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.'"

Comments

The old green question

[gilgongo]

It's probably unanswerable, but I wonder how much energy it takes to make these cells, and how long it takes for them to offset that?

Re:The old green question

[ScrewMaster]

On the other hand, that's not the only criteria for using solar power. The upfront cost of the physical plant is significant of course, as are maintenance costs and the payback period. However, if widespread use of solar reduces overall environmental impact and lowers petroleum consumption it might still be worth it, even if the cells themselves are expensive.

What everyone seems to be waiting for is a cost-per-watt that is low enough so that ordinary people will decide to start buying them in large quantities without government subsidization. Suppose you're having a new house built: if you could install a ten or fifteen kilowatt solar plant and inverter for ten grand, you might figure it's worth it to borrow a little more money from the bank. I think we'll see more of that as our distribution grid continues to deteriorate and utility power becomes less and less reliable.

Re:The old green question

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably unanswerable, but I wonder how much energy it takes to make these cells, and how long it takes for them to offset that?

We can answer anyway without even RTFA. The summary says that the cells are made out of glass (not hewn out of a crystalline ingot of silicon). Assuming 10% efficiency and 20% availability of sunlight (due to weather and geometry), you get approx 20W/m^2, or 1 kWh every two days.

Given that glass beer bottles cost a few cents each, a square meter of glass probably takes no more than a few dozen kWh of energy to produce. Even if the vapor deposition doubles or triples that, you still would end up with an energy surplus after just a couple of months of operation.

Re:The old green question

[ProfessionalCookie]

Maybe it makes sense to have a solar powered solar panel plant.

Re:The old green question

[Animats]

The head of Applied Materials solar division said in a talk at Stanford last year that their solar panels took two years of their own output in energy to make. They hope to get the energy breakeven point down to six months. He said the sputtering process they use in coating is energy-inefficient, and they're trying to develop something better.

Total installed energy cost is probably higher. Home solar installations are about 50% installation cost. The big open-field installations are cheaper; they have economies of scale.

Forbes mentions that Mojave Desert real estate is becoming more valuable because many companies want to build solar facilities there. There's plenty of space in California, Nevada, and Arizona for solar panels.

Mike Splinter of Applied Materials (the largest maker of semiconductor fab gear) likes to say "Everybody else's costs (in the energy business) are going up, and ours are going down. We're nowhere near market saturation. This is a great business for us."

Re:The old green question

[vertinox]

It's probably unanswerable, but I wonder how much energy it takes to make these cells, and how long it takes for them to offset that?

From my understanding, current systems (with tax rebate) pay for itself in 10 years at current prices from the end users standpoint.

However, if say conventional energy prices double again in the next 5 years, then solar panels will have payed for themselves in a much less of a time frame even without the rebate.

I think its a misnomer about how much any energy it takes to make something because the price of energy itself fluctuates with time. Lets say it might take 10 barrels of oil to create one solar panel that produces 1 barrel of energy a year saving which will pay itself off in 10 years but if oil costs $100 last year and $200 in the next 5, then your $1,000 system now is worth $2,000 and your system is creating the equivalent of $200 worth of energy saved a year therefore paying itself off in 5 years.

Hope that made sense. I'm sure the numbers are no where like that though.

Seeing that the price of sunlight is less volatile than the price oil or coal, one could really gamble that peak oil will make any investments into solar pay for itself in short order in the next decade.

Re:The old green question

[rah1420]

What everyone seems to be waiting for is a cost-per-watt that is low enough so that ordinary people will decide to start buying them in large quantities without government subsidization.

You won't see it from FSLR, unfortunately. Their output is currently (no pun intended) earmarked for commercial ventures only, no retail/residential sales. Pity. Hope that changes.

Re:The old green question

[djarum72]

Article gives the size of the glass, and some temps, so it may just be answerable. Googling for: how much energy does it take to manufacture glass, 5 hit (no direct link since its a f***in word doc)

The Recipe For 1 Ton Of Glass (Resources)
                      1300 Pounds Sand

                          400 Pound Soda Ash

                          400 Pounds Limestone

                          150 Pounds Feldspar

                  24000 Gallons Water

                      4400 KWH of Energy

So, 4400 KWH per ton.

How much do the panels weigh?

(.6 m) * (1.1 m) * (.5 cm) * (2 500 (kg / (m^3))) = 8.25 kilograms

(8.25 kilograms) * 4 400 (KWh / ton) = 144 Mj

Apart from making the glass, there is heating the glass, heating the cadmium sulfur and telluride, mining all those chemicals, etc.

Glass specific heat is .84 J/g K.

(.84 (J / g)) * 8.25 kg * 580 = 4 019 400 joules

So I've calculated 148Mj for the glass manufacture and heating.
Ignoring the cadmium, sulpher, telluride chemical mining, what do you get out of it?

(85 watts) * 25 years = 6.7 Ã-- 10^10 joules

How much coal is that? http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99187.htm

6.7E10 joules) / (4.11E6 (joules / pound)) = 7 400 kg

Remember how I ignored the energy of mining those chemicals?
How does the energy compare for mining the GRAMS it would take to deposit a film of telluride compares to the energy for mining TONS of coal.

The answer to what you did ask, at least for the glass + heating, is pretty easy to answer:
(148E6 / 85) * s = 480 hours. Less than a month.

