Nanopillar Solar May Cost 10x Less Than Silicon 199
Al writes "A team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a new kind of flexible solar cell that could be far cheaper to make than conventional silicon photovoltaics. The cells consist of an array of 500-nanometer-high cadmium sulfide pillars printed on top of an aluminum foil — the material surrounding the pillars absorbs light and releases electrons, while the pillars themselves transport the electrons to an electrical circuit. The closely packed pillars trap light between them, helping the surrounding material absorb more. This means the electrons also have a very short distance to travel through the pillars, so there are fewer chances of their getting trapped at defects and its possible to use low-quality, less expensive materials. '"You won't know the cost until you do this using a roll-to-roll process," says lead researchers Ali Javey. "But if you can do it, the cost could be 10 times less than what's used to make [crystalline] silicon panels."'"
Cadmium ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at the toxicity of cadmium and all the environmental regulations that come with it. It's regulated to 1/10th the level of mercury in the EU RoHS (Reduction of Hazardous Substances in Electronics) legislation.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Interesting)
Low cost until scarcity kicks in.... (Score:4, Interesting)
How plentiful is cadmium relative to silicon? Not so much, right? Isn't cadmium already pretty much spoken-for in other industrial and consumer electronics applications?
Leave it to engineers not to consider the ugly realities of supply-and-demand economics.
Hard to estimate future cost (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a massive world-wide technology complex driving the optimization of silicon based manufacturing technology. The amount of capital invested into silicon manufacturing process and tools is measured in tens of billions of dollars per year, if not hundreds of billions. If the conventional process improvements is able to achieve 20-25% cost improvement per year, in five years, the cost of panels based on conventional panels would be down to 25-30% of today's cost. A few hickups in the development of the new technology like yield or reliability issues can easily delay the mass deployment by a few years which will negate all cost benefits. Not to mention the possibility of cadmium prices going up if the volumes are picking up...
And don't forget the cost of capital investment, which is already funded due to other "useful" applications in the silicon case. Most other technologies that tried to compete against silicon lost so far, not because of fundamental technical issues but because of the economics involved.
I am not against developing new innovative technologies to achieve substantial improvements in the solar power area. However, it is best to keep the optimism about new and unproven technologies in control until they reach at least beta production stage...
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not [wikipedia.org] really [wikipedia.org], surprisingly [ecogeek.org].
Growing plants for fuel is far, far more destructive and less efficient than just turning the solar energy directly to electricity and operating off of that.
Re:That title makes me cringe. (Score:4, Interesting)
The only way "ten times less" makes any sense is when you're talking about three costs.
A is expensive! B is much more efficient, and costs half as much. C is even more efficient than B - ten times less expensive than A, compared to B.
Otherwise, when you only have two things to compare to one another, just say that "B is one tenth the cost of A."
Why is this so damn hard for people to process? If they could just think about it, they'd save me ten times the typing.
Re:Great news! (Score:3, Interesting)
No access here. I'm guessing the "pillars" are little quarter wave antennas, with a diode at the base, vaguely like a crystal radio but operating at light wavelengths instead of radio? A really old idea that has never been built (until now?)
In that case, why are the pillars so long? 500 nm quarter wavelength pillars work best with an optimum wavelength of 2000 nm.
Now, 2000 nm is way off in the invisible infrared.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum [wikipedia.org]
I'm guessing in true journalist fashion, they reinterpreted the story to be it works w/ wavelengths of 500 nm (vaguely greenish light) therefore pillar length around 125 nm tall? At least the journalists spelled it silicon instead of silicone...
Re:Wait a second (Score:4, Interesting)
If you don't like cap and trade, then what would you suggest should replace it?
The problem is that even though unregulated free markets are good in many situations, there are some situations where they make things worse, not better. Situations such as the Tragedy of the Commons [wikipedia.org] where individuals are sharing a limited resource. Some argue (correctly, I believe) that the reason free markets fail in these situations is that the cost of depleting the shared resource is not correctly accounted for. IMO the obvious solution is to tax the use of the shared resource in order to give it a realistic cost. But I suspect you would find taxation even more onerous than cap and trade.
So how do you propose we deal with the problem of limited shared resources? We will be facing more and more of these situations as long as we are stuck on this planet and if we simply ignore the problem and give free markets free rein then we will be no better than a bunch of lemmings rushing towards the cliff to their doom.
Re:That title makes me cringe. (Score:3, Interesting)
Same difference.
(Which is a phrase I never understood. If two things are different in the same way, aren't they not different but instead similar?)
It's an oxymoron pun (often shortened to "same diff"), derived from "same thing". It's generally understood to mean "any differences are inconsequential", applying a loosening to the meaning of "same". See also: "agree to disagree".