Posted on 12/21/2007 10:32:12 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
Well-financed solar start-up Nanosolar on Tuesday said it has started shipping its flexible thin-film solar cells, meeting its own deadline and marking a milestone for alternative solar-cell materials.
On the company's blog, CEO Martin Roscheisen announced that the first megawatt of its solar panels will be used as part of a power plant in eastern Germany.
The release of Nanosolar's first products is significant because the company develops a process to print solar cells made out of CIGS, or copper indium gallium selenide, a combination of elements that many companies are pursuing as an alternative to silicon.
The 5-year-old company, based in San Jose, Calif., has raised more than $100 million in financing and has drawn in Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page as investors.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com ...
reference ping
Nanosolar
- the world’s first printed thin-film solar cell in a commercial panel product;
- the world’s first thin-film solar cell with a low-cost back-contact capability;
- the world’s lowest-cost solar panel – which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as $.99/Watt;
- the world’s highest-current thin-film solar panel – delivering five times the current of any other thin-film panel on the market today and thus simplifying system deployment;
Looks very promising— and this is exactly what I’ve been telling my mentally retarded lib-friends who keep braying that we should be giving money to dictators and feeble countries to offset our carbon use.
Screw that.
Technology fueled by a chugging economy solves real problems (and even fake ones).
A hundred mil from a couple of green-minded billionaires doesn’t hurt either. :)
But then it’s our chugging economy that produced those billionaires in the first place.
$1 per watt —
what is the current cost per watt?
Market them in the market. When can we expect to see these products in the USA? East Germany, the sun doesn’t even shine there half the time.
“But then it’s our chugging economy that produced those billionaires in the first place.”
Exactly— “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”
Any comparison must factor-in durability, maintenance and all attached costs.
“$1 per watt —
what is the current cost per watt?”
It’s at about $4 per watt.
Down from $30 in the ‘80’s I believe.
The price has been $5 a watt for 1/4 century.
FR bookmark
True- but you must also factor in pollution (saved from burning of coal as well as induced by the manufacturing of the panels) and the freedom from sources of foreign fuel.
If you can get true electric cars on the road, powered by nukes or these panels or whatever— then you’ve really got something.
It's still pretty good. Look for homes in the Southwest to look at this first, since they get the most usable sunlight per year. Californians in particular could benefit from this since they have very high electric costs
Now we will see what the environmentalists have to say. Who wants to bet that they won't sue to ban solar panels from homes on some pretext, as soon as solar power becomes economically viable and significant numbers of people start installing panels?
The ecofreaks have been sending threats to certain research groups for dabbling in nanotech. They really are neo-luddites. Their ideology frames the environment as a tertiary priority (they are primarily anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, anti-wealth, anti-disparity, anti-human, anti-growth, and pro-human-extinction).
Technology solves problems.
A strong FREE ecconomy powers technology development.
We have never ever ever regulated ourselves into inovation.
What do you do at night?
The FIRST thing you would have to do is prohibit the Home Owner Associations from prohibiting solar pannels.
After all, only poor people can’t afford to buy electricity from the power company. (thats sarcasm)
How about the myth of “solar pannel blight drives the property values down.” (was used with the old satelite dish laws push by cable companies)
I wonder what this is going to do to First Solar stock price. Today it’s up $16 to $262 up almost 1000% for the year!!!
Anyone out there know the differences in their technologies (First Solar and Nanosolar)?
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