Re:The old green question

[c1t1z3nk41n3]

Don't forget the CdS and CdTe. Where do those come from? Are they expensive or cheap to make (regarding both energy and cost)? Hopefully they are cheap enough that your analysis holds cause we've been told for too many years that solar power is going to be a viable option and I hope it's finally about to come true.

Re:The old green question

[ScrewMaster]

You know, in this case you may be right. Depends upon how tolerant the process is of power failures. Plants producing silicon wafers really need stable power, but this process might be different. If nothing else, lower power requirements might mean that solar could be effectively used to offset utility costs.

Re:The old green question

[hedwards]

That's to be expected, selling to commercial or retail buyers allows them to sell in much higher quantities, plus those buyers are more likely to need larger ones as well.

Ultimately, whomever they sell to, if you're living in an area where the panels are being installed you're still going to be getting benefits from the advance, even if it's a small reduction in the price of electricity and pollution.

There isn't likely any reason why somebody couldn't buy in bulk to provide to home owners, it looks to me far more like a disinterest in direct marketing than a wish to not allow small scale sales.

Re:The old green question

[Lonewolf666]

What everyone seems to be waiting for is a cost-per-watt that is low enough so that ordinary people will decide to start buying them in large quantities without government subsidization.

And that is exactly what you need in countries that don't have a subsidization program. In the USA, I can see some of the more "green" states like California providing subsidies, but the current federal government seems more inclined to support the petroleum industry. How much change Obama would bring remains to be seen.

So a cost-per-watt that doesn't need subsidies will be an important step forward in making solar power widespread. A deteriorating distribution grid will also do its part, especially if the cost-per-watt-hour of batteries decreases. Here I guess that new Li-Ion chemistries will do their part when more manufacturers make them and competition kicks in.

Re:The old green question

[und0]

I've read somewhere that cadmium is a byproduct of zinc refining/smelting, tellurium instead seems pretty rare (according to Wikipedia)...

Re:The old green question

[bcrowell]

What everyone seems to be waiting for is a cost-per-watt that is low enough so that ordinary people will decide to start buying them in large quantities without government subsidization. Suppose you're having a new house built: if you could install a ten or fifteen kilowatt solar plant and inverter for ten grand, you might figure it's worth it to borrow a little more money from the bank.

A couple of things to keep in mind here:

1. The cost per watt is already low enough that it makes sense for a lot of people, like me, to buy photovoltaics. It depends on what latitude you live at, how much sunny weather you get, which way your roof faces, how much shade there is on your roof, what the local price of electricity is, and what you expect the local price of electricity to be over the 25-year life of a photovoltaic system.
2. When you talk about government subsidies, you should do an apples-to-apples comparison with the alternative, which is typically electricity that comes from burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels enjoy massive government subsidies here in the U.S. We've fought three extremely expensive wars recently in the middle east, and I don't think we would have been involved in any of those wars if there hadn't been oil there; my grandkids will be paying for my generation's deficit-funded oil wars. There's also a huge amount of environmental damage done by burning fossil fuels, and that damage affects both this generation and future generations. If people paid the real costs of that environmental damage up front, then gas would be a lot more expensive. In places like Europe that don't subsidize fossil fuels as much, gas costs about twice what it does in the U.S.

Re:The old green question

[Khyber]

Well, if they were made by solar-powered plants, we wouldn't have to worry about that,would we?

Re:The old green question

[Artraze]

> Given that glass beer bottles cost a few cents each, a square meter of glass probably takes no more than a few dozen kWh....

This isn't beer bottle glass though. Beer bottles are generally blown out of recycled glass, while panel glass is produced by floating clear glass (generally not recycled) floated on molten zinc. Point being that the process is considerably more energy intensive than an equivalent number of beer bottles.

Now, they probably could get away with cheap recycled glass (i.e. brown, like beer bottles) and use a low power continuous vapor deposition system if/when these get mass produced, but in their current state I'd wouldn't be surprised if the break-even point is around 1.5 years.

Re:The old green question

[ScrewMaster]

No argument ... plus if you look at the whole picture of government subsidies, the tax breaks the oil outfits received should also be counted.

Re:The old green question

[Firethorn]

there's plenty of motivation to eat that delta in profit, especially for a public company as in this case.

And said profit can be used to expand the company- increase production, research increasing efficiency and decreasing costs, not to mention paying back the investors.

Making mad money can also encourage others to get into the industry.

After all, the market for $2/watt panels is likely 4X that of $4/watt panels. And orders of magnitude more if they can manage to make $1/watt panels - installed, since that's the price point for commercial power parity.

Though if you start digging into baseband power too much, the cost for commercial power will rise. Of course, peak power demands for most of the country happen during the day, so having a supplemental power source during the day helps.

Re:The old green question

[phoenixwade]

Also, note that each step requires energy generation itself, therefore forming a recursive chain (i.e. it takes energy to produce energy). Since many of these don't terminate at renewable energy, at least for now, you'll have to factor in the contribution of the appropriate fossil fuel, nuclear, & natural gas energy production chains.

I have always wondered that engineers design systems that expend energy to heat and then to cool things during the manufacturing process.

Why? I mean I was discussing water purification the other day with someone and they mentioned the restrictively high energy cost of using the distillation process as a means of purifying / desalinating water.

Why is that? I mean once you have high temp water and you need it to be low temp water, and you have more water that needs to be high temp water why not transfer the energy from the now distilled water to the needs to be distilled water. Energy requirements in that case are equal to energy lost to transfer efficiency constraints.

