What Gore Didn't Say About Solar Cells

AmericanInKiev writes "Computer World posted a piece on Al Gore and his claim that solar cells will improve at the same rate as microprocessors. Vinod Khosla on the other hand has expressed disappointment that the doubling rate for price/performance of PV is 10 years rather than 18 months for transistors. Which of these two has the facts on their side?" Before anyone has him inventing the Internet again, note that Gore's claim as related in the article is much milder than that Moore's Law applies to solar cells per se -- namely, he's quoted as saying "We're now beginning to see the same kind of sharp cost reductions as the demand grows for solar cells." An optimistic statement, but not a flat-out silly one.

Comments

Al Gore and the Internet

[Bruce Perens]

On 9 March 1999, Gore gave an interview for CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, in which he stated: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."[95] UCLA professor of information studies, Philip E. Agre[96][97] and journalist Eric Boehlert[98] both argue that three articles in Wired News led to the creation of the widely spread urban legend[99] that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet," which followed this interview. The urban legend became "an automatic laugh. Jay Leno, David Letterman, or any other comedic talent can crack a joke about Al Gore 'inventing the Internet,' and the audience is likely to respond with howls of laughter."[100]

In response to the controversy, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn argued that, "We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he 'invented' the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet."[101] In addition, Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, stated: "In all fairness, it's something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is -- and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a "futures group" -- the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the '80s began to actually happen." - Wikipedia

Re:Al Gore and the Internet

[Sparky McGruff]

According to Snopes.com, in addition to speaking about the importance of the nascent internet before it was widely used, Al Gore

sponsored the 1988 National High-Performance Computer Act (which established a national computing plan and helped link universities and libraries via a shared network) and cosponsored the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 (which opened the Internet to commercial traffic).

He did not, however, write the Commodore 64 port of GOPHER, nor did he start up his own ISP in his basement. But it does look like he did play a role in supporting the building of a robust nationwide backbone for data traffic, and allowing those outside research institutions and the military to have access to it.

Re:Al Gore and the Internet

[GWBasic]

Somehow I doubt that Al Gore played a significant role in democratizing the information age. That role would fall to a new category of leaders. And I think you of all people should know :)

Al Gore was instrumental in securing funding for the development of the internet. One can infer that the internet was always intended to eventually make its way to public use based on its initial test: The initial test involved VOIP! (You can see the truck used for testing the internet at the Computer History Museum. http://www.computerhistory.org/events/index.php?id=1191351626)

Furthermore, if you take the time to watch the video, you can listen to Vint Cerf's attitude towards internet. The internet was a way to make multiple networks talk to each other. Vint seemed to indicate that he always pushed for IP to be the protocol used to connect different networks together, which is why it beat OSI.

Thus, I think we can infer that there was always an intent to make the internet public and we can thank Al Gore for helping to fund its development. That's what Vint seems to indicate.

Re:Here we Go....

[AmericanInKiev]

37% is available. Oh did I mention they cost 100 times as much ;)

Re:it's not a huge stretch

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted, he never said "I invented the internet", but it's not hard to get that from "I took the initiative in creating the internet". What he presumably meant was something like "I took the initiative in starting programs that ultimately led to the creation of the internet", which is sort of what the following sentence more vaguely tries to say. But just the flat-out "I took the initiative in creating the internet" does read like a claim that he, well, created the internet.

Actually it's a language issue that created a misunderstanding of intent. In Congressional terms initiative means starting the process and has nothing to do with creation. He was instrumental in establishing the the environment that made the internet possible. No one ever argued what he said they used the spin and ignored the facts. Everyone got a good laugh out of their own ignorance of how the Congress works and it cost him the election and got us eight years of Bush. Was a joke made at his expense really worth eight years of Bush? It was really a misunderstanding of terminology not a wild claim made by Gore so is it still funny? Would there have been a joke in it if he had instead said I helped write and push through a Bill that set the ground work for the internet? Just not as funny as twisting his words. This may have been the most expensive laugh in history. It was the 4 to 6 trillion dollar laugh so I hope the people who thought the misunderstanding was funny got their money's worth. He never once said "invented" the comedians and Republicans did but everyone foolishly went along with it and sadly Gore waited too long to correct the error.

They'll improve at the same rate as LCD panels

[Animats]

Applied Materials, the largest maker of semiconductor fab machinery, makes fab gear for solar panels. Their CEO likes to show graphs of cost per watt vs. year, and there's a steady decline, at roughly the same rate as LCD panels. Applied Materials solar cell fabs are using technology borrowed from LCD panel fab, and they're now making 5 square meters of panel at a time. The machinery for manufacturing such huge panels is appropriately large, and that's part of what's bringing the cost down. Despite much hype, no single improvement has produced a big drop in panel cost. But the cumulative effect of continuous improvement is working.

Applied Materials people make the point that installation is now half the cost of the completed solar system, and the solar industry needs to move beyond the "guy with a pickup truck" level of installation. Bigger panels reduce installation cost, and they're working on panels that are roofs themselves, instead of being installed on top of roofs.

The actual rate of price drop is maybe a factor of 2 per decade. Which isn't bad. As the Applied Materials solar division head says, "This is a great business. Everybody else's costs are going up, and ours are going down. And we're nowhere near market saturation."

Re:Here we Go....

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to get so fancy. Normal lenses ("concentrators") and used with high-efficiency triple-junction cells to collect light from a large area (see Emcore's page for an example). In fact these cells perform better with higher intensity light anyways.
Fraunhofer is using a slightly different approach that looks to get better and better as light intensity increases: article