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Bigger, Cheaper Solar Cells
Phenombecile800 writes "First Solar, a start-up from Arizona, is making photovoltaic cells at a fraction of the usual cost. Their secret: increasing the light-catching area 'from postage-stamp to traffic-sign dimensions,' reducing the manufacturing time to 1/10th of the competition's, and thinning the active element to 1/100th the usual thickness over a glass substrate, which enables the production of large panels. IEEE Spectrum provides some technical details about the production process. 'Glass is placed on rollers and fed into the first chamber, where it is heated to 600 C. Then it is transferred into the second chamber, which is full of cadmium sulfide vapor, formed by heating solid CdS to 700 C. The vapor forms a submicrometer deposit on the glass as it moves through this cloud, after which a similar process in a third chamber adds a layer of micrometers-thick CdTe in about 40 seconds. Then a gust of nitrogen gas rapidly cools the panels to 300 C in a fourth chamber, strengthening the material so that it can withstand hail and high winds.'"
Idiot, the OIL is PROVEN, it's there!! The others are (excepting wind) still in the lab or low rate intial production. I've been around long enough to know reality from fantasy. If you think the Chi-Comms are not holding oil leases in Cuba you need to get your news from someplace besides the NY Slimes. Rudy was another New York centered idiot just like you. Are you a flack for some green-energy venture fund or something? So fucking what about Houston, light rail in the places I mention cover maybe 40% of the city, and buses maybe 70%. I bet you money in Houston you had a car didn't you? So what are millions of Americans supposed to do with houses they can't sell because you think they should move to town? Just because you CHOSE to live close to work you now think you should FORCE all Americans to live close to work to say energy? What if I don't want to send my kids to a crappy school system or put up with crime and pollution. (oh yea you never did mention how we manfacture all these technologies without OIL) You are a idiot left wing dumbasss Obama plant who has no fucking clue how things work in the 95% of America outside the city. Of course that makes you an expert on /. Just play in NYC traffic, I don't have time to waste on idiots like you, I need to get in my SUV to go get some gas to mow my 1 acre front yard and so some work in my garden.