This is just one example, and one that is easy to demonstrate, but examples of these kind of energy losses exist everywhere, and I've never quite understood why. Why don't we capture all that heat energy and put it back into the system, with energy costs being what they are, it has to be cost effective to do this.

Re:The old green question

[Colin Smith]

Why don't we capture all that heat energy and put it back into the system

Nope. It costs less to burn more fuel than it does to improve the process...

HTH.
 

Re:The old green question

[infolib]

Why is that? I mean once you have high temp water and you need it to be low temp water, and you have more water that needs to be high temp water why not transfer the energy from the now distilled water to the needs to be distilled water. Energy requirements in that case are equal to energy lost to transfer efficiency constraints.

The principle is well known and called "regeneration" - you pass the incoming fluid through a heat exchanger with the outgoing fluid. For instance it's mentioned here in connection with the important Haber-Bosch ammonia process. It's also used by penguins to keep them from losing heat from the bloodstream through their feet! If the engineers are not doing it, they are really really poorly educated, or they have some decent reason. I suspect mainly the latter...

Re:The old green question

[Al Dimond]

It's not poo-pooing. If a cell takes more energy to create than the total expected output in life, then the first batch of cells can't supply the energy to create the second batch. Some analyses claim this true of small residential wind turbines, for example; it's also historically been true of solar cells. If that was the case with these cells they'd be basically useless. They'd be an energy sink, not an energy source.

For example. If the company wasn't selling anything, but just building panels for itself, say it takes 12J to build a panel that yields 10J over its entire life. For the first batch they burn 12J worth of coal for energy. For the second they use the first batch's energy plus 2J more worth of coal. And every subsequent batch requires 2J-worth more of coal to be burned. And this is a company that's producing nothing. If they're selling each time also to a consumer that will get 10J out of it, they'll need to build two panels per batch, requiring 24J of energy. Since they're only getting 10J from the ones they keep around, they'll need to burn 14J-worth of coal per year -- more than the 10J the consumer would have used if not for the cell. Better would be the company just burning coal to make its cells and then selling them -- only 12J of yearly coal burned. Better still would be the consumer just burning 10J-worth of coal.

That's not moving forward. If the company can sell the product for enough money to cover its expenses then it can survive doing this, even though this means the consumer is probably making a cost-ineffective decision when buying it (unless energy is a lot cheaper for the company than for the consumer, which, in different areas, is certainly possible). If the government subsidizes a company operating as an energy sink it may become a cost-effective option for consumers, and consumers with good financial sense and lots of space will buy tons of them, making it a gigantic energy sink, with much more coal burned than before.

Given that these cells are cheap, maybe they've found a way to make them an energy source instead of a sink. In that case, all that stuff you said works.

Re:The old green question

[Bender_]

Making mad money can also encourage others to get into the industry.

The solar cell industry is already incredibly bloated and does not even obey real economic rules due to high subsidies.

Re:The old green question

[budgenator]

More likely these installations will use the good old Nickel-Iron battery

In many respects the Nickel/Iron battery was almost "too good." A battery that lasts for decades in many cases can outlast the equipment that it was originally designed to power. So from an economic standpoint lead acid, NiCd and other technologies have been deemed "good enough" and are the predominant technologies in use today even though they do not last as long as a Nickel/Iron counterpart. Nickel-Iron battery

These batteries do have limitations that make them less suitable for vehicular use such as

low specific energy, poor charge retention, and poor low-temperature performance.

since a residential or commercial solar pv installation is stationary, specific energy isn't a concern, the charge will only be needed to pull you through a night or a couple cloudy days and the batteries will be stored in a climate controlled area so they should be awesome for the task.

Re:The old green question

[Locutus]

the problem is that they are only getting about 10% conversion efficiency out of their panels. What this means is that you'll need more square footage of panels than say 15% efficient panels. That means more roof space, more racks/rails, and more panels with all their frames and wiring.

they say a theoretical 20% efficiency is obtainable but when you have subsidized orders out to 2012, it will only the the competition that'll force them to try harder to get the efficiencies up. Right now, they are making money and looking to expand manufacturing.

LoB

Re:The old green question

[indifferent children]

Is the solar cell industry more "bloated" than the oil industry? The US government gives somewhere between $15B and $35B in subsidies to the oil industry. That doesn't include indirect benefits like our half-trillion-dollar-per-year military guaranteeing shipping, keeping some countries oil off the market for years, and then paving the way for American oil companies to break into distorted markets. Is it any wonder that solar "can't compete" with fossil fuels?

Re:Great big solar cells?

[UnknowingFool]

The story doesn't say larger is better per se. The story says that these cells are cheaper because they can be manufactured on a different scale. The most efficient solar cells are unfortunately only in labs at the moment and may not make it to consumers because of cost. Such it is with a lot of technology. The efficiency/cost ratio is important for more widespread adoption of solar technology.

their tech

[opencity]

Cadmium Telluride is also a direct bandgap semiconductor which yields more watts per kg than the indirect bandgap semiconductor materials. Solar cells become less efficient at converting solar energy into electricity as their temperatures increase but Cadmium Telluride is less susceptible to cell temperature increases than traditional semiconductors generating relatively more electricity under high ambient temperatures. It's also more efficent at converting low and diffuse light to electricity more efficiently than conventional cells under cloudy weather and dawn and dusk conditions.

