[Vo]:Re: "Best of the best" near-term horizon

[Michel Jullian]

I suspect Jones proposed a dummy as "best of the best", so that the 
technology he deemed "second best" (algoil, what else ;-) would come out as 
the winner.

Seriously though Jones, have a look at Nanosolar's latest declarations (last 
few days) and tell me if they still don't make sense to you:
http://blog.nanosolar.com/
Excerpt:

"PS: The SF Chronicle article describes a dynamic of arguments as it may 
unfold in a lot of communities these days. There's the Berkeley professor 
quoted as the "it's-too-expensive" skeptic. I went through the economics 
paper behind this skepticism and am not surprised: First, he predicts the 
cost of installing multi-MW municipal power based on the cost of a small 
residential silicon PV rooftop system. Secondly, he extrapolates the 
near-term cost of solar by averaging legacy technology providers with 
emerging cost leaders and fails to look at the world's most streamlined 
solar installations as a reference (of which there are admittedly none yet 
in California). I guess these kinds of errors happen as the energy industry 
transitions to be more like the technology industry.


EDF Enters Strategic Partnership with Nanosolar, Invests $50 Million
April 10, 2008
Posted by Martin Roscheisen, CEO
EDF press release says it all.

And yes: California is a big target of this partnership of ours.  Multi-MW 
sized farms in particular."

--
Michel

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin van Spaandonk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 1:10 AM
Subject: Re: [Vo]:"Best of the best" near-term horizon


In reply to  Jones Beene's message of Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:23:43 -0700 (PDT):
Hi,
[snip]
>Nick,
>
>Yes, this low efficiency is undoubtedly true for now.
>
>But here is the (possible) paradigm shift, and I should have tried to 
>explain my enthusiasm as involving a paradigm shift rather than as a 
>step-wise improvement.
>
>Even if the efficiency remains far less than for a dedicated solar panel, 
>with this kind of shift in economics, that lower efficiency is not the real 
>issue. When any nearly-transparent film can be applied so thinly and 
>cheaply to glass, not needing to be crystalline like silicon - then even if 
>the result is modest efficiency- that is not so big an issue since you are 
>*going to install a window anyway.*
>
>IOW - most of the cost is already covered by the main use - and we could be 
>facing the situation in the next few years when the glass industry says- we 
>can convert all of the window glass we make into low efficiency electrical 
>converters for only a little extra cost, in mass production. The graphene 
>required for this is 'de minimis' due to the thinness, and carbon is cheap.
>
>"Ditto" for the roofing and ditto for siding industry, not to mention 
>exterior surface of every automobile, etc. Even painting contractors might 
>get into the act somehow.

At an energy production of only 1 W/m^2 it won't make much difference. IMO 
the
technology most likely to make the biggest impact in the shortest time is 
the
PHEV.

Of course this assumes that concurrently coal fired power stations are 
replaced
by cleaner power sources.

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

The shrub is a plant.