud-esque rumor.
What can you do now?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
As quoted in Home Power Magazine
Some skeptics of solar energy claim that it takes more energy to make a photovoltaic module (PV) than it can ever produce in its lifetime. The truth is that PVs typically recoup their embodied energy in two to four years. According to an article published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), today's single and multicrystalline modules have an energy payback of about four years, and thin-film modules about two years. Most PV modules in the field are made from hyper-pure crystalline silicon. Purifying and crystallizing the silicon consumes the most energy in making these PVs. Thin-film PVs are made from considerably less semiconductor material, and therefore have less embodied energy in them. Most of the energy consumed is in the thin-film surface. The aluminum frame on any PV accounts for about six months of its payback time. Solar energy is an amazing technology considering that PVs go on to produce clean, pollution-free energy for at least 25 to 30 years after they have achieved payback.
For more information on energy payback, see the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Web site (www.nrel.gov) and Karl Knapp & Theresa Jester's article titled "PV Payback"in HP80. --Eric Grisen eric.grisen@homepower.com
Also, concerns about lifetime and hail resistance are red herrings. Most panels are warranted for full rated output for at least 20 years and most have performed well beyond those timeframes. Also all panels are UL tested to meet UL hail resistance specifications (which I believe covers hail up to 2" in diameter).
Finally, no one bitches when a gas-fired generator fails to recoup its energy cost of manufacture--it requires billions of additional therms of natural gas over its operating lifetime to produce electricty and never pays back its manufacturing energy cost. It is disingenuous to ask that only of solar (and odd since solar can actually do it!
And to imply that a 30-50% improvement makes solar a viable market is absurd. Show me a couple orders of magnitude increase in efficiency and I'll believe that there can be a market for solar beyond the niche of granola eaters living in the desert.
The issue with solar versus grid is cost/performance.
Solar power has already surpassed transmitted power infor numerous applications: Small loads alongside roads, new instalations in rural housing, etc. The infrastructure is in place for building and installing it now.
Any improvements in solar costs or cost boosts in grid power will expand the fraction of customers for whom it's the less expensive alternative.
A large enough improvement will make it cost-effective for supplemental use and/or backfeed even in some urban areas (mainly those with reliable sun illumination). That cutover is within reach - well under a factor of ten.
Some places (urban areas in high lattitudes, cloudy or otherwise shaded areas, large industrial processes) will probably never be better served by local solar than by grid connection. But sufficient improvement in panel efficiency and/or raises in fuel costs will make solar practical for grid generation plants, too, in some parts of the country. Again less than a factor of ten could lead to cutover from fossil fuel to industrial solar arrays especially in sunny areas with low land prices.
China is industrializing and has an enormous population. That alone could driver a massive increase in fossil fuel costs - especially since mobile uses are easier to feed with liquid fuels than stored power (until THAT technology improves further).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Or at least, not yet.
r y2.cfm ?section=about&level2=box2
The achilles heel of any current alternate energy deployment is the reliance on the grid to act as the "energy backup" when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. Unfortunately, we don't have a two way grid; nor is it smart enough to safely handle multiple energy sources being fed up into it from unplanned nodes (like your house for example). The current solar and wind systems out there can get away with it because there aren't many of them. Having to bring up "peaker" power stations on calm or cloudy days actually increases the pollution production of the combined "clean energy"/grid system considerably.
Batteries are still way to expensive and damaging to the environment to allow a significant percentage of consumers to go off of the grid entirely.
I presented a paper on distributed grids in Stockholm a few years ago. In the course of this gathering I had a chance to talk with one of the energy authorities from Denmark. Denmark gets 20% of it's power from wind farms. They were having a lot of trouble controlling the energy flows. Smart distribution is essential. Safe energy storage is also required to scale the system.
Fortunately, the US government is already working on these issues. Some things worth looking at:
The Grid 2030 conference we had two years ago:
http://www.electricity.doe.gov/about/boxsto
The Gridwise Council:
http://www.gridwise.org/
It's also interesting to note that the most efficient technology we have for power production we have right now is co-generation, and the most environmentally friendly and economical large scale power systems are nuclear. Hmmm.