They also have a recycling plan in place for the lifetime of the product - somewhat at odds with the traditional landfill methods of yore. But, no retail. They don't sell to individuals and only deal with utility companies. Finance trivia: Their stock has grown spectacularly since the IPO and there is a large investment from the Walton family (insert TV joke here)

Re:their tech

[ScrewMaster]

Their stock has grown spectacularly since the IPO and there is a large investment from the Walton family (insert TV joke here)

G'night, John-boy.

Obama's "Manhattan Project" On Alternative Energy

[curmudgeon99]

We should not spend another penny aiding or abetting the Petroleum industry. Every penny of public-funded research should go towards research of alternatives to oil and gasoline.

• Electromagnetic energy taken from the ionosphere/
• Seawater desalination by solar-cell-powered electrolosis, generating hydrogen.
• Vast swaths of the Western US need to get covered with wind farms.

Oil is yesterday. McCain is so old school he can only imagine increasing the supply of oil. What he and the GOP don't like is the obvious need to encourage commuting by bicycle and public transit--as we have here in NYC--so that people like me can gleefully sell their cars and live without one. This style of low-impact life, where you're not always dragging around a big metal car with you, does not offer as many profit opportunities. Corporations don't like a low-stuff life because they can't take as much of our money away, then.

Re:Great big solar cells?

[maxume]

So what you are saying is that you want solar panels that are powered by the dark?

Re:Obama's "Manhattan Project" On Alternative Ener

[ScrewMaster]

Hey. I like my stuff.

Re:Obama's "Manhattan Project" On Alternative Ener

[Lije Baley]

Thanks for yet another dose of eastern urban bigotry. -1 Redundant.

Re:Obama's "Manhattan Project" On Alternative Ener

[curmudgeon99]

You have the right to your stuff--if you're willing to pay out the ass for it. That's what it's coming to, you know. NYC nearly implemented congestion pricing like London already has. That means you would have had to pay $11.00 just to enter Lower Manhattan. Owning a car is not going to get cheaper. Let the market convince you that you don't need your stuff. That's the American way.

Their secret: unrevealed

[StrawberryFrog]

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

So, what's the secret to their secret?

Environmental impact of cadmium?

[BlueParrot]

So how much cadmium is needed, and how much leaks during the manufacturing process? Given that the opposition to nuclear power worries about toxic materials that decay with time, one would imagine there would be some concern about carcinogens that remain a danger forever, and cannot be destroyed.

Re:Environmental impact of cadmium?

[the eric conspiracy]

Cadmium is nasty stuff. The primary human exposure to cadmium is cigarette smoke. Not so much from industrial uses such as batteries, pigments etc.

There is some history of cadmium in run off water from mines causing cadmium poisoning in Japan. Cadmium poisoning is known and ouch-ouch disease. It is so painful that people don't die from it, they commit suicide first.

Re:Environmental impact of cadmium?

[quercus.aeternam]

Well, if this 'cadmium' "can't be destroyed", why don't we just stop production?

I would be very interested in hearing about anyone's efforts to stop the production of cadmium.

Re:The old black question

[dubbayu_d_40]

What's a better use of oil, making persistent sources of energy, or driving to 7-11 for nachos?

Re:Article in two sentances:

[D. Taylor]

Maybe you should have spent two hours reading the article - you might summarize it correctly then.

The article states that current silicon photocells sell for around $3-$4 per watt.

The new CdS/CdTe cells cost $1.14/W to produce and sell for $2.45/W.

To reach "grid parity" they need to reduce the manufacturing costs to $0.60-$0.75/W and increase efficiency from "over 10 percent" to over 12 percent. The maximum theoretical efficiency for CdTe cells is over 20% and cells with an efficiency of 16.5% have already been made.

Arizona!

[copponex]

Well, a smart idea would be to move all of our high tech manufacturing to the hottest deserts we have. You can build earth sheltered factories to save on A/C, cover the roof and surrounding area with solar panels for virtually unlimited electrical supply, bury some flywheel energy storage to keep necessities going at night. If solar panels turn out to be unsustainable, simpler thermal power plants could be used.

You have an endless supply of sand for glass and silicon. You make non-perishable goods that can be moved out slowly and efficiently (solar/thermal powered electric rail or whatever). To make it really sustainable you could use the same transportation to import recycled or recyclable plastics for the rest.

Our current answer is using fuel that's guaranteed to run out. We should shop direct for our energy.

Re:Arizona!

[TubeSteak]

Well, a smart idea would be to move all of our high tech manufacturing to the hottest deserts we have. You can build earth sheltered factories to save on A/C, cover the roof and surrounding area with solar panels for virtually unlimited electrical supply, bury some flywheel energy storage to keep necessities going at night. If solar panels turn out to be unsustainable, simpler thermal power plants could be used.

You're forgetting one thing: water

Hi-tech industry is insanely thirsty and water is the one thing you will not be finding in the dessert.

