Solar Cell Achieves 40% Efficiency

Fysiks Wurks found on the U.S. Department of Energy website news of a breakthrough in solar energy efficiency. From the article: "...with DOE funding, a concentrator solar cell produced by Boeing-Spectrolab has recently achieved a world-record conversion efficiency of 40.7 percent, establishing a new milestone in sunlight-to-electricity performance." A page linked from Wikipedia's article on solar energy calculates the land area that would need to be covered by solar collectors at 8% efficiency to meet the world's energy needs (using 2003 figures). At 40% efficiency, it looks like a square 265 miles on a side in the American southwest would do it.

Comments

transport losses?

[toQDuj]

yes, a few hundred miles in the american southwest would do it (anyone objecting to using Texas?), but only if the entire world lived in the american southwest. As it is, energy losses due to transportation are quite significant and hinder an all-out world power source plan.

B.

Re:transport losses?

[jtorkbob]

Hydrogen conversion has its own inefficiency, so that's out.

That statistic is simply an illustration in any case. Obviously there are some other places in the world where such installations could be put; perhaps some less sunny ones would require more space to reach equivalent capacity.

In any case, I think that a 100% solar earth is unlikely:

* Much of the time it is night, and storing that much juice in batteries is impractical. Things like hydroelectric storage and thermal solar plants could help with this problem, but its a whole different research issue.
* In the event of, say, a major volcanic eruption or meteor impact, world power production would plummet. That could be the least of our worries.

Solar and wind are like the icing on the clean power cake. They are great for the role they serve, but you can't have them for dinner without getting a stomach ache.

Re:transport losses?

[Anonymous Coward]

And hydrogen transports just as easily as oil via the same infrastruture.

Bzzt! Wrong answer. Hydrogen requires a completely different infrastructure that has never been massively developed. Transporting hydrogen trapped in a hydrocarbon is feasible and could use the same infrastructure, but hydrogen itself is a much more complicated issue. You either need to cryogenic cooling or you need to build infrastructure that has low hydrogen diffusion and low hydrogen embrittlement (and probably very high pressure to move a significant energy density of hydrogen around if you go the gaseous path). People who want hydrogen for various industries tend to steam reform it from hydrocarbons instead of using this oil infrastructure you think can transport hydrogen.

Re:transport losses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. He clearly knows how to achieve the technological utopia we all long for.

Re:transport losses?

[dbIII]

The big point with photovoltaics is you can stick a little panel just about anywhere and not worry about line losses or being on the grid at all - plus the lead time to set something up is very low - buy a panel and get an electrician to wire it up. The big problem with photovoltatics is it doesn't scale up - so for a really big facility you are better off with something that does like a thermal solution or very large water turbines if you are lucky enough to have somewhere to put them. Having a lot of cheap mirrors putting heat on some expensive photovoltaics gets halfway there.

If you are just going to put bare panels somewhere it makes more sense to stick them on the top of existing poles instead of in some big facility since they act as discrete units anyway. Once they get rolled out there really isn't much that has to be done with them - the photovoltaics that existed when Einstein was young probably still work.

Personally I think we are already seeing the start of one of the major potential uses for photovoltaics - appliances that don't have to be plugged into the grid. If the prices come right down things like solar mobile phone chargers may well become mainstream.

Re:transport losses?

[jtorkbob]

I think the best use for this technology would be to put it on every roof in in America (and Europe and eventually the world), and use nuclear power as a method to buffer against periods of low sunlight.

I agree that local micro power is another good peice of the puzzle. My number one goal in life is to eventually live in a home with a net energy surplus. Of course, my penchant for running Linux on old hardware might turn into a barrier to this.

While the major volcano/meteor event you mentioned could deplete the nuclear buffer, it would do that (and worse) now.

Well, given a 'minor' event like Mt. Saint Helens, light blocking would only be a minor concern to the overall energy supply as we have it now. Obviously ash and debris in equipment, supply chain interruption and so on would be another issue entirely.

Hell, we could sell of the surplus nuclear energy to subsidize projects like the complete mechanization of food production, -- obviously using our nearly free energy. Or just lower taxes (though I would prefer the former)

Well, that's a different question, one I hadn't considered too deeply. Still, until we develop a 'perfect' single energy source a la Mr. Fusion, there will have to be a wide variety of energy sources in order to have a stable energy system. Nuclear/fossil systems require finite and largely imported fuel. Wind, solar and geothermal require specific geography. Hydroelectric fsks up the ecosystem. Each has its place in the ideal system, however limited.