-- Loudog
Solar powered PC's / UPS
Skip the grid with a solar panel hooked up to a PC / UPS system that's smart enough to use it when the Sun shines?
Is electricity from wind turbines and solar panels free now?
Pretty much. There's a fairly high cost of installing the system in the first place, but after that, sunlight's free. Eventually these systems may be considered necessary and built into all new houses, where they would be "free" to the average consumer.
How will this company distribute and maintain these hydrogen generators and their associated wind turbines and solar panels?
Sell them, perhaps?
one million or so gas stations in the U.S.?
Who said anything about gas stations? Far better to sell these systems to individual homeowners. That way, they pay the upfront installation costs, and get free hydrogen fuel after that. That's what the oil companies are scared of. If transitioning to hydrogen as fuel just meant oil companies extracting hydrogen from oil and selling it at gas stations, that wouldn't really be a big change. Individuals making their own fuel from water and electricity would be a big change.
Now, the first study was commissioned by an environmental group, so factor that in. However, if accurate, that's comparable to the number of people who die in car accidents each year in the US (about 40,000).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Recycling bum wafers may be a great way to get more value out of the chip making process. But as a standalone business, buying wafers, turning them into solar cells, and turning the cells into panels, it probably doesn't compete well with Evergreen Solar's string ribbon fabrication process.
Actually it competes quite well with string ribbon, considering that Evergreen itself buys bum wafers and recycles them. They don't actually make cells on the bum wafers (nor did Astropower, IIRC), but rather use them as feedstock to make their own wafers. They also recycle tops and tails and, in some cases, pot scrap. Why? Because it's cheaper than buying virgin feedstock, and the PV industry's purity requirements aren't anywhere near as high as those of the microelectronics industry.
This is an unsustainable practice, of course, and the PV industry is just now getting large enough that it is outgrowing the supply of waste silicon (the supply is also shrinking as chip manufacturers find other uses for silicon they would otherwise waste). This has forced the PV industry to develop its own sources for feedstock.
The entire IT concept is a dead horse. I only see a few real problems left in the computer science field:
3 6, 00.html
1. AI
2. Bio computer interfacing.
3. Quantum Computing.
This wired article got me a little more optomistic about the hydrogen production component.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,659
Take a look at EU or slashdot article about 5MW wind turbine. The cost of building all those solar panels is a lot more expensive than building a bunch of 5MW wind turbine along the coast and place that has constant wind (like altamont pass)
...who only makes a few cents a sale net in his company for their major product.
He's a pretty successful millionaire.
so you see, you can make a lot of dollars per sale, (a high end CPU chip) or just a little bit and have a lot of sales (quite a few less expensive PV cells),, and either way makes you wealthy.
He sells gallons of gas and diesel at a flock of stations he owns. He's definetly "in" to making loot on oil products. Profit is very small per gallon but once you realise you can sell umpteen thousands of gallons a month, well, you can see where that would lead. Fatcity it's called.
He also owns what is probably the largest or one of the largest solar installations in north georgia. And it's because he knows the stuff works, wanted it, and put some of his loot where his mouth is. And now enjoys it. He's very happy with it.
I know this because it's where I used to live,the man was my boss, and I took care of that PV installation for 4 years.
It's also not a coincidence that some of the largest petroleum companies are manufacturing solar, they are after all in the "energy" business, and it doesn't matter to them where tyour dollars come from, as long as they get some of them, because they know you want "energy".
with that said, no idea if Intel would do it, I doubt it though, too far from their core business and zero expertise in it most likely.