Re:Obama's "Manhattan Project" On Alternative Ener

[curmudgeon99]

WE just had a spill caused by human stupidity and penny pinching [oil tanker in the Mississippi that leaked all that heavy oil after a barge hit it] and so I have no faith in the Prince-William-Sound fouling oil industry to not have major accidents and ruin our common coastlines and all the wildlife and environments that live there. You're missing the point entirely. Oil is not a long-term solution. Why waste another dime on trying to extend the supply. We have clearly had something change in our weather patterns. We know oil is a fossil fuel that is destined to run out. Look at them flailing in China to clean up their air in time for the Olympics. Oil is just bad all around. So, according to your view, it is the best choice to direct our attention towards squeezing out those last few drops of oil, which--according to the 80-20 rule--will be the hardest, most expensive and lease safe of all? You're short sighted. To use an analogy that would be understood by all the slashdotters, you're the guy whose advocating that we rebuild our company's systems in COBOL rather than Java/.NET/ or whatever newer. Coal and oil do not need time or attention wasted on them. They are dirty, and only enrich a few people at the top of coal companies. We need diverse and varied sources of energy that are renewable. We need to try several things and let the marketplace choose which ones are the best. The real problem is that the oil industry is allowed to dump a byproduct of their commodity into the atmosphere and the waterways without accounting for that damage. If you accounted for the damage oil is doing to our environment, and made oil companies sell their product while paying for that damage, we would all see that the current petroleum-oriented economy is terrible. Anybody who roots for more oil drilling is just some deluded troglodyte who really doesn't care what happens to this world as long as they can get rich in it, and "have theirs". Well, we've had enough of people who are willing to get theirs even if it means they have to go out late Saturday nights and tip over a 50-gallon-drum of toxic waste into the local creek. If it saves them some money, they're all for it. We've had enough of that type of bastard.

Reliability?

[Ankh]

Currently you can expect a home solar panel installation to pay for itself within 7 years (here in southern Ontario). If you combine it with wind turbines you can get your money back sooner, and if you spend the extra to be able to sell electricity back to the grid, you can get a payback much sooner because Ontario hydro (the power company here) pays you more than it would charge for the electricity (no distribution fee).

Ideally you want the installation to last for 10 years or more without significant failures, though.

Often "thinner and cheaper" translates to "more easily broken" and "less reliable" - for example, when the units flex in high winds. So my main worry would be about the expected (and achievable) lifetime of the units. Maybe if they gave a five or ten year warranty I'd be OK with it.

Re:The old black question

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you may be seriously underestimating the deliciousness of nachos.

Albeit not from the 7-11.

FFS, do you want something for nothing?

[EWAdams]

How much energy does it take to maintain an oil platform in the North Sea? How much energy did it take to build Hoover Dam? We're not going to get a magic machine that gives us energy and costs none to build. Even if the answer is "years and years," the point is that we're trading dirty energy for clean energy, so it's worth doing.

Re:Obama's "Manhattan Project" On Alternative Ener

[curmudgeon99]

The reason none of these things have gone on line is because of the attitudes of people like you. There has been no concerted investment, ala the Manhattan Project. In lieu of any concentrated, directed effort to achieve a goal, nothing gets accomplished.

The sun shines reliably for a large fraction of the day--why not invest in that?

I find it curious how your standards of acceptability change: in the case of the alternatives available: switch grass, solar, wind, you play the pessimist. In the case of oil available off the coasts, suddenly you're an optimist. The US Department of Energy [you know, the one with all the Bush appointees in it] has said that 1.) offshore oil will not enter the supply chain for ten years minimum, not "a couple years" [implying 2], as you allege.

Next you toss out the red-herring [meaning irrelevant] point of the Chinese drilling in Cuba--a claim which has been shown to be false so clearly that former GOP Candidate Rudy Guilliani himself uses future tense to describe this alleged problem, which is still a red herring. Do two wrongs make a right? [China allegedly drilling around Cuba and the US drilling off Florida?]

Again, when you address the oil industry, it's all solid to you. When it comes to alternatives, it's "pie-in-the-sky". What are you, an oil-industry flack? You reluctant to learn new things or something?

Though Nuclear does have the benefit of no greenhouse gases, it still has the same fundamental problem that oil does: it's business model is predicated on NOT dealing with its wastes! We STILL doe not have a solution to the incredibly toxic wastes we've been generating for decades. The only solution is to hide the waste. You think this is a viable alternative? Or, are you a Nuclear Energy devotee who has some business interest in that industry. When you advocate dirty technologies, how can we take you seriously?

By the way, I lived in Houston and there is mass transit which I used while working for HP

. And the solution is not--duh--biking 30 miles, it's moving closer to your work and downsizing your stuff.

As I can re-iterate: I have lived all over the United States and this model in NYC is the only one I see as being viable. I've lived and commuted in Omaha, Phoenix, Houston, Cincinnati and Salt Lake City. I always chose to live as close as possible to work.

Such name calling as labeling environmentalism "psychobabble" is convincing fewer and fewer people, my friend. The babble is coming from you fools who seem to prefer fouling your own nests.

Lowering our standard of living is out.

[EWAdams]

Oil IS yesterday, and energy savings are good if we can obtain them in a painless way such as insulating our attics or improving the efficiency of our cars. But it's not just the corporations that see no profit in a low-impact life; ordinary people see no pleasure in it either.

I'm tired of installing overpriced compact fluorescents that give dim, ugly light. I'm not going to bring a week's worth of groceries for a family of four home on my bike or on the bus. I'm going to keep my house at the temperature I like rather than feel hot and sweaty all summer and cold all winter. The world demand for energy is not going to go down through self-sacrifice -- we can put that notion out of our heads right now. It might make you feel superior; it would only make me feel like I've moved to a Third World country, at a time when the Third World is working its butt off to become First World, and that means consuming more energy.

Improve efficiency, fine. Improve production, fine. Cut back expenditure through self-denial? Screw that. Life is too short for it to be unpleasant as well.