Re:transport losses?

[Eivind]

Sure. That's actually another *advantage* of solar.

It's a lot more practical to scatter a large numer of smaller solar-plants around than it is to do the same with nuclear, oil or coal-powered plants.

If you do this, for example, by installing them on the roofs of homes you get 2 extra benefits:

• It makes the house less hot. If 40% of the sun is converted to electricity, then that's 40% which is *not* converted to heat. Decreases the demand for AC.
• It produces the most power precisely on the days when the demands on the grid is at its peak. (assuming warm/sunny areas) Which, is optimal if your goal is reducing the strain on the grid.

Re:transport losses?

[Eivind]

True, if you had enough solar-power to cover the entire grid, and surplus in addition to that, then producing hydrogen for vehicles would be fine.

Aslong as you're doing less than covering grid-use though, you're better of with a storage-mechanism that wastes less, such as pumping water to a magazine higher up.

You can store substantial amounts of power. If your magazine is 400 meter higher than the powerplant, then each additional cubic-meter of water up there contains 1Kwh. Thus, for example, the Veltdalslake (western Norway) with a size of about 12km^2 and 25 meters of regulation, at 1100m can store on the order of 900 million Kwh -- which counts as a substantial battery in my book. :-)

Re:transport losses?

[Eivind]

But that's just non-useful pedantry.

At a large enough distance, all things are the same. Which removes distinctions which in real life are useful.

For example, the phrase "renewable energy-source" actually has meaning. True, one can claim that *no* energy-source is renewable -- because entropy will always increase, and for example solar-power is nuclear, and infact the sun is going to run out of fuel at some point.

Or you could argue the oposite; that pretty much all energy-sources are renewable; oil coal and gas come from organic matter afterall, so given a long enough time, there's no reason why they shouldn't renew.

But this is just playing word-games. You've told nobody anything new with this. We're talking here and now and on human timescales.

Oil won't renew -- in the next 10, 100 or 1000 years. So for practical purposes it's non-renewable.

The sun won't run out of hydrogen the next 10, 100 or 1000 years, and furthermore it doesn't run out any faster if we install solar-cells. So for all practical purposes, the sun is a constant source of energy.

Re:transport losses?

[hcdejong]

Nuclear power is an inefficient method to create a buffer. You'll need to run the reactor at a significant power level to keep the steam circuit hot enough that you can start generating immediately. Starting up a cold reactor takes hours, so you're better off not shutting it down at all.
And even at low power levels, your fuel will keep fissioning merrily along, so in essence you're throwing away a finite resource. Also, your buffer will be significantly more expensive than the solar energy you're using as primary.

If you have an abundant source of renewable energy, you're better off using some of that to drive a buffer. Hydro buffer plants such as Dinorwig (see elsewhere in this discussion) have been shown to work well.

Re:transport losses?

[Dilaudid]

Over history oil prices have been inversely proportional to growth in GDP. Hence the parent logically concludes that reducing the price of energy will increase GDP i.e. the economy will grow. The people in the power industry may lose jobs - however the enormous reduction in costs in the manufacturing sector (boosting say the automobile manufacturing sector), the decreased cost of electricity (air conditioning unit sales would take off), and increased household disposable income (lower bills) would compensate this for most people.

Grid power would fall in price - because a) there is reduced demand for it (everyone is using their own panels) and b) supply would increase (people can sell the excess electricity from their panels back).

Re:transport losses?

[indifferent children]

Is energy really expensive enough to justify covering your house in solar cells?

Energy as we collect it now, has some non-obvious costs. What does pollution from burning fossil fuels cost us in terms of healthcare? What will sea-level rise cost us? (hint: NYC, LA, DC, Miami, New Orleans, Mobile, and others are very close to sea level, and those are just the US examples.) Would we really have spent $300B and 2,906 American lives (so far) in Iraq if we didn't need to "stabilize" the region that supplies most of our oil?

Part of every dollar that you pay in taxes, at the store, at the hospital, in fact pretty much everywhere, is an energy cost.

Re:transport losses?

[maxwell demon]

The problem with solar panels is PRICE. That is the nut that needs to be cracked. If a panel is only 10% efficient, but not much more expensive than a similar sized roofing slate, it suddenly becomes economical to re-roof the house the next time the roof needs attention. However, it's not even near that price. An 80 watt panel currently costs around GBP£250 which is fantastically expensive. There is no way I could even remotely afford solar roofing at those prices, however much I'd like it. The price per peak watt needs to be about a tenth of what it is now.
  According to the article, the new solar cells would cost about $3/watt. I don't really know the exchange rate between $ and £, but AFAIR it's about a factor of two. That would give £120 for an 80 watt panel. Still not 1/10th, but at least less than half the price.

