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Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well, because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than burning coal. The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute. Cost has always been one of solar’s biggest problems. Traditional solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity (exacerbated currently by a global silicon shortage). That means even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce.
Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. “You’re talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,” says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.
Go to the Nanosolar website and see a demonstration of this tech. There are several video links on the home page. Nanosolar is a privately held company, so you can’t invest in them….yet. But this combined with other innovative energy technology gives me some hope that we can greatly reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.
A very momentous achievement. We are in the last days of the oil age, and looking ahead to the solar age.
Good choice.
good story but silicon is the second most abundant matter in the earth so their is no shortage
#3 – confusing Earth’s assay of silicon with the availability of PV-quality silicon is like saying every city has perfectly breathable air because there’s oxygen in it.
More to the point, the breakthroughs in PV production technology is a real positive. Companies with financial clout – in countries with sufficient brain power in business and government – are moving quickly into this arena.
Honda and Sharp come first to mind.
Area of land of USA = 9.161923 x 10^12 m^2
Peak Solar Power Radiation = 1 x 10^3 W/m^2
Solar cell energy conversion efficiency = 20%
Rule of Thumb average power available = 20% of Peak Solar Power Radiation
Number of seconds per year = 31557600 sec/yr
Conversion: 1 joule = 1 W-sec
Hence the total annual energy available by solar in the USA:
9.161923×10^12 m^2 x 1×10^3 W/m^2 x 0.20 x 0.20 x 31557600 sec/yr = 1.15651321×10^22 joules (or W-sec)
The DOE says the net electrical generation in the US in 2006 was:
4064702×10^9 W-h * 60 min/h * 60 sec/min = 1.46329272×10^19 joules (or W-sec)
Therefore, to replace our projected electricity generation needs in 2008, we will need to cover 1.46^19/1.16^22 or 0.13% of the surface of the country with solar cells.
This result is much smaller than I had previously thought. Did I make an error in the calculation?
#5 – It’s easier to say – the Mojave Desert in California could take care of the whole country.
#6 – Except that all of the environmentalists and such would go nuts that we were destroying nature. You KNOW that this will happen no matter what. Even if it meant no more coal/oil/nuclear plants.
How durable is the product. If placed on the roof of a house will it last 5 years, 10 years, 50 years? What type of maintenance is require. Do I have to wash the roof periodically to keep cell functioning at optimum output?
Let’s just pray the oil or coal lobbies don’t buy this company…
Environmentalists will never let this fly. They are against commerce, period. Having the oil industry be the public face makes ti easier for them to push their controls on people. Just the other day, they banned incandescent light bulbs.
Dorksters: 31557600 sec/yr is 24h a day. I maybe wrong, but the sun does not shine 24 hours a day. It shine maybe closer to 8 hours a day. So multiply the land use by 3 minimum. Oh also you will need to compensate for when there is no sun, like during night and when the sun is blocked by clouds. How do you store that energy to provide base load power?
What is the cost of this in the long run? let say compared with nuclear power that can run for 30 years?
I would love to live in a fantasy world where magic would work…. But we don’t
Yes advancement in science can help, but we already have the technology with nuclear to power the world and provide clean water with desalination. With 450+ plants over the world, I think this technology is mature enough to be the base power for the world.
Did you know there is more energy in the nuclear “waste” than all oil reserve and that future power plant in development now will be able to use them.
12,
Umm, 8 hours on the SHOREST day of the year, UNLESS you live above alaska….
And there is NEW tech that absorbs Ultra violet…WHICH is 60-120% MORe then infrared…
I think the real reason all these venture capitalists have jumped into investing in this (“Nanosolar is a privately held company”), is that they anticipate being bought out by a big oil company at some point. Just as one of Nanosolar’s former technical executives, Chris Eberspacher, sold off a company he started to Shell Oil. It will most likely be Chevron this time. They already control the NiMH battery technology and Geothermal Power technology. We’re never going to see these leaches go away, as long as they can make a mockery of the antitrust laws. Congress is in their pockets.
This techology will probably get bought out and buried along with the electric cars.
Glen E,
A little paranoid eh? Pretty much every point you made is false:
1. Battery Technology is not controlled by big oil; Three domestic battery contenders include A123, Enerdel and AltairNano. Others are backed by Toyota; Panasonic; Sony and a large Korean concern — none oil controlled. FYI Who killed the Electric Car was based on male cow feces.
2. Shell BP sold their Crystalline PV biz to focus on thin film; They have a VERY viable CIS product nearing completion which promises sub $1/watt PV;
3. Other viable thin film tech is coming around including Miasole [production problems]; Innovalight and 4-5 others — all with potential to produce sub $1/watt PV.
If you took the tin foil off your head and figured out how to use google, youd see the first affordable solar and electric cars will come to market in 2008-2009.
Why is no one mentioning the fact that solar shingles already exist? and #14 what are you crazy? take the tin foil off your head? so they can read your mind?
#12:
not ultraviolet, but infrared is coming:
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2008/01/08/a-nano-technology-payoff-that-should-be-huge/
this can generate some power 24/7 regardless of whether or not you get sunlight. it’s supposedly about 80% efficient as opposed to the 20% of most current PVs.