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Cost of Solar Panels Expected To Plummet

ecogeek.org — Solar photovoltaics have their challenges, from shortages of silicon to the sheer cost of purchasing and installing solar panels, but a new report from the Prometheus Institute says that both these problems will be addressed over the next few years, leading to cheaper solar and an abundance of capacity to produce.

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  • SVOboy, on 06/05/2008, -0/+93Cheaper than coal is the name of the game!
    • sockpuppets, on 06/05/2008, -1/+24I got solar cells in my stocking. :(
    • InetRoadkill, on 06/05/2008, -7/+15We've only been hearing this ***** for the last 20 years. I want my flying car and Mr. Fusion.
      • Mard, on 06/05/2008, -3/+17Except solar cells are working tech and -have- been becoming more efficient and cheaper every year. So your comparison to flying cars and fusion kind of fails.
    • kenvsryu, on 06/05/2008, -3/+4And burns just as hot.
    • mikeyeah, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Just so everyone knows, don't be fooled by anyone who says coal is the answer to our energy problems. There is no such thing as "clean coal." It's an oxymoron in fact. Same goes for ethanol.
    • Culyt, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Nanosolar are apparently cheaper than coal already.
      ☢
  • dougvfr750, on 06/05/2008, -0/+67Cheaper is great, now I want a little more efficiency and a better way to store the energy than batteries
    • TJ11240, on 06/05/2008, -0/+45If you're connected to the regular grid, just sell excess power and buy back those credits at night.
      • DeFex, on 06/05/2008, -0/+6aerogell capacitors are already made. they hold thousands of times more charge than a regular capacitor, and dont lose the charge quickly when its not being used. you can even buy them from electronics places like digikey lots of $$$$, im sure they they will get cheaper "in the next few years" as well
      • Langford, on 06/05/2008, -0/+15I wish selling back power worked everywhere. While it's technically permitted where I live, they have concocted a scheme to prevent it. Basically, if you want to hook to the grid to sell power back, they force you to pay very expensive insurance on the power companies' equipment. If I switch to wind or solar, I pretty much have to stay away from the grid or it's impossible to afford.
        • nowhereelse, on 06/05/2008, -0/+9Assholes.
        • yunus, on 06/05/2008, -0/+5Hopefully as solar /wind become more popular and this problem becomes more widespread the powers that be will regulate this and cap the insurance or limit the power companies ability to require it.
        • sodade, on 06/05/2008, -3/+5Regulation? OMG! That's socialism! We can't have that on digg - this is Ayn Rand land.
        • MrSlumberjack, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3That's some buulll-*****
      • justz00t, on 06/05/2008, -3/+1This would work now but what about when 50% of all homes have panels and want to sell the extra power during daylight to the grid? The power sold would be near worthless during peak daylight hours.
        • buckrogers1965, on 06/05/2008, -0/+8That power should be worth the most during the day, that is when all the air conditioners and factories are working full power.
        • justz00t, on 06/05/2008, -2/+3The point is they still would need the infrastructure to supply the energy needs at night and on cloudy days. So what will happen is a simple matter of supply and demand with a large portions of homes with panels producing energy in excess of what is needed on sunny days and driving the value of it near to nothing since its not being stored.
      • dougvfr750, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Yep, I want to get off the grid. Wouldn't it be cool if you could store the extra energy as compressed air that you could use to power your car or a generator for lights, etc. in the house.
        • rusty0101, on 06/05/2008, -0/+7Go for it.

          Or store the energy as kinetic energy in flywheels. As Potential energy by lifting volumes of water or rocks. Store it as chemical energy by separating oxygen from hydrogen in water, and recombine them either in a motor with a generator attached, or in a fuel cell to get electricity back out.

