I will believe the Saudis don't see any upcoming problems with Ghawar when they cancel one of their projects due to low oil prices. If they continue to be full steam ahead with increasing their capacity then I think they are aware that Ghawar may not be as robust in 5 years time as they would like us to believe.
If you were hunting for the future of solar power, Wales might not seem the most obvious place to look. Yet in a factory in Cardiff, technology that could finally harness the energy of the sun in an affordable way is quietly rolling off the production line. Such claims may sound familiar.
Their solar cell works in a different way from most, and is not based on silicon - the expensive raw material for conventional solar cells. G24 Innovations (G24i), the company making the new cells, says it can produce and sell them for about a fifth of the price of silicon-based versions. At present, it makes only small-scale chargers for equipment such as mobile phones and MP3 players. But it says larger panels could follow - large enough to replace polluting fossil fuels by generating electricity for large buildings.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3864 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 4:16 pm Post subject: Re: Solar power - in the rain
Pardon me for being crass but the developing world is the last place I would be testing a new solar technology. You want to convince western consumers to foot the bill paint the stuff on a derelict skyscraper and make it profitible by eliminating the electric bill. _________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 3429 Location: California, USA
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 9:11 am Post subject: Re: Solar power - in the rain
The hitch is in the last few lines of the article: "the company has not proven the longevity of (whole-building scale panels)..."
This has been the key problem with flexible thin-film photovoltaics for at least the last ten years. Designs that have succeeded at getting the cost down to 1/5 that of silicon cells, have also had 1/5 the lifespan: thus no gain in the longer term.
This company might have a solution to that, by marketing their cells for short-lived applications such as roadside markers. A low-cost PV with relatively short lifespan is tolerable in applications where the entire device is at risk of theft or damage, and has advantages over higher-cost, longer-lived designs for those cases. Over time the company may overcome the longevity problems, which would be all to the good.
So, as per usual, wait & see. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
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