In general terms, my loot long term would be more on wind gennys for mass production bulk grid supply,. MUCH easier and cheaper to make. I like BOTH, own both,solar and wind, but until there are some more significant breakthroughs, wind power will be getting cheaper/faster moreso than solar PV, although for personal joe homeowner residential uses, peoples rooftops, PV panels are definetly the way to go. No moving parts, very little maintenance once setup, and everyone has a roof already sitting there, and it's scalable from one panel on up as you feel like it.
sticking a massive commercial power generation facility in the middle of the last piece of pristine protected coastline in the area isnt a very good idea.
tasty electronic music vittles
..you can buy them. They make both solar shingles and total roofing systems, where the panels ARE the roof, not something that bolts TO the roof. You save on not needing to buy a normal roof, then slapping panels up there. They've been out for several years now. You can get them included into your house note as well, GMAC was one of the first big lenders to do that. Now they are not heinlein cheap, but cheap enough when you can deduct the cost of the normal roof from the equation, PLUS you know exactly what your electric is going to cost you from them for the next decades, something the local grid supplied won't and can't tell you. They currently could be very cost competetive if you could predict what the bill will be for normal juice 5-10 years down the road. I think there's only one electric company in the US now that will offer you a ten year contract, and THEY do it with green power. All the rest you are on a month to month and what the PSC let's them charge, and if it gets bad enough, they'll let them up the rates considerably, and in a short time frame. Politically unpopular or not, it has happened a lot in the past few years around the country..Utility bill sticker shock is a reality, unless you PURCHASE your power for an understood rate and price upfront,with solar or wind, etc, as opposed to leasing your piece of the grid infrastructure month to month forever and never to be paid off and pay as you go for wattage use and hope it doesn't get too expensive in the future, the way it is now. That's all you have with grid-only juice, you have a religious "hope" the price will stay the same or not rise much, you have no guarantees or contract on pricing except for very, very short time frames.
Now check this out. Hot Dry Rock geothermal power looks promising. Basically you drill down around 3-5 kms, well within the "oil and gas window" of current drilling technology. At this depth, across large amounts of the Earth there's very hot beds of granite. You inject water down the hole and it fractures the rock. Then, drill another hole and build a closed loop system where water's injected down, heated and brought back up. You then use the heat to generate power via a conventional turbine.
This looks like a great technology. There's none of the varying supply and storage issues of wind and solar. None of the waste of nuclear. So why is it so obscure?
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
When they convert Silicon Valley to solar power, I hope they don't just bulldose it all. Maybe they can figure out a way to put the panels on the roofs of the buildings that are already there. . .
.
Oh, I am sorry, you mean that the people there will start working on solar power solutions. .
>I hope that when all those windmills are put up in the poorer sections of country
It really is a shame that the very areas, such as San Francisco, whose residents encourage anternative energy sources do not want anything near them.
Check out http://www.eet.com/at/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsess ionid%3DKGP11Z2FQNY3SQSNDBESKHA?articleId=53700939 / Pairing a solar concentrator with a stirling engine is the most efficent way to produce electricity from the sun. Cool technology.
Any light fixtures can have air leaks from heated space into the attic in the gaps and cracks where they mate with with the ceiling plasterboard. Ordinary light fixtures just have an electric box penetrating the ceiling while a recessed fixture has the whole works pushing through. You can close down air leaks using silicone caulk -- I have also used plasterboard joint compound or spackling to fill those gaps as well.
On the attic side, there is the question about whether there are gaps in the insulation where the fixture pokes up into the attic. You may have to be careful putting insulation right up against the fixture in terms of causing the fixture to overheat -- check with the manufacturer on that one.
As with any thermal power plant, nuclear power is limited by the fundamentals of thermodynamics. In any case, efficiency isn't the central issue, except to people who are number-obsessed. The real issue is capital cost per average kW, and resulting end-user cost per kW-hr (depends on financing rate etc.) Solar's a factor of 10 or so too expensive still - but nuclear is also a factor of 2-3 too expensive relative to other options. It's pretty arguable which has more room to improve cost-wise (there's at least a couple of orders of magnitude less installed base and therefore less net manufacturing experience with solar panels, so far, compared to nuclear).
And nuclear fission is further limited by the availability of fuel - supplying the entire world's capacity for more than a hundred years or so either requires extraction of uranium from ultra-dilute sources like granite or sea-water (which may take more energy than is returned) or else requires breeder reactors. Which might be a good idea, except for the extreme proliferation dangers they introduce, with all that processed plutonium.
Energy: time to change the picture.
