NYT: G.E. Signals a Growing Interest in Solar

[DeepModem Mom]

DUers with technical knowledge, please comment:


G.E. Signals a Growing Interest in Solar
By BARNABY J. FEDER

Published: March 13, 2004


General Electric will acquire the major assets of the largest American-owned maker of solar equipment, in a move the solar power industry sees as a major vote of confidence in the business.

A federal bankruptcy court judge in Delaware yesterday approved G.E.'s plan to buy the bulk of AstroPower for $15 million in cash and an estimated $3.5 million in debt, along with other liabilities to be settled when the deal closes at the end of the month. It would be the most decisive step yet by G.E. into the so-far unprofitable business of generating electricity from sunlight, a technology that G.E. researchers have dabbled in for nearly half a century....

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(A)nalysts and solar manufacturers figure G.E. is responding to signs that rising prices for hydrocarbon-based fuels and improvements in solar products and manufacturing technology have laid the foundation for large-scale producers to finally start making steady profits - even as major supporters like the Japanese government and California reduce subsidies to consumers....

***

G.E.'s...recent attention to photovoltaics grew out of research on light-emitting plastics. Feeding electricity into such plastics creates light, but researchers knew that they could also do the reverse - use light to create electricity. A plastic that was efficient enough at creating electric current from sunlight might serve as a much cheaper and more flexible photovoltaic material than silicon, and become a monster product for G.E.'s huge plastics business....

(much more in this article)


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/13/technology/13solar.html

[punpirate]

1. GE is doing its best to corner the alternative energy market...

... just in case. They recently bought Enron's wind energy subsidiary at a reasonably low price.

They'll sit on the technology until they think they can make a bundle on it. GE, if nothing else, will go where the dollars are.

Look for upcoming legislation to direct research and development money their way, along with legislation protecting their position in post-peak oil market (just a wild-assed guess).

[thinkingwoman]

5. and this is why I don't

buy into the peak oil means end of the world scenario. I don't for one second believe that the big energy corporations are being caught unawares. They have the resources and the connections to develop the alternative energy industry and they squelch competition. When the time is right, in their minds, they will unveil their creations.

I don't expect my computer to go dark or my car to be permanently parked in my lifetime. I just don't.

[truthisfreedom]

2. of course they have to do this. they drive the alternative energy co's

into the ground and buy them for pennies on the dollar... because they've all read the expert analysis of how we're running out of fossil fuels so fast that after 2050 most of our resources will be dried up.

[yltlatl]

3. So who can tell us...

how you make solar panels? What kind of energy does it take to turn silicon into an alternative energy source?

[BeFree]

4. You are using the wrong terms.....

The 'alternative' source is the Sun. But it's not an actual alternative...the Sun is the main energy source for all life. Silicon merely captures the Sun's energy and transforms it into electricity. Most PV systems use batteries to store that generated electricity.

IIRC, pure silicon crystals are wafer-thin sliced and those slices are arrayed in a wired panel which concentrates the electricity generated. Usually a panel generates 14+ volts at an amperage whose strength depends on the amount of sunlight and number of wafers.

If a plastic that captures the Sun's energy can be mass produced, it will eliminate the costly and time consuming process of wafer cutting and arrayment. I imagine that the plastic would just be poured into a form, attach wires, place in sun, and battery charging would ensue.

Interesting.

[