          The big problem compressed air has had is that you can reach points of diminishing returns. You spend more energy putting in x amount of air than you get out, than you did when the system started. However if you are getting the power from solar panels that you have already paid for, and have already paid for themselves, go for it.
        • Fordi, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Flywheels and compressed air get less than 50% efficiency, compared to batteries that get around 80% and ultracapacitors that get around 95% if used within the same 24 hour period.
      • Stormwern, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Not so much night/day that's the problem as winter/summer.
    • silver98, on 06/05/2008, -1/+8Or use the excess to convert water to hydrogen and store it for later use
      • Fordi, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Electricity to hydrogen gets below 50% efficiency, while our bess H fuel cells get around the same. The product is thereby 25% storage efficiency.

        You'll do better with batteries or ultracapacitors.
    • krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -1/+4or buy a hybrid and slap the cells all over your car. the solar prius is already up to 20mi/day solely on electricity.
    • DestroyFascism, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Or use it to compress natural gas to liquid and run your car on that! 0.20 a Mj is cheaper than 2.50 + a gallon.
      • Fordi, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Hey, if you're going to do that, provide the math you use to get there:
        Celec = $0.0914 / kWh (electricity)
        Efelec = 0.80 (80% efficincy of electric drivetrain)
        Cgas = $3.967 / gal (gasoline)
        Engas = 125,000 BTU / gal
        EfICE = 0.25 (25% efficiency of internal combustion engine)
        conv = 0.0002930710 kWh / BTU
        Celec / Efelec ?= Cgas / (Engas * EfICE * conv)
        $0.11425 / kWh (elec) < $0.43315 / kWh (gas)

    • Stormwern, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3They have a really cool facility in brittain where they built a tunnel between two lakes, one on a mountain, one in a valley. Whenever they have excess energy they pump the water to the higher lake, and when they are short they let it back down. Iirc it payed back the investment in just two years.
  • s4g4n, on 06/05/2008, -36/+2Yo mama so fat that she needs a solar panel to see her reflection!!!
    • OKeric, on 06/05/2008, -1/+15That makes no sense, a solar panel absorbs just about all the light that hits it.
    • protodon, on 06/05/2008, -1/+7that's so funny I forgot to laugh.
    • LloydBentsen, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4Heyo?
  • bratterscain, on 06/05/2008, -2/+24Cool. I'd like to cover my roof in one.
    • Iamironman, on 06/05/2008, -0/+8... i think you might need more than one
      • MrSlumberjack, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1I'm gonna cover my face in PV cells
  • wanderson, on 06/05/2008, -0/+43Whatever happened to Nanosolar and printing solar cells?
    • Blitzwing84, on 06/05/2008, -12/+6Whatever happened to whatever happened to nanosolar and printing solar cells?
    • carpespasm, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2lifespan? i seem to remember somewhere seeing that some of the high-efficiency or cheap to produce cells don't hold up well over time.
    • monospaced, on 06/05/2008, -0/+7They're working on it...just chill.
      • beabis, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1You can't buy their products nor can you get data on them. They claim they are sold out for the next year. Their website has said that for a long time. It's beginning to sound a lot like Steorn.
        • genepooldesign, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1They're building a huge production facility right now thanks to some pretty huge investors, including Google.
    • dpantages, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Yeah, I was just reading about a company that is supposedly boasting an aerosol can. You just spray it on anything and BOOM instant solar panel. Hook up your wires and go. Im still skeptical but if thats true, then that will be amazing
      • j0hnk377y, on 06/05/2008, -0/+0The aerosol can causes the ozone to deplete causing more intense solar rays and a higher energy potential for solar power. Perfect.
    • genepooldesign, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Nanosolar just sold out for the next year and is building a huge new production facility right now. They'll be ramping up production big time here pretty quick.
    • kemp34, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Coming soon.
    • ChillEnt, on 06/05/2008, -1/+1Whatever happened to whatever happened to Nanosolar and printing solar cells?
  • tehbored, on 06/05/2008, -2/+2I have a feeling that thin film solar panels will be either just a fad or a niche market. Silicon panels will probably fare better in the long term. Thin films can be used in places where silicon cells would be too large or too bulky to produce a little extra power, but most solar power generated from PV cells will probably come from silicon based cells with their higher efficiency.
    • stk198323, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4Do you have any reference for that or is it only personnal opinion? If so then explain why and how your qualified to do such an assumption... as a thin film researcher I think quite the opposite of what you do, based solely on my research; and it's not even a breaktrough research still we get quite a nice percentage convertion from it! Only thing is that thin films then to loose it's capacity over time, if they find something to protect the thin film from imperfecion it will yield a lot better result then silicon, at least up to what research point out to right now.
    • MrSlumberjack, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3At this point, no form of electricity generation through solar energy will ever be a "fad or niche market".
    • tehbored, on 06/06/2008, -0/+2I did say that it was only a feeling. From what I understand, thin film solar panels use metals such as indium, which are naturally scarce, whereas silicon is plentiful, but merely difficult to extract and refine. Also efficiencies of over 40% have been recorded for silicon cells, far ahead of anything produced by thin films. Thin films are certainly useful because they are light, flexible and can be made in a variety of shapes and sizes. Perhaps the term "niche market" wasn't appropriate, but most solar power generation that will come from PV will probably come from silicon cells.
  • mal1964, on 06/05/2008, -11/+2They work best at their peak.
    • socoolisme, on 06/05/2008, -0/+16They work best in the sun.
      • mal1964, on 06/05/2008, -0/+5And why is that?
        • MrSlumberjack, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Sunshine makes happy.
        • mal1964, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1@Mrslum
          Amen to you there brother! Here's how dumb i am. I live in Minnesota (born and raised) and have moved to Hawaii and Vegas two of the sunniest places in the world. "I live in Minnesota"
  • niwaje, on 06/05/2008, -10/+5Was this article written by a high schooler?
  • DeFex, on 06/05/2008, -2/+70yep, always in the "next few years"
    • Elliuotatar, on 06/05/2008, -2/+2Yeah, I've been hearing this since the 1980's, and photovoltaics still aren't everywhere.
    • kravex, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4yeah, but in a few more years they'll stop saying that.
  • Aleman360, on 06/05/2008, -1/+23I've been thinking about solar a lot lately. The roofs of cars should be covered with solar panels. They could power your air conditioner while your car is off so it doesn't get ridiculously hot sitting in the sun all day.
    • brstilson, on 06/05/2008, -2/+30maybe some weak fans, but running a compressor, fan and evaporator requires a LOT more energy than what can be offered by 10 square feet of solar panels. It's always people who have no clue about engineering, electricity, mechanics or physics coming up with all these "green" solutions that don't work well, if at all, in real life.