Cost of manufacturing

[objekt]

Not based on this new technology, but here's the info:

From http://www.nrel.gov/pv/pv_manufacturing/cost_capacity.html

National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Photovoltaic Research - PV Manufacturing R&D
Cost/Capacity Analysis

The PV Manufacturing R&D Project Coordination Team measures and tracks the progress of the Project's impact on module cost and production capacity. The module-manufacturing partners voluntarily provide the team with two types of critical information: direct costs of module manufacturing and manufacturing capacity. The direct costs are those costs directly associated with module production and do not include such costs as research, sales/marketing, or general administrative expenses.

Direct costs of module manufacturing dropped from $5.89 per peak watt in 1992 to $2.73 per peak watt in 2005 dollars. These results represent a total cost reduction of about 54%, or an average annual drop in direct cost of about 5.5 percent. In addition to supplying the most recent year's data, these partners supply their projections for the coming 5 years.

The cost/capacity graph below shows the 2005 data of 14 Project participants with active module manufacturing lines in 2005. A participant in this case refers to a subcontractor with a manufacturing line. The graph shows continued progress toward meeting the Project goals of decreasing direct costs of manufacturing and increasing production capacity.

PV Industry Cost/Capacity (DOE/US Industry Partnership)

The production capacity shown is the total capacity of the 14 participants. It represents the potential production if all the plants were running at full capacity. Through 2005, the graph shows that total module production capacity grew from 14 MW at the start of PVMaT subcontracts in 1992 to 251 MW at the close of 2005. These results represent a 19-fold increase or about 26% average annual growth in production capacity among these Project participants.

From the perspective of technology learning curves, these data reflect an average 17% drop in direct costs of manufacturing for every doubling of production capacity.

Re:YASCS

[ScrewMaster]

Given how much the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has done to promote and encourage the use of atomic power, I'd say you're probably right.

nanosolar

[caindie]

What is it about nanosolar - nanosolar.com - that nobody seems to get.

Nanosolar sells solar cells at $1 per watt today.
It announced production shipments in Jan 2008
It sold out its entire production capacity before the end of Jan.
Its production capacity in January of 2008 was 430 mega watts per year
This figure is larger then the combined production capacity of all other companies
in the united states - I repeat - combined.
It manufactures in northern california
It is privately financed by a who's who of private capital investors

Werner Dumanski, Executive Vice President of Operations, was IBM's top manufacturing executive prior to joining Nanosolar, responsible for the company's $4.5 billion storage components business, a world-wide organization of 12,000 people, and a billion-dollar equipment budget.

Panels have a 25 year waranty
Panels operate at up to 14.5% efficiency

Has announced the availability of a new non vacuum thin film production technology based on printing technology - nanosolar uses printing technology to make solar cells - which produces solar cells at the rate of 100 feet per minute - rated at 1 giga watt of production per year - see it in action below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClLKVs9oSxE&eurl=http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/

Machine cost - 1.65 million dollars - nice profit for self financing of growth.

Has said that this solar cell printing technology can be scaled to 2000 feet per minute - and are on track to do so.

cons:

Has not yet reached production capacities
Actual efficiency of production panels has not been released

Could it be that nanosolar is a private company - and intends to stay that way - which ensures its lack of mind share?

Could it be that nanosolar developed a thin film production technology that does not require vacuum technology and has potentially threatened research budgets.

Still - the panels ship - validating the intellect and vision of one person - martin roscheisen - against all the nay sayers.

And no - I have no connection with either nanosolar or roscheisen.

Re:Obama's "Manhattan Project" On Alternative Ener

[curmudgeon99]

The POINT is not the PRESENCE of the oil but, rather, the POLLUTION of the oil. When they find a batch of bad commodity--a freighter of moldy wheat, a herd of steers with Mad-Cow Disease, they don't decide to finish them off. They discard them. To complete the analogy (for those of you who were not paying attention), we recognize that petroleum is poisoning the earth. We need to get off this stuff as fast as possible. I want a president who is NOT beholding to the oil industry, like John McCain is. I want a president who is closer to understanding that oil is bad shit.

China may indeed drill for oil outside Cuba but, again, how do two wrongs make a right? We see that oil is not good for us, considering the air, groundwater, geopolitics, funding of oil wars, creation of excess plastics, ad infinitum.

(Slashdot is one of my news sources, Mr Steeped in Stereotypes.)

Fair question if I am a flack, but I am not. I am just irritated with the big lie we have been sold.

When I lived in Iowa City, I rode a bicycle to and from work daily. In Houston, I did have a car but I took the bus. In Salt Lake City, which is building light rail, I drove and rode a bicycle. It is so ridiculously easy to go long distances daily on a bike that I find it interesting you even make the argument.

As for your dire situation, having bought a house way the hell out in the Suburbs... Well, I believe there was a line in "Animal House" that sums up your situation in the suburbs. "You fucked up. Live with it." Aren't you Conservatives so hell bent on giving sway to the market? Well, here's your market: you bought a big house out in the middle of East Bum Fuck Egypt, and now that has turned out to be a stupid move... And, again, tell me why your mistake is my problem? Would you be on the edge of your chair to help me if I had made a mistake that cost me a lot of money? I don't think so.