Also note that in your calculation you also have to add the savings in electricity. That is, you don't have to have equal price to conventional roofing, but you have to have the equal proce of conventional roofing plus the saved payment of electricity in some reasonable amount of time. So if the money saved on your electricity bill in, say, the next three years makes up for the extra cost of solar cell roofing, it's still more profitable to do it. (Well, actually you'll also have to account for the interest you would have gotten for the money during that time, because the money you pay for electricity next year will still give interest this year, while the money you spent on the solar panel will not.)

Re:transport losses?

[maxwell demon]

Not all our energy is nuclear: Tidal power plants don't use nuclear power.

However it's quite obvious that the sun must be shut down as quickly as possible: First, as you aready said, it's using nuclear energy, and of course nuclear energy is known to be bad. But for the sun, it's not even abstract: The sun is known to continuously send radioactive radiation. Fortunately the earths magnetic field and atmosphere are saving us from most of it, but what if the magnetic field fails? Also note that we are already quite certain that the sun will end up destroying all life on earth when (not: if) it finally fails. So we really shouldn't tolerate such a dangerous nuclear reactor so close to earth. :-)

Re:transport losses?

[olyar]

I'm building a new house right now and will be putting on solar panels. Its an easy decision these days - at least in the part of California where I live.

I'll get about a quarter of the cost back in refunds from the power company right up front. The remaining cost (around $25k) will roll into my mortgage, which will increase it by around $100 per month (30 year mortage at 6%). My monthly electricity bills should be reduced by at least $150. It just makes sense.

The fact that I care about the environment just makes it an even better deal.

Re:transport losses?

[QuantumPion]

Not quite true. Lifetime on fuel rods is dependent on the number of fissions, not the time spent in the reactor. Control rods mediate the reaction or can shut it down nearly entirely. I have looked with "no joy" (unsuccessfully) for info on minimum power levels at nuke plants, my guess would be 5%-ish of maximum power just to keep the turbine spinning. There would also be some interconnect time if they're off-grid.

The minimum power a nuclear plant can produce electricity at is around 20%, but this is due to non-nuclear issues (turbine vibrations, steam quality, etc). As far as the reactor is concerned, you could theoretically run at 5% power indefinitely, however there are issues associated with running at less then 100% power for extended periods of time. What happens is that in order to run at low power, you have to use the control rods to control power level, but if you deplete the core with control rods in you create axial asymmetries.

Big nuke power plants are designed to be base load generating plants, running at 100% all the time. They are sensitive to making power changes on the fly and if you shut down completely, you can't go back online for a couple days due to xenon. However, there is no reason why you couldn't design a smaller reactor designed for peak loads or emergency use. It would work just like a naval reactor: compact, high power, and using highly enriched uranium.

A large solar collector would also..

[nullchar]

A large solar collector would also shade the ground and absorb the heat (energy) that the surrounding ground and air would normally receive. I guess, taking extra heat (energy) from one place, and adding it to lots of others may not be bad...

What about the cost in sending that energy down the wire? Would it be best to build one big-ass solar array? Or would it be better to distribute smaller collectors over a large area, even if the sunlight is not optimal?

Re:Cost is the issue

[GreyPoopon]

Very nice, but I'd rather see a reduction in cost per watt than an increase in efficiency.

By reducing the number of solar collectors needed or the area that needs to be covered, the installation costs are significantly reduced. The article indicates that this new technology could yield systems with installed costs of as little as $3 per watt.

where the facts?

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's a bit unclear what the article means by 40% efficient as the article seems to confuse the concentrator part of the solar cell with the multi-junction part. The concentrator doesn't make the device more efficient at converting solar radiation into electrical power, it just concentrates the light so you don't have to use as large of a device. The idea being that the solar cell material is expensive but the optics are relatively cheap, so you might as well focus as much light on the device as it will absorb and still function.

