Solar power using nano size polymer foil collectors
I mentioned this story on at least one other website...Designcommunity.com...hope I am not repeating myself here...
Does the following polymer foil idea use this diode array technology?
Solar enthusiast are now mentioning a solar powered alternative and rival to wind and ethanol production....using a polymer foil substrate...
Money
From the Telegraph.co.uk website...regarding the Swiss start-up company Flisom
Cheap solar power poised to undercut oil and gas by half
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
"Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity, even in Britain, Scandinavia or upper Siberia. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half. Technology is leaping ahead of a stale political debate about fossil fuels."
and...
"The "tipping point" will arrive when the capital cost of solar power falls below $1 (51p) per watt, roughly the cost of carbon power. We are not there yet. The best options today vary from $3 to $4 per watt - down from $100 in the late 1970s.
Mr Sethi believes his product will cut the cost to 80 cents per watt within five years, and 50 cents in a decade."
This would seem to be wonderful news.
My own concern is the mathematics... "$1 per watt"???. That seems to be a misprint... A lightbulb is 70 watts per hour, and a household might use 20 kwatts in usual usage. That might mean...$20,000 to rewire a house using this new polymer foil technology. It sounds pricey!
And of course, there is the age-old... "What stopped all of us doing this 20 years ago, and what is stopping us now?" Answer...the oil monopoly, I believe.
Note: slight editorial addition...
Two more references, including a very interesting comment on investment partners....
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/thinfilm-solar-clobbering-oil.php
"With the investment dollars of Google's founders, Nanosolar is building a plant in California the capacity of which would catapult it into the top solar makers in the world."
http://www.flisom.ch/e/F_Techn_LCost.html