      You can't just throw a solar panel on your roof and expect it to power your playstation, plasma TV, dishwasher, refrigerator, water pumps, microwave, and alarm clocks.
      • Aleman360, on 06/05/2008, -7/+8Ironically I just graduated with a BS in engineering, and one of the things it taught me was to always through "stupid" ideas out when brainstorming. That and to think to the future... sure, maybe today's solar panels aren't very efficient, but maybe it will be an option in the future. Although I'll admit that I haven't done any calculations regarding the # photons/area that would hit the roof of an average-sized car, or the average energy per photon, or whatever.
        • RationalXubrnce, on 06/05/2008, -3/+14 Good thing it taught you that because you sure didn't learn anything about electrical power requirements!
        • stk198323, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1You forget one important thing:

          solar panel are not perfectly flat. They would had a lot of air resistance to the car. Maybe they could work, maybe not, but from the money you would spend on them they are far from efficient enaugh right now. When price drop by 50% maybe you would want to spend 500 - 1000$ and it would be worth it, but right now and for quite a few years gas is too cheap for the kind of benefit you would get from this kind of device.
        • maddonkey, on 06/05/2008, -0/+6You have BS in engineering? You must have gone to a really good schools all your life if you still can't spell "throw" or know when to use it.
      • ChillEnt, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1It could certainly help.
    • Wakkyweed, on 06/05/2008, -1/+3I had that idea 15 years ago. I thought it would be a great idea to hook a panel of solar cells to several small fans in a metal duct that would fit into your car window. I never could solve all the technical problems, though. Strangely enough, someone else must have invented it, because I saw the exact same product that I imagined being advertised on TV! I guess I'm lucky, as the commercials disappeared two weeks later, so it must have been a big flop.
      • Aleman360, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4I wonder if the simple fact that a lot of the light would be converted to electricity rather than getting trapped inside the car as heat would reduce the problem at all...
      • antonio97b, on 06/05/2008, -1/+2Why? Is something wrong with your battery? It's not like a car battery needs to be taken out to be charged. Just drive and it charges itself. Adding a solar panel is just redundant.
        • Anand999, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2It takes gasoline to power the car's engine which in turn powers the car's alternator that recharges the battery. If the solar panels were enough to handle recharging the battery and powering the car's electronics, they could replace or at least supplement the alternator. I believe some of GM's mild hybrid cars are doing just this (just using a battery and regenerative braking, not solar panels).