As for your comparison to other semiconductor products, you are confused. Solar cells do not require multiple etching steps; you can grow a doped crystal, cut it into pieces (and save the dust for reprocessing), dope one side of it the other way to create the junction, and add contacts. You're not masking, cutting trenches, sputtering multiple layers of interconnects or any of the chemical-intensive processes which characterize LSI chips, so any claim of pollution which draws on LSI production data is inherently flawed.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Why can't these be turned into solar cell plants making wafer-scale solar cell arrays (arrays to avoid the problem of defective chips, simply disable cells with defects).
However, I think it time to deviate from the tradition that calls for solar cell arrays to cover our building roofs.
Remember JP Aerospace and its project to build blimps capable of shipping freight to orbit for $1/ton-LEO?
Most of us should, it was covered on slashdot.
Solar cell arrays in space are a proven technology, as is microwave power transport and the main pieces of the JP Aerospace project.
These projects seem to me to be a natural fit.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The "Fusion is a fairy tale" post is a troll because fusion has been powering the Earth since before mankind existed. (Stars are "powered" by fusion.)
Fusion has also been demonstrated in laboratories; self-sustaining, profitable fusion hasn't been reached yet, but there is no reason whatsoever to think that it won't be achieved in the future. Cold fusion is a fairy tale, but that's another story.
Re. the mod system: Yes, it's got its ups and downs, but in this case, a troll was modded as a troll.
how to correctly misspell a word
"spell".
1. The electricity would be produced from solar cells or windmills, not from some commercial electric grid.
2. The cost to produce fuel cells will come down as they are mass-produced and as new technologies come along.
3. Hydrogen-powered vehicles "recharge" more quickly than battery-powered vehicles (which is not all that important for daily commutes to work or for geting groceries, but is very important for road trips).
4. Hydrogen-powered vehicles are lighter than battery-powered ones, and the power plant takes up less room in the vehicle.
Battery-powered cars may have their places, but hydrogen-powered cars have theirs.
were mearly chip designers
"merely".
According to this, "after mounting in an open field or on a roof the EPBT [energy apayback time] will be 11.5 or 8.3 years respectively, [...] well short of the likely system lifetime of 30 years." Of course as measured under Sydney conditions.
I recognize the fact that under some circumstances (good weather, low power grid availability), PV panels are both power- and energy-economically more efficient. However, to seriously compete with other sources, solar panels require a lot of space per capita (about 62m2) and good weather conditions, preferably desert area. Even if the effects of permanent solar valleys on ecology and the riscs of the highly toxic mass-production (the arsenic and aluminium) are ignored, and the payback problem was just part of a nuclear power lobby, no one has proved that it is just a myth.
As this discussion has been held before, I will just quote that "the cost of the module is fixed at it's resale value and all the resources used to make it are included in that cost. If the target installation needs low power and the cost to bring in that power from a grid is greater than the cost of equal PV, then the PV solution costs less over it's operational lifetime than the cost to manufacture that PV. Should PV be installed in an area where there is cheap, reliable, and abundant electricty already produced, then the cost of a module over it's lifetime is greater than the resources used to make it. When discussing the cost of photovoltaics, or any power source for that matter, the hidden factor that needs to be considered is the CONTEXT OF INSTALLATION."
Fusion -- while perhaps workable in the long term -- is not a solution now, and cannot be made into a solution now, and since we don't have a timeline for when it might become a solution, isn't anything to even consider to solve the problems we face today. I'm all for fusion, but that doesn't make me take the unreasonable step of considering it as likely to be practical when the best efforts of many, many scientists over 50 years have utterly failed to make it so, giving us tiny little baby steps instead.
It must be said that opinions are not trolls. even emphatically stated opinions. Unfortunately, anyone can be a moderator -- even those without any understanding of the normal bounds of discourse, which naturally and normally contain emphasis, hyperbole, and excitement.
So whoever modded that post troll was an wrong. No more, no less.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Well as there working on a 500MW powerplant righ now I would say it's a solution in the near future. We could have it in 15 years for less than 1/4 the cost of bushes war.