The multi-junction part comes from the idea that you can, using a solar cell, only extract as much energy from a photon as the size of something called the band gap of the material that the cell is made from. At the same time, a solar cell can only absorb photons with energies higher than the band gap. If the bandgap is small, as it is in silicon, then you can absorb most of the suns rays, but you can only get about 1 electronVolt of energy out of each one no matter how much energy the photon has. Since the bulk of photons emitted by the sun have more than 1 electronVolt of energy Si solar cells waste alot of the energy in sunlight as heat. If you make the solar cell out of a semiconductor with a larger bandgap then you absorb fewer photons (more of the solar spectrum lies below the critical energy for absorption) but you extract more energy from each photon. So, for a solar cell made from one material there is a sweet spot in terms of the bandgap that maximizes the energy extracted. Multi-junction cells try to overcome this by combining multiple devices with different bandgaps so that you can maximize both the total number of photons converted to electricity and the energy extracted from each photon.

Re:where the facts?

[frostband]

It's not necessary to do it that way. The way these multi-junction cells work is you have several layers of different semiconductor materials (with varying band gaps as the parent said). The material with the largest band gap is on top and the band gap of the material decreases as you go down the layers of the device. If a photon is not absorbed in the first layer (meaning the photon doesn't have very high energy, since, as the parent also said, the photon must have greater than the band gap energy to be absorbed), then it continues on to the next layer to be absorbed, then the next layer. This way, you are extracting the maximum amount of energy out of each photon.

That isn't a perfect explanation and any experts out there, please correct anything that's wrong.

Re:Cost is the issue

[Rinikusu]

Erm.. deserts are empty.. of what?

Lots of animals and wildlife flora/fauna live in the deserts. Many of which are endangered. Many of which provide valuable eco-service to the land around them. It might not be prudent to just blot out the sun with solar collectors and think everything's going to be okay.

I'd rather see these on rooftops, supplementing power sources in a more local fashion where their impact will be minimal.

Re:Cost is the issue

[dch24]

In addition, 40.7% is just a bump up from 39%, which (apparently) Spectrolab has been achieving for the better part of the year. They may be very close to high-volume production. Direct photovoltaic solar generation is an immediate revenue source, but solar energy can be directly applied for other processes, the most notable being desalination.

God, geeks are so incredibly stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Deserts are not empty. They have an ecosystem.

2. There is no reason at all to fill a desert with solar cells, and then transport the energy across to the other side of the planet. Solar cells are installed locally, like on your roof, or in your back yard, on every roof across the planet. Most of the electricity consumed would be as Direct Current right from your rooftop, with an inverter converting for those appliances you still insist on retaining that us AC.

3. For dense city sitatuions with high rises who's energy needs can not be met by rooftops, etc., electricity can be sent via conventional AC lines across the conventional power grid from say no more than 50 miles away. Not the other side of the world.

4. Those who produce an excess of electricity beyond their need, sell it into the grid.

Re:Downsides

[hcdejong]

That means you NEED enough GAS powerplants to power the whole world too, as they're the only type of power plant you can literally turn the dial and turn up the output.

No, they're not. Hydro plants can do this as well. The UK uses several hydro plants like Dinorwig to cover peak loads. Dinorwig can go from 0 to 1320 MW in 12 seconds, and has a peak output of about 1800 MW. It is built as an accumulator system, pumping water up the mountain at night (using excess capacity from nuclear and fossil fuel plants) so it doesn't depend on a huge water supply (river). Efficiency (W generated vs. W needed to pump the water up the mountain) is about 70%.

Re:Panels On The Roof

[Nasarius]

Contact your local power company. Many (such as LIPA) will pay for a large percentage of your costs.

Re:Here's an Idea

[MichaelSmith]

How about we build a ring or spherical grid of energy-collecting satellites around the Earth?

Its not exactly a new idea.

Re:Cost is the issue

[bogjobber]

Looks like someone needs a refresher course in ecology. Deserts are very rich and diverse zones. Remember, a desert isn't just sand dunes. Just because it isn't green and not many people live there (the US West/Southwest) doesn't mean it's a barren wasteland. Also, the reason why the desert isn't farmland is because there is no water. The thing preventing Nevada from being a rich agricultural region is a rather large mountain range, not too much sun. Unless you can find a way of getting more water to the desert (like the Northwest) then it isn't going to produce squat.

Besides, other areas of the country still receive sunshine. I bet when you take into account the costs of maintaining the transmission infrastructure as well as the risks associated with a centralized power source most of the solar stations would be stationed near population centers instead of concentrated in one area.

Re:Cost is the issue

[hankwang]

It wasn't all that long ago that the electricity needed just to melt the silicon was more energy than the cell would generate throughout it's entire lifetime (they do degrade over time).

I don't know about how long ago you are talking, but the Energy return on investment varies between a factor 4 and a factor 17 for current solar cells, rather than a number below 1 as you are suggesting.

