Solar Nanotech  

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article up on the booming (in terms of investment anyway) solar nanotech industry (via Energy Bulletin. WorldChnaging also noted a similar article in the New York Time recently.

The article suggests that solar could be able to economically meet a large proportion of our power needs - which echoes a lot of recent reports about the potential for wind power as well.

One advantage solar has over wind is that the availability of solar energy is better spread around the globe, and many areas that are unsuitable for wind power generation (see the WorldChanging post linked to above) get plenty of sunlight.

Investors along Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park are pouring money into solar nanotech startups, hoping that thinking small will translate into big profits. Both inventors and investors are betting that flexible sheets of tiny solar cells used to harness the sun's strength will ultimately provide a cheaper, more efficient source of energy than the current smorgasbord of alternative and fossil fuels.

Nanosys and Nanosolar in Palo Alto - along with Konarka in Lowell, Mass. - say their research will result in thin rolls of highly efficient light-collecting plastics spread across rooftops or built into building materials. These rolls, the companies say, will be able to provide energy for prices as low as the electricity currently provided by utilities, which averages $1 per watt.

A study released by the Energy Foundation in March suggests that the United States could produce 2,900 new megawatts of solar power by 2010 - enough to power 500,000 homes - if the cost is significantly reduced. Solar energy ranges between $4 and $5 per watt. The report suggests market expansion will require $2 to $2.50.

The Energy Foundation report also says that solar energy could furnish much of the nation's electricity if available residential and commercial rooftops were fully utilized. According to the Energy Foundation, using available rooftop space could provide 710,000 megawatts across the United States, whose current electrical capacity is 950,000 megawatts. "The market is obviously huge, demand is huge. Besides, (alternative energy) is imperative in the world we live in," said Bill Gurley, a general partner at Benchmark Capital in Menlo Park, an early investor in Nanosolar.

High production costs are among the reasons solar energy hasn't become a major source of electricity. The black, glasslike photovoltaic cells that make up most solar panels are usually composed of crystalline silicon, which requires clean-room manufacturing facilities free of dust and airborne microbes. Silicon is also in short supply and increasingly expensive to produce, so high manufacturing costs are the main reason behind high wattage prices.

As a result, the cost of panel installation typically equals four to five years of expensive energy before production costs are recovered and systems begin paying for themselves. With nanotechnology, tiny solar cells can be printed onto flexible, very thin light-retaining materials, bypassing the cost of silicon production. "Silicon is very capital-intensive. You don't need a clean room for plastic power where capital costs are one-tenth of silicon," said Raj Atluru, managing director at the venture capitalist firm of Draper Fisher Jurvetson in Menlo Park, a major investor in Konarka.

The article notes there are a number of gaps (besides commercialising the technology itself) that need to be plugged to make this technology widespread - particularly building a distribution channel that knows how to install the material and combine it with building products, and also the equipment that manages feeding excess power back into the grid. Their tip for hot real estate - roof tops.

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