          Anyway, I'm all for putting solar panels on the roofs of cars, especially electric cars. I could park the car out in the sun while I'm at work and maybe by quitting time, the battery has regained a few miles worth of charge and reduce how much power it takes to fully recharge the battery overnight.
        • antonio97b, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1at a 2-4 hp decrease. It doesn't take much to turn an altranator.
    • brad3378, on 06/05/2008, -0/+9Even at theoretical 100% efficiency and a car covered in solar panels, there's not enough energy in light to power a small A/C compressor, the evaporator cooling fan, and the blower motor.

      You would be better off to have a thermistor circuit crack open the sunroof when it gets hot and close it when rain is detected.
      • Aleman360, on 06/05/2008, -0/+8OK so maybe just power a fan inside that moves the air through an electrically controlled sun roof or vent.

        See? Stupid ideas lead to real engineering :P Maybe it will be cost effective some day.
        • stk198323, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2sun roof... and then you put your solar panel where exactly?
      • brad3378, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1I meant to say "condenser fan" , not "evaporator fan".

        Having a blower motor implies already having a fan on the evaporator.
    • jeffmajeff, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3Audi actually implemented this as an option on some of their sedans about 10 years ago.
      http://www.audiusa.com/audi/us/en2/tools/glossary/ ...

      I actually drove a couple cars with this and it was rather effective, although I think it costs about $5000-$6000.
      • Hillyard, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1How did they make a solar sun roof? Would it still be clear/see through?
    • Indierocka, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Will you guys give this guy a break? he's thinking in the right direction
  • guytoronto, on 06/05/2008, -4/+48What a load of crap. Let me know when it actually happens. Don't keep promising and then not delivering.
    • MrSlumberjack, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Your pessimism is only a drain on the efforts.
  • miamiman84, on 06/05/2008, -8/+14Exactly, how many times do you have to be fed this bull before you all realized that this penny cheap solar power just doesn't exist. Im sick of hearing these stories over and over again.
  • solarweasel, on 06/05/2008, -0/+6this is why i intend on procuring work in photovoltaics with my electrical engineering degree. this is where the job opportunities are beginning to explode.
    • beabis, on 06/05/2008, -2/+2Maybe you should have a backup plan. When everyone figures out that the solar future is built on empty promises there will be dot com style crash in the solar industry. People want products, not promises.
      • stk198323, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Dude there's way mpore to the picture which you don't see!

        Intelligent window's are based on such principle also. For those who don't know what an intelligent window is, it's a window that can be colored or transparent depending on wheter you want heat to get inside your building or not (summer vs winter). It can also be powered by a solar PV cell integrated into the window. These window's will cost not much more then regular windows and could be saving company's up to 10 000 dollars of Air Conditionning a month in some hot place.

        Some researchers are checking to make PV cell television, with integrated thin films technology to make it the most eletrically efficient tv's we ever had, and they would recharge on ambient lighting: solar in the day, little batteries to power them trough the night but could even be powered by ambient light's.