Re:Article in two sentances:

[Soul-Burn666]

FTFA:
If you just want to power a billion-dollar space probe, almost any price per watt is acceptable. If you are selling to lonely farmhouses, you just have to charge less than the cost of running a power line to the boondocks. In some parts of the world, competing with grid electricity itself may be an easy game during peak consumption hours. But if you want the off-peak market, you'll have to price your cells at about US $1 per watt. That price is called grid parity, and it's the holy grail of the photovoltaic industry.

"Beware of the solar breakthrough"

[bavid]

The IEEE Spectrum editors had a blog post related to this article that the poster missed:

"To take another example, First Solar, a relatively young company based in Tempe, Arizona, has suddenly been getting a lot of attention with claims that it has figured out a way to make PV material at an installation cost of $1 per wattâ"though the global average for solar installations was in the range of $6 or $7 per watt last year. How plausible is that claim? Well, itâ(TM)s hard to know, because as a feature article appearing in this monthâ(TM)s IEEE Spectrum magazine points out, âoeThe company does not talk to reporters. Not at all.â"

The take-home point here? Be wary of companies that make extravagant claims without details. Especially if the best they can do now is $3/W.

Now I do like First Solar more than some of Slashdot's other favorite snake-oil salesmen (anyone remember EESTOR?), but I'm still suspicious.

No objection to a solar powered solar panel plant.

[Firethorn]

Actually, the biggest portion of glass manufacturing is, of course, heat. You wouldn't want to use 10% efficient cells to produce electricity that goes directly to an electric resistance element to make that heat.

Instead, you'd want to build a solar furnace - using mirrors and lenses and such you can get 90% efficiency, and using panels even cheaper than this.

The trick would be the substantial start-up time in the mornings. Due to the heat levels involved, you'd be wasting a lot of energy each day heating the equipment up again.

So either you have to find a solution for this, or use natural gas or whatever during the night to keep production up. This isn't bad as long as you still get more energy out of the resultant panels, etc...

financing solar

[falconwolf]

Suppose you're having a new house built: if you could install a ten or fifteen kilowatt solar plant and inverter for ten grand, you might figure it's worth it to borrow a little more money from the bank.

More and more mortgage companies are financing solar energy systems. Some allow borrowers to borrow more because of such systems. With an alternative energy system installed living costs are reduced so they are willing to lend a higher percent of the what the borrower's income would suggest.

Of course the mortgage crisis does have a negative impact, it has hurt solar businesses.

Falcon

Re:Obama's "Manhattan Project" On Alternative Ener

[LeafOnTheWind]

Though Nuclear does have the benefit of no greenhouse gases, it still has the same fundamental problem that oil does: it's business model is predicated on NOT dealing with its wastes! We STILL doe not have a solution to the incredibly toxic wastes we've been generating for decades. The only solution is to hide the waste. You think this is a viable alternative?

Yes.

Solar and wind power cannot provide base energy requirements for the vast majority of the nation. We could continue harvesting power from fission reactors using breeder reactors and refinement for thousands of years with no adverse affect on the environment. The difference between combustion reactions and nuclear is that the waste from nuclear is containable.

subsidies from private industry

[raygundan]

The biggest source of solar subsidy for homeowners in Arizona is the power companies themselves. They'll pay for roughly half of your installation. My guess is that this is just smart infrastructure investment for them-- you foot half the cost and handle the maintenance, but they know the panels aren't moving once they're installed.

Re:subsidies from private industry

[Dare nMc]

solar subsidy for homeowners in Arizona is the power companies themselves.

it should be added, it is because of a requirement in state law that they collect a "renewable energy" fee, and use that to invest in these resources. They will only give rebates to owners with grid tie systems with no batteries.

Re:You know what else pays back in 7 years?

[Ankh]

An off-grid solar + wind system can easily cost $60,000, but if, like us, you live in a rural area it could quite literally be a life saver. Spending $60,000 with no idea how it would affect your costs would be like gambling all your money away on the stock market.

You need to budget for long-term maintenance. And to do that you need to know about reliability of the equipment, and about how long before it's paid for itself, to work out the average costs including replacement parts.

Re:No objection to a solar powered solar panel pla

[rossifer]

The trick would be the substantial start-up time in the mornings. Due to the heat levels involved, you'd be wasting a lot of energy each day heating the equipment up again.

What you need is a thermal storage system and good insulation of your hot gear. Since they're talking about using molten salt as well as other substances like hard pitch (incredibly high boiling point) as thermal storage to allow solar power plants to produce power over 24 hours, I'd say the solution to the problem is at hand.

And you're 100% correct that you should keep the solar power in thermal form. Thermal solar is much lower cost and you don't have the transformation losses that you mentioned. All you need is glass with aluminum/glass coatings for the mirrors along with an efficient thermal transfer/storage system and you're off to the races.

Mojave Desert

[falconwolf]

Forbes mentions that Mojave Desert real estate is becoming more valuable because many companies want to build solar facilities there.

It's not just solar farms that are sprouting up in the Mojave, wind farms are as well. Actually there's one wind farm that virtually sat there silent back when CA had those rolling blackouts because the transmission capability wasn't there.

Falcon

Re:No objection to a solar powered solar panel pla

[Firethorn]

True, I just figure that creating a solar furnace that meets 70% of your daily needs, plus some sort of alternative heat source would help ensure the best performance at lowest cost.

By having a backup, you don't have the cost of the thermal storage, plus the capability to operate even in less than ideal circumstances. Like a week of heavy cloud cover, for example.

