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Solyndra's Thin-Film Solar Cells Draw $1.2 Billion In Orders
SolarSells writes "Solyndra makes funky-looking cylindrical solar cells that resemble compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Their products are meant for office buildings, and are made from a thin coating of copper indium gallium diselenide on glass tubes. Although they might not be able to fill them till 2012, the company has already received $1.2 billion in orders. Their manufacturing tricks make the cells so cheap that they may be competitive with other forms of power even after solar subsidies are phased out."
Look like fluorescent lights? Great, just install one next to each lamp and it can power itself. Oh, hang on, that won't work, will it? DOH!
Smivs on the intertubes!
I don't know the answer. But I am certain that such questions never occurred to the two Stanford engineering PhDs who founded the company, or the tens more they have subsequently hired to do R&D.
Ten big trucks running off that, that tube, and what happens to your own personal tube? I just the other day got... a tube was switched on by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday. Why? Why? Because it got tangled up in a big ball with all the trucks going on the tube commercially.
They want to deliver vast amounts of power from the tubes. And again, the tubes is not something that you just dump anything on. It's not a big internet. It's a series of wires. And if you don't understand, those wires can be filled and if they are filled, when you switch your lights on, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts onto that wire enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
There has to be some way to tie together "Solyndra" and "green" and "is people". Step up the puns here, people.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
Meh. Thicker glass will still break. Try plywood. We use it to cover windows in hurricanes and big storms and it works great!
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Call Scotty - he's got the bloody formula for transparent plywood on his Mac Classic.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.