Thanks Phillip for the link and the facts, some pasted below -- Japan, Germany and the United States constituted 75% of the world market in 2003, up from 71% the previous year. Of the global demand for solar photovoltaics, 38% is accounted for by Japan, 34% by European countries and 11% by the United States.
Grid connected applications accounted for 77% of the total world market in 2003. In Japan and Germany, grid-connected applications accounted for over 95% of the markets. Around 50% of the world's solar cell production was manufactured in Japan in 2003. United States accounted for 12%. http://www.solarbuzz.com/FastFactsIndustry.htm This has been mentioned here before (thanks Kirk) -- "An unexpected discovery could yield a full spectrum solar cell" Nov 18, 2002 http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-full-spectrum-solar-cell.html "Dozens of different layers could be stacked to catch photons at all energies, reaching efficiencies better than 70 percent, but too many problems intervene. When crystal lattices differ too much, for example, strain damages the crystals. The most efficient multijunction solar cell yet made -- 30 percent, out of a possible 50 percent efficiency -- has just two layers." Ed, I'm not sure but maybe this will be of some help -- Can Solar Cells Ever Recapture the Energy Invested in their Manufacture? Richard Corkish Photovoltaics Special Research Centre University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052 Australia from Solar Progress (Australia and New Zealand Solar Energy Society) vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 16-17 (1997) http://www.ecotopia.com/apollo2/pvpayback.htm The 1983 book by Hu and White [1 ] summarises the results from a 1977 Solarex study [ 2] which found an energy payback time of 6.4 years for the manufacture of solar modules using silicon cells of 12.5 per cent efficiency.... The Energy Intensity of Photovoltaic Systems Andrew Blakers and Klaus Weber Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems Engineering Department, Australian National University October 2000 http://www.ecotopia.com/apollo2/pvepbtoz.htm Summary -- The use of photovoltaic systems on a large scale in order to reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions requires that the energy associated with the construction, operation and decommissioning of PV systems be small compared with energy production during the system lifetime. That is, the energy payback time should be short. The energy intensity and cost of PV systems are closely related. At present the energy payback time for PV systems is in the range 8 to 11 years, compared with typical system lifetimes of around 30 years. About 60% of the embodied energy is due to the silicon wafers. As the PV industry reduces production costs and moves to the use of thin film solar cells the energy payback time will decline to about two years.... Comparison with coal and gas derived electricity -- Figure 3 Greenhouse gas intensities for the production of electricity from coal, gas and photovoltaics. PV Payback Karl E. Knapp & Theresa L. Jester Home Power #80 š December 2000 / January 2001 http://www.homepower.com/files/pvpayback.pdf Critics of solar energy have been known to claim that it takes more energy to produce photovoltaic (PV) modules than the modules will produce in their lifetime. Weāve conducted a detailed and scientific empirical study to look into this question. We found that the skepticsā assertions are false. PVs recoup their production energy in two to four years, and go on to produce clean, renewable energy for twenty to thirty years or more! Energy Leverage Of Photovoltaics http://www.ecotopia.com/apollo2/pvlever.htm ----- Previous Message ----- Ed, Here is a nify website with all types of facts and figures. I don't know them but am a reader of their website. http://www.solarbuzz.com/ P.Wolfe --- westewar.edu wrote: > Anyone have information about how solar cell energy lifecycle efficiency > (energy input required to mine and tranform these elements into solar > cells versus the electricty production over the life of the cells) > compares with other fuels and engery sources? > > Ed ----- Original Message ----- > >> The silicon cells APS has been testing at the STAR center have > >> about a 20 percent efficiency rating, meaning that about 20 percent > >> of the sun's energy is converted to electricity. > >> The new cells, which are made of layers of gallium indium phosphide, > >> indium gallium arsenide and germanium, have a conversion > >> efficiency of about 32 percent, Johnston said. APS testing world's most efficient solar cells By Ed Taylor, Tribune Nov 1, 2004 http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=30814 _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/