Re:No objection to a solar powered solar panel pla

[The Bender]

Glass production lines don't "start up in the morning". They run 24x7, because of the huge amount of thermal energy in the system. If they cool down, it's a big deal. Everything solidifies and likely can't get started again. It's the equivalent of warming up a superconducting magnet. Float glass production lines are built for a particular lifetime. When that's up, they allow it to cool and trash the whole plant.

Exxon Valdez

[falconwolf]

I would hold that the Exxon Valdez incident argues FOR drilling ANWR. Just about everything that could go wrong did. But today you could wander that area and never realize anything untoward had ever occurred.

You wouldn't notice anything unless you were a fisherman who had his life destroyed by Exxon Valdez. More than 10 years later (this from 1999) the fishing industry still hadn't recovered. People in Alaska are still (wrote this February) waiting for compensation, 20 years later. So far the fishermen haven't seen a dime from Exxon. Even today studies are finding wildlife is still adversely effected.

If you think everything is the same for those who had to live through Exxon Valdez you're obviously living in your own fantasy world.

Oil is not a long-term solution.

Agreed. But it IS the only short term solution anyone is proposing.

Drilling for oil off shore is a short term solution? Yea, while people are talking about it, not one of them has said anything about how long it will take before the first drop of oil pumped will end up in someone's gas tank. I surely doubt that will happen one year, forget one month, after exploration starts. The "Wall Street Journal", which is not an environmentalist group, says offshore drilling "won't affect physical supplies of oil." Here's an iteresting quote from Fadel Gheit, oil and gas analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. Equity Capital Markets Division: "If we were to drill today, realistically speaking, we should not expect a barrel of oil coming out of this new resource for three years, maybe even five years, so let's not kid ourselves". Oh, and don't blame Democrats for the offshore drilling ban, as president George H.W. Bush imposed an executive ban in 1990.

Why waste another dime on trying to extend the supply.

Because we need energy NOW.

Yea, right, if we start drilling now we can pump oil now. HAHA!!! See above quotes.

Falcon

Oil != electricity

[Firethorn]

My dispute with this line of reasoning is that we use an insignificant amount of oil for electricity generation purposes. So your three war argument is off-topic.

The significant hydrocarbon sources for our electricity is coal and natural gas.

Of which, receive some of the most marginal amounts of subsidy in the industry

As for being used on cars and such - solar doesn't have enough density to realistically power a car via an on-car array.

Re:Oil != electricity

[Firethorn]

Where I live, in Southern California, I believe SCE generates our electricity from oil and natural gas. Oil comes from oilfields.

You believe. Per SCE's site, it's "These resources include natural gas, a fossil fuel; falling water in hydroelectric plants; nuclear energy and renewable resources, like solar and wind."

A coal plant was shut down 3 years ago, due to failure to obtain new permits, rendered uneconomical due to increased pollution control requirements.

Oil is not listed.

Natural gas comes from oilfields and natural gas fields.

While NG does come from fields much like oil, it doesn't get shipped over here from the middle east. Production is domestic. Thus, engaging in wars overseas, for oil or not, won't have an effect on NG supplies.

The WSJ article you link to is talking about direct, overt government subsidies. Those aren't the subsidies I'm talking about.

Then which ones are you talking about? The ones where they aren't taxed like they should be for the environmental harm they cause? Or the portion of the military budget supposably spent to secure supplies?

Re:What's with this

[sumdumass]

Well, what about coal. You managed to talk trash like you know something about electric generation but you failed to mention how coal is somehow subsidized. You even managed to insert Bush and McCain in there. I'm waiting for the Obama will save us all line. I actually think it is funny how people claim the army protects this, Bush that McCain this and what it boils down to is My poor little pet projects aren't competitive enough to compete.

The bottom line is that prices are the way they are based on a history that stretches far beyond your age. If someone wants to compete with energy, they have to compete with anything that is done to that energy or to get it or to manipulate it. Nothing unfair is going on here. Wind and solar have the advantage of no fuel costs which more then compensate for any oil subsidies. I'm seriously amazed at arguments like yours that effectivly say raise the costs of X so Y can compete. It is contrary to our entire system of lowering the cost of Y to compete with X.

Re:What's with this

[falconwolf]

You managed to talk trash like you know something about electric generation but you failed to mention how coal is somehow subsidized. You even managed to insert Bush and McCain in there.

Tax breaks are given for coal mining. And it's not just some environmental website saying that. Even the CATO Institute, a Libertarian think tank, says coal is subsidized. Bush has proposed subsidizing clean coal as well as nuclear power. McCain has pledged to provide $2billion for clean-coal.

I'm waiting for the Obama will save us all line. I actually think it is funny how people claim the army protects this

I find it funny, actually stupid, when people "ass"ume I support Obama. In fact as of now I'm voting for the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr and during the last presidential election I supported Michael Badnarik. Actually since 1988 when Ron Paul ran for president as a Libertarian Party candidate I voted for the LP candidate except in 2000. As far as I'm concerned both Democrats and Republicans are half right and half wrong. Democrats what to control businesses whereas Republicans want to control people's lives, especially Christian Conservatives. And both are parties to the War on Drugs.

The bottom line is that prices are the way they are based on a history that stretches far beyond your age.

And how do you know how old I am? You can read minds? I doubt it as you "ass"umed I supported Obama.

Nothing unfair is going on here.

It is unfair when you have to compeat with an industry that receives government subsidies but you don't, or receive more than you do. I won't go over the rest because you're so good at reading minds to think I don't support a free market.

Falcon