        There's way more then you can think to thiw solar power... a lot of project are only starting up and we need all the people we can get: engineers, physicist, chemist, etc!
    • Five9, on 06/05/2008, -1/+2I hope not...I'm in the middle of getting my masters in photovoltaic engineering. This ***** is blowing up.
  • Photokon, on 06/05/2008, -2/+4If you don't want batteries you could build your own hydro power storage. The energy from the solar panels can be used to pump water up in a reservoir and then released into the lower storage tank through a turbine. Of course this is most likely not energy efficient at all, but hey, you aren't using batteries. And, this will cost thousands of dollars, but when has that ever stopped people from making poor decisions.
  • SimplyPerfect, on 06/05/2008, -3/+0Well, atleast they're making progress! You can now even print photovoltaic panels via a special printer, making them easily mass produced and cost efficient. Solar power is the way to go!
  • zendin, on 06/05/2008, -5/+2competative?
  • RobertL, on 06/05/2008, -7/+0Everybody take a deep breath and consider what the total energy output would be if we moved into caves and cut down every forest and covered all the land mass and water mass in the continental united states with solar panels and there were no clouds in the sky and it was the longest day of the year (June 21st or something like that) and it was midnight.

    If it takes you more than 10 minutes to solve this problem then you've definitely been drinking too much koolaid.
    • Photokon, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4But think of how windy it would be without trees!!! You could build wind-farms over the entire planet. We could live in wind-farm cities and live inside the windmills. We could name the city, Wind-Megalopolis!
    • Jeffool, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Maybe when knocking down buildings to coat the earth in solar panels, we should considering leaving a factory or two standing to make batteries? Or is that too 'sci-fi' and 'outlandish' for your tastes?
      • TheDreadDiggerD, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Just put them under water, at the bottom of the deep green sea.
    • wolfkeeper, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3Thing is, PVs are more area/sunlight efficient than biomass. Biomass is about 1% efficient. PVs are 7-30%. With biomass you really would need to cover all the usable land with crops. With PVs, you only need a fraction of the area (like 10x less area), and they're usable in cities and on land that cannot be cultivated, and don't require sources of water.
  • kenvsryu, on 06/05/2008, -8/+7Now if only the sun was up 24 hrs a day.
    • buckrogers1965, on 06/05/2008, -0/+10The sun is up 24 hours a day. It is always dead noon under the sun.
    • dpantages, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1That isnt even a problem so much because photovoltaic cells use infrared rays to create convert to the electrical form of energy. Even at night there is still infrared radiation so you'll still be creating electricity, just at a much slower rate : )
    • schure1, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2It is if you're in space :)
  • Ryan166, on 06/05/2008, -1/+19ya, and what happens when the sun explodes?
    • TheDreadDiggerD, on 06/05/2008, -0/+15The world's largest barbecue.
      • failsafe623, on 06/05/2008, -0/+6Everyone would be invited.
        • Hillyard, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Everyone is the BBQ.
        • TheDreadDiggerD, on 06/06/2008, -0/+1That's how they're invited. No one's a snob when the world dies.
    • hinmanj, on 06/05/2008, -0/+10Your solar panel's power rating becomes over 9000.
    • Hillyard, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1We cease to exist.
  • scot333, on 06/05/2008, -5/+5what happens at night?
    • OffPiste, on 06/05/2008, -4/+3Democrats get scared.
      • brentinkc, on 06/05/2008, -1/+2The only thing I get scared of at night is impregnating your mother and sisters.
    • quii, on 06/05/2008, -1/+4You touch yourself
  • GreatGiftPicks, on 06/05/2008, -1/+5The Harley Davidson dealership in our town is on photovoltaic. The local solar water heating company offers the panels to residential and commercial owners. There are quite a few residences here running on it. Why all the skepticism?
    • Reddog_x2000, on 06/05/2008, -1/+9The skepticism is due to the fact that we've been hearing this for years. I'm 40 and have been following technology for a good chunk of that time. I think was either in late elementary school or Jr. High when they showed us a film telling us that solar, wind & geothermal sources were going to provide all the energy we could use in the near future. What's more, it was going to be cheaper & cleaner than burning coal. It's now 25-30 years later & they're still saying it's just around the corner. Don't get me wrong I'll be happy if that day arrives. But, I'm not holding my breath.
    • nowhereelse, on 06/05/2008, -3/+0Skepticism is what stupid people use as a way to sound clever. Anyone who has ever worked on developing a new technology realises that it's almost impossible to foresee problems in something entirely new.
  • Phyrex, on 06/05/2008, -1/+8Too bad I live in Vancouver, where solar panels gather more energy when facing the ground.
  • Flashman, on 06/05/2008, -2/+312.36 gigawatts!!!
    • keimel, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3What the hell is a gigawatt?
    • FireLark, on 06/05/2008, -0/+41.21 gigawatts? 1.21 gigawatts? Great Scott!
  • chmoder, on 06/05/2008, -2/+4I CANT WAIT! Not only will home users begin to power there own houses but corporations will deign buildings with the idea that there employees will be able to plug in there car and charge up while at work and drive it home and charge it up for the next day. All on the power of the sun.
  • RadiatedAnt, on 06/05/2008, -1/+5I call BS I just bought a 7.6v 200mah voltaic panel and it was a whopping 70 bucks. I can charge my cellphone now when I am hiking :D so it's worth it.
    • Aard88, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4You got robbed!
    • justz00t, on 06/05/2008, -0/+6Well you cant be hiking to far out it if you still get cellphone service. Sounds like you need a new battery instead of a solar panel.
      • BoneheadFarker, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3Or he's one of those freaks that go out for days at a time over rough terrain...for fun...
  • FaithclubDotNet, on 06/05/2008, -0/+5I'm watching nanosolar.com. They already produce for 1/3 the price of coal. I'm starting to save money now if they go public.
    • beabis, on 06/05/2008, -1/+0From the Nanosolar website:
      "Want to Buy Panels? We are presently already sold out for the next 12 months. We are working hard to scale our production capacity as fast as possible. Please sign up above to be notified of availability.

