Real Hope - Energy

[Joseph T. Burkeson, CMI]

Nanosolar Achieves 1GW CIGS Deposition Throughput

June 18, 2008
Posted by Martin Roscheisen, CEO

As we are busy ramping our operation, we almost forgot to recognize achieving a major milestone in solar technology: The solar industry’s first 1GW production tool.

Most production tools in the solar industry tend to have 10-30MW in annual production capacity. How is it possible to have a single tool with Gigawatt throughput?

This feat is fundamentally enabled through the proprietary nanoparticle ink we have invested so many years developing. It allows us to deliver efficient solar cells (presently up to more than 14%) that are simply printed.

Printing is a simple, fast, and robust coating process that in particular eliminates the need for expensive high-vacuum chambers and the kinds of high-vacuum based deposition techniques from industries where there’s a lot more $/sqm available for competitive manufacturing cost.

Our 1GW CIGS coater cost $1.65 million. At the 100 feet-per-minute speed shown in the video, that’s an astonishing two orders of magnitude more capital efficient than a high-vacuum process: a twenty times slower high-vacuum tool would have cost about ten times as much per tool.

Plus if we cared to run it even faster, we could. (The same coating technique works in principle for speeds up to 2000 feet-per-minute too. In fact, it turns out the faster we run, the better the coating!)

Also: High-res download of video

[Michael Larson]

Cost per killowatt and pay back time??

[Joseph T. Burkeson, CMI]

More fallout and paradigm shifts, expect change!

Americans migrate back to the cities

By Tom Leonard in New York
Last updated: 2:23 AM BST 19/06/2008

Americans are choosing to abandon the suburban sprawl in favour of a more comfortable, cheaper and greener life in the city centre.



The mass migration of America's middle classes from urban areas to the suburbs amounted to a demographic revolution in the years after the Second World War.

But the so-called "driveable suburb" is becoming increasingly unfeasible as soaring fuel costs make a long commute too expensive for many.

Higher energy prices are also having a disproportionate impact on bigger homes, such as those found in the suburbs, as they inevitably cost much more to heat in winter and cool in America's often fiercely hot summers.

The sub-prime mortgage crisis has accelerated this flight to the cities – experts have christened it New Urbanism – as property prices have particularly collapsed in more remote areas.

According to a poll for Reuters, about 10 per cent of Americans said they were considering moving closer to work while roughly the same percentage said they were thinking about getting a job closer to home.

John Zogby, a political pollster, said the findings added up to a "broad cultural change" which translated into millions of people considering a major transformation in their lives.

He said: "Low energy costs and the availability of autos helped fuel suburbanisation."

But as people concluded that high energy prices were here to stay, "this is now one of those big changes in our lives that requires nothing short of dramatic lifestyle changes," he said.

Even before the latest economic downturn, demand for urban living had been rekindled among two generations – the so-called "baby boomers" in their fifties and "millenials", the latter born between the late 1970s and mid-1990s.

Both are already drifting away from the suburbs, the baby boomers because they want smaller homes and more accessible amenities, and the millenials to rebel against their cul-de-sac upbringing.

Transportation is now the second biggest household expense in the US after housing. Much of the new demand for city homes is in neighbourhoods close to light railway stations, hastening the move away from a car culture.

Some towns around cities have responded to this exodus by rejecting suburban status and working hard to reinvent their own centres.

Americans are not just reconsidering their living arrangements because of the latest economic downturn.

Nearly 39 per cent of those surveyed in the Reuters/Zogby poll said they were considering changing holiday plans, while 31 per cent plan fewer restaurant visits.

Story from Telegraph News:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2152526/Americans-migrate-back-to-the-cities.html

[Ralph Brady]

Originally Posted by mlarson

Cost per killowatt and pay back time??

Cost = No lives lost!
Pay back time = lifetime

[Joseph T. Burkeson, CMI]

Originally Posted by rbrady

Cost = No lives lost!
Pay back time = lifetime

Mikey ain't gonna like that, it just ain't politically expedient to Neocons for folks to go around making power on their own, if too much of that happens maybe you won't need the government.

[Michael Larson]

Please tell us Joey how many killowatts of PV you have.

[Kenneth Lott]

There is no way and no room to get all of the people back in the cities, besides most of the jobs are outside of them anyway in office and industrial parks.

[Joseph T. Burkeson, CMI]

Originally Posted by klott

There is no way and no room to get all of the people back in the cities, besides most of the jobs are outside of them anyway in office and industrial parks.

Seeing as how we don't make a friggin' thing here anymore an office can be moved anywhere don't you think?

[William J. Decker]

Does anyone know the kilowatt output per SF?

[Michael Larson]

Originally Posted by wdecker

Does anyone know the kilowatt output per SF?

Better yet the cost and surface area to produce a kilowatt and the time to payback.

[Kenneth Lott]

Originally Posted by jburkeson1

Seeing as how we don't make a friggin' thing here anymore an office can be moved anywhere don't you think?

I agree.