Gallium Nitride

[GanjaManja]

A student at The Univ. of California, Santa Barbara just presented research showing the use of multi-junction devices using Gallium Nitride. This is awesome because Nitride materials are very well suited for a HUGE amount of the sun's radiation, and since he managed to perfect a way of sticking several layers of differently absorbing Nitride Materials together in ONE device, we could theoretically see solar cells that absorb the Entire spectrum of the sun's rays in the near future!

Here's some links:

Indium-Gallium-Nitride can be made to absorb the entire spectrum of solar rays:
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-fu ll-spectrum-solar-cell.html

Tunnel Junctions - this is how you stick together many different layers of material, each layer with their own optimal absorption range (in terms of wavelength, aka. color):
http://www.hitachi-cable.co.jp/ICSFiles/afieldfile /2005/11/28/review07.pdf
(sorry, this is the best I could do, there was no simple paper explaining a tunnel junction. "tunnel" is for electron tunneling...)

In essence, you have different layers that absorb only one range of wavelengths (colors of light), and whatever isn't absorbed goes straight through, and the next layer absorbs another range, etc. etc.

As an aside, did you ever wonder how blue LEDs & lasers finally managed to get working? Nitrides paved the way for emission (and absorption) in a range of visible wavelengths, including blue. This is also why they're great for this application.

Why is there a need to transport?

[kiddailey]

Why not just start making it mandatory for every high-rise and large-roof building structure to be covered with a certain percentage of solar cells that power part of the building during the day and feed the rest back into the grid? After all, the concrete and steel aren't doing anything with the sun.

It seems to me that if we had started doing this years ago it may have a) reversed some of our energy problems and b) potentially made solar panels more affordable so I could cover my home's roof with them.

Thermal is slow to start - but you can be prepared

[dbIII]

Actually - that's not true at all. Coal fired plants using pulverized coal can do so

It takes quite a few hours to build up steam from a cold start and it wears everything out quickly by thermal fatigue if you have a lot of restarts. What does happen is something called spinning reserve where coal is being burned and the turbines are spinning but the generators are not connected. The generators can be attached by a very large clutch and more pulverised coal can be fed in to bring things up quickly - I'm too out of touch to know how quickly now and worked in new plants of an old design. With hydro you just turn on the tap and things happen quickly - thermal needs time (which includes oil and nuclear too for people who forget that nuclear is stream power).

Anyway - the troll way above was doing the "one true energy" thing which you only get from idiots or salesfolk. Just becuase photovoltaics are not a drop in replacement for every base load power source on earth does not make them useless. In remote areas they have proven themselves for decades.

Re:PROGRESS WE BE SCREWED!

[Silverstrike]

Solar cells will come down in price too, of course, and presumably get more efficient.

Yea, if only they could manage that! We could have a spirited argument on Slashdot article about it!

vandals could easily damage your solar cells

Well, when they're making them more efficent (sometime in the future, obviously), they could also work on making them indestructible as well! Like my windows.

They'd also become less efficient over time and likely just need repair from general aging problems, and in the end you're probably losing more money than by using national power.

Yes! Obviously they'll go bad, because everything has a short lifespan....ya know, like my house's foundation. It's only got 6 months left!

Ok, ok, enough of that. Seriously though. Did you read the SUMMARY? Did it even occur that maybe you should look up the lifespan of a solar panel before MAKING UP statistics? (40+ years, according to a cursory Google Search for "solar panel lifespan"

Please stop, its just painful.

Re:Cost is the issue

[Alioth]

At current prices, you'll need a little more than 6 months on your mortgage. Assuming you're in Britain, which by the usage of your language is probably reasonable...

I bought an 80 watt peak solar panel in the summer, basically as a fun project and to investigate the practicality of generating some of my own electricity. Here is how it works out, using a monocrystalline panel (the most efficient panel commercially available at present):

Peak power is produced only within about an hour or so each side of mid day on a bright, cloudless, hazeless sunny day.
Three hours before or after mid day, the unit produces about 50% of peak.
Five hours before or after mid day, the unit produces around 10-15% of peak
At mid day, summer time haze with 10 miles visibility will cut output to around 80% of peak
At mid day, with thin cirrus clouds (still bright sunshine), output is around 50%
At mid day, on a bright cloudy day where shadows are still cast, output is around 15%
At mid day, on an overcast day, output is generally 5% or less.
In the winter, I've never seen the unit capable of producing more than about 25% of peak on the brightest winters day.