      Technical Data Sheet? We presently share product data sheets only under Non-Disclosure Agreement with qualified volume customers. This is so we can extend the period of protection for certain proprietary features we have developed."

      You can't buy their alleged products. You can't even get technical data on their products. Save your money for when Steorn goes public. It will be at least as good as buying into Nanosolar.
      • sparksalot, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Nanosolar actually do stuff
        Steorn is a waste of space
  • londubh, on 06/05/2008, -3/+2Uhm. Yeah, they'll be cheaper to make. Not cheaper to buy.
    • Metasquares, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3If it's that cheap to make, the market will push the consumer price down - some "budget solar" manufacturer will come in and undercut those who charge huge margins.
  • RickyBarnes1960, on 06/05/2008, -0/+2Continued research and development in photovoltaics can only be a plus in my book. I'm looking forward to the day that I personally generate all of my own power needs without dependency on more destructive and more expensive means. Then, finally, I'll be able to do something the so-called "lower form of life" - the tree - has been able to do for millions of years.
  • CaviMike, on 06/05/2008, -0/+6A crystal grower just popped up across the street from my shop and we have most of the contracts to build their machines, so, as much of a nerd as I may sound, I'm friggin stoked about it and the recent advances in this technology. I'm even more excited about this than the super-bright LED's.

