Breakthrough in solar photovoltaics

An anonymous reader writes "The Holy Grail of researchers in the field of solar photovoltaic (SPV) electricity is to generate it at a lower cost than that of grid electricity. The goal now seems to be within reach. A Palo Alto (California ) start-up, named Nanosolar Inc., founded in 2002, claims that it has developed a commercial scale technology that can deliver solar electricity at 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. " As always, take these claims with a dose of salt the size of the Hope Diamond.

Comments

Re:Cost ?

[BeBoxer]

The problem with all this is that a large portion of the country that consumes a lot of power is in areas that don't get enough sunlight per year to be efficient.

I see this all the time. Please tell me why an alternative energy source has to be able to replace 100% of electricity to be viable? No, solar can't do it all. Neither can wind. Or hydro. Or geothermal. Or biofuel. Or nuclear. Or coal for that matter. But if we can get solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, nuclear and biofuel to each pick up 5% or 10% of our energy needs then there is a 25% to 50% reduction in fossil fuel consumption.

Every single /. article about alternative energy gets posts from people dissing it because it can't do it all. Where did this requirement come from? Is single-sourcing all of our energy even desirable? Is it possible? Where does this stupid meme keep coming from?

Re:Is single-sourcing all of our energy desirable?

[skogs]

I second this. A while back we had a slashdot article about some solar paint product that produced energy from the infrared band not just the visible band. These panels were much more efficient. Perhaps we can double the technologies up on eachother.

Secondly, cost effectiveness is not just what the power company can do. Remember my power company puts out a little pie chart telling me how much my electricity costs and why.

35% generation

3% Transmission

62% Distribution

If we build solar cells in our own homes at our own costs, we negate the transmission and distribution costs. All we need to do is generate enough to cover our homes/office buildings etc and we have a 65% automatic head start on the power company. Lets build our own infrastructure shall we?