All in all, the average output even in the summer will only be 5% of peak (because of night time, and cloudy days). Winter time is even worse. So if you want to make sure you have an average of 200 watts - which really isn't a lot, but if you can store it or put it back on the grid it'll make your house more or less neutral in terms of the electricity you use, if you have the normal domestic cycle of being out and not using much electricity during the day. To get that average of 200 watts, you'll need 4000 watts peak of solar panels.

80 watt panels cost (in quantity) around £250 a piece. That'll cost you £12,500 *just* for the panels, without a grid tied inverter and storage system or installation (probably another 4 to 6 grand) - to get a measly average of 200 watts - i.e. just enough to power one Pentium 4 computer continuously. It's simply not worth doing at all unless you can put it back on the grid (not many electricity companies let you do that - yet), or store it in batteries - since if you have a normal domestic cycle, while your solar panels are producing near peak you will be away from the house and letting three or four thousand watts go wanting. You'll probably need three grand's worth of batteries if you can't sell back to the grid - and even deep cycle leisure batteries are going to need replacing at least once every 10 years. This is for a system which will only work reasonably well in the summer. In the winter, when the days are short and you need the most power, it'll hardly contribute anything - perhaps you'll get 50 watts average from £12,500 worth of solar panels.

If solar panels were 1/10th of the price they are now - yes, it'd be worth it. I'm waiting for the breakthrough in price, not efficiency (if the efficiency brings the breakthrough in price all the better). Even a moderate sized south facing roof - I've calculated just my shed roof replaced with solar panels could produce 1kW peak - is large enough for a decent peak output using current monocrystalline panels. Price is everything. If I could get the panels at 10% of what they cost now, you bet my shed roof (my only south facing roof) would be covered by the spring. But at the current price point? It's simply not affordable for the meagre amount of electricity you get. It's a shame because the panels aren't visually intrusive and they are silent and almost maintenance free, unlike wind turbines. I really really want solar panels to be worthwhile - but at the moment - at current prices, they simply aren't.

Grandpa was a Buggy Whip Salesmen

[maggard]

Actually, my Grandfather was a buggy whip salesmen.

After returning from The Great War, WWI, he was disabled (indeed he'd been declared dead & in the morgue at one point - mustard gas.) The job he could get was selling buggy whips, and his territory was the US Midwest & Canada. He was away from home for long stretches of time, and as you can imagine had some pretty amazing tales to tell of traveling to remote ccommunities back when travel was HARD.

However he saw the car taking over and once he'd saved up enough money he did the smart thing: Opened a service station.

Later it went bust in the Great Depression. He then started again, in putting in power lines, then power plants, and eventually became VP of a a large construction firm and responsible for many of the major structures still standing in Kansas City including the Liberty Memorial, Nelson Gallery, and the Starlight Theatre.

The point is, he really was in the buggy whip business and when the new technologies came in he adapted and took advantage of them. Then when the bust came he reinvented himself again and took his skills and when into an entirely new career. Not a new high-tech story, rather from a fella raised in a sod hut in the Oklahoma Territory where buffalo were a constant threat.

Re:Grandpa was a Buggy Whip Salesmen

[anvilmark]

Thank you for so graphically describing how a small % of people can come to own the vast majority of the world's wealth, the subject of another discussion.
Circumstance dealt him a series of "losing" hands, but he didn't bitch and moan and expect someone else to "make it right". He worked, very hard I'm betting, and became wealthy.

Based on what's I've read in that other discussion, he must have been a very wicked and greedy man.

I salute him.

Solar is already cheaper in some areas

[NatteringNabob]

once you count the infrastructure costs. I own an off-grid second home which is about 3000ft from the nearest power pole. The cost to extend the power to our house is estimated by PG&E at about $20/ft, so about $60,000 to get to our house, and that is *after* you have negotiated an easement over the neighboring properties. By contrasts, a complete off-grid systems run about $10000/KW, so you can have a nice 3KW system for about $30K, or 1/2 the price, and the 'generation' cost after that is the cost of replacing the lead/acid batteries, which, unfortunately, are still the best storage alternative. Yes, it only works in places where there is a lot of sunlight, and you still need a generator for night and winter months, and it helps a lot to have all florescent lights (which, fortunately has also improved dramatically). The fact of the matter is that once everything is factored in, solar already looks pretty good. If you factor in the cost of things like conquering oil producing states (as well as the cost of maintaining a military large enough to do so at any time), solar is an absolute bargain.