    Wow, I really sound like a nerd, don't I? :/
  • Metasquares, on 06/05/2008, -1/+2Sounds great, but I'm beginning to worry that solar is going to be the next bubble.
    • xexx, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4It'd be a pretty good bubble to have as far as bubbles go.
    • BoneheadFarker, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1I'm all for it. We ended up testing out a lot of interesting ideas in the dot com bubble, many of which people can't live without now. Sure, a majority of the ideas were crap that went nowhere, but a bubble can be a good thing...
  • trestevenson, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Encouraging news!
  • Barackalypse, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Great, come get me when they're cheaper than nuclear and available for purchase. Until then, its only a costly alternative to lower priced conventionally generated electricity.
  • ITFeed, on 06/05/2008, -0/+0I want my fusion reactor... Solar panel is way too inefficient, all those silicon wafer can be used to make faster CPU or GPU or RAM instead.
  • MaceSoul, on 06/05/2008, -1/+8For all you kiddies out there, I heard this same thing for 30 years. So start holding your breath.
  • tonyDigger, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Let us hope that don't make it into a commodity and start trading in solar panel futures like what wallstreet did to Crude.
  • ivan423, on 06/05/2008, -6/+2Cheaper than coal is the name of the game!
    • nowhereelse, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Gold will be cheaper than coal in time. It's a finite resource. Wise up unless you don't care about your descendents.
      • nastronomical, on 06/05/2008, -4/+2You sir, are the definition of a liberal idiot.
  • Elliuotatar, on 06/05/2008, -2/+3If light is an electromagnetic wave, then why do we capture the energy from it in a different manner than we do radio? I know we're only just starting to be able to construct teeny tiny antennas out of carbon nanotubes which can capture it like a regular antenna, but what about wire mesh polarizers? Polarizers work because the light moves the electrons in the wires. And we can make wire mesh polarizers for visible light. So why not use lithographic techniques to make these nano antennas or make a polarizer like grid, but instead of connecting the wires at the ends, make it one continuous loop, and connect the ends to whatever you want to power?

    And on a related note... I wonder what would happen if you ran electricity through said loop, or broke the circuit, or varied the resistance? Could you make a polarizer which varies in transparency? Would it emit light when power was applied to it?
    • stk198323, on 06/05/2008, -3/+1You saw a radio working without batteries or eing conencted to the wall? Radio signal is data not energy! Why don't we power our house with the internet then? There's one hell of a difference between data signal and energy source!
      • Elliuotatar, on 06/05/2008, -0/+4Um, yes actually, I have, and built one as a child:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio_receive ...

        Electromagnetic waves like radio, light, and microwaves, are all the same thing, just at different frequencies. If you can heat a pot of water with the sun's rays, you can gather energy from radio waves in the air. And that's precisely what antennas do. But you can't heat a pot of water with radio waves, or use them to transmit power, because radio waves are a much lower frequency electromagnetic wave than light is, and the lower the frequency, the less power there is in the wave. You can power the earpeice in a crystal radio at a very low volume level using the signals from the most powerful local radio stations, but that's about it.

        Microwaves are a bit higher on the spectrum, and have been used to transmit power:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:EM_Spectrum_Pro ...

        Anyway, light and radio, as I said, are the same thing. Anything you do with light, like collect it to power a car, you can do with radio. The only difference is how much power you can get out of the different frequencies of waves, and how difficult it is to construct the antennas which need to be a certain size/shape to collect that frequency of radiation. To collect light waves you need antennas only a few atoms long, whereas radio antennas need to be longer. Ever noticed how cellphones don't need big antennas like radios? Cellphones use radio waves have a much shorter wavelength, so the antenna can be much smaller. But the shorter waves don't pass through the walls of a home as easily as radio waves, so that's why you get crappy reception indoors. Same goes for WiFi. Little longer antennas than cellphones, but still shorter than radio.
  • DaleCo2, on 06/05/2008, -1/+4Solar cells have been overhyped since at least the early 80s. However, this is probably not hype this time around. Actually the solar cell industry has been making steady progress over the last thirty years, just not the kind of progress the hype would have suggested. Cost per watt in real dollars has gone down steadily except for the last 3 or 4 years when silicon shortage drove the price back up slightly. Production of solar cells has grown pretty much every year, doubling every two years lately. At that rate of compound growth an industry can get big in a hurry. The solar cell industry has over a thousand times the capacity now that it did in say 1979 (at least 2 to 3 gigawatts versus maybe 2 megawatts).

    In the last couple of years, venture capitalists have been ponying up very large amounts of cash to expand solar cells manufacturing capacity and bring new types of solar cells to production--a hundred million here, a hundred million there, and more recently a billion here and a billion there. The production figures in the article seem reasonable. The only question is how much demand there will be. If production overshoots demand then yes, prices will fall. Not necessarily a good thing at this stage of the game because some promising companies will then fold and production capacity will stop growing as fast.
  • joeanon, on 06/05/2008, -1/+2Wind is already cheaper than coal and last longer than solar.

    The only downsize is having the wind.

    However, the same goes for solar, since there is no such thing a truly high efficiency panels the size they take up to power a average house is fairly enormous.

    Most people running solar have to lower their electric consumption around 40% or so, which means buying expensive energy efficiency appliances if you don't already have them.

    It makes far more sense to setup solar and wind farms and not force consumers to put up with expensive installs and having to store the electric.

    Rather than storage, which is just another layer of inefficiency, you should sell your electric back to the grid or rely on large solar/wind power plants. This allows the capacity to always be shared.
    • stk198323, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1So many thing's wrong in your post!!!

      1- There is a lot more negatives about wind energy: they modify wind patern and can thus affect all lifeforms around, they make a lot of noise (if used near a house, other then that the nosie fade quite fast if your far from it).

      2- You don't need in ANY WAY to lower your electric consumption. Your conencted to the grid and buy from them what you cannot produce. Do you think solar powered home loose all electricity on every raining day? Seriously wake up!!!

      3- Solar and wind farms are a great alternative, but you still have to build them and that's not something the electricity company really trie to do as fast as possible so you have to live with what you can get and in this case if you build it yourself (as in on your house) YOU decide and you can get it NOW!

      4- Storage is another layer of inefficiency, but SO IS sending it back to the grid. I don't remember any company name who use supraconductiv wires!!!!
  • dalesmatrix, on 06/05/2008, -0/+3and here's me getting my solar panels installed this very day! always the way ;) I feel better knowing I've read this story every 2 years for the last 10 years.
  • nightsweat, on 06/05/2008, -1/+6"Over the next few years" is meaningless speculation. "Released next Thursday" - THAT'S what I want to hear.
  • shivaman, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Can somebody please tell me where to buy solar panels without going through some high priced package deal from a company making tons of money on doing this for people.
    thanks. I just want to put a few rows on my roof and do it myself.
  • nastronomical, on 06/05/2008, -2/+1Sigh once again feel good liberal PC talk about the enviroment....instead of lisenting to this BS pick up a book on physics and power generation. After doing so you will read these "eco" articles and look at them for what they are.....garbage! Ahh the wonders of a Un-politically correct education...thank god I am not the Average American Sheeple idiot.
    • kieranmaine, on 06/06/2008, -0/+2You've read books on physics and power generation but haven't told us why solar isn't a viable energy production method?

      It's a growing market that's getting a lot of investment and advances are being made in improving efficiency of cells. It's not a silver bullet to energy production but it plays an important role in diversifying energy production.
  • RobotLeAwesome, on 06/05/2008, -1/+8BREAKING: in the future prices of technology may go down.
    • objectivist, on 06/05/2008, -1/+1Only if you use gold and silver as money to pay for that technology.
  • kieranmaine, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1I'm not sure why people think solar is crap. The cost of solar dropped from $100/watt in 1971 to $7/watt in 1985 and the article says its now at $3.66/$2.96. Recently effiecency of silicon cells was increased by 2%, from about 21% to 23%. And you can predict when and how much energy you're going to get, avoiding the problems of winds intermittency.

    Solar by itself won't be enough, but it's definetly a good energy production method.

  • Thrilltone, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Heliostats offer unlimited power without needing any silicon
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_tower
    Why is silicon so hard to grow anyway?
    Sand is one of the most abundant resources on the planet.
  • joshnaro, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1This is nice, but think about how much sun is in the middle east.
  • witooo, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1I'm thinking about investing on solar panels with a 20 year plane. Any insight on the subject? I am concerned about the development of technology and how it may affect my investment.
  • jfsimard79, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1I love that the institute is called 'Prometheus Institute'

    In Greek mythology, Prometheus (Ancient Greek: Προμηθεύς, "forethought")[1] is a Titan known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals for their use. He was then punished for his crime by Zeus. His myth has been treated by a number of ancient sources, in which Prometheus is credited with (or blamed for) playing a pivotal role in the early history of humankind.
  • McShr3dd3r, on 06/05/2008, -1/+1The only way to get sustainable energy to the Masses is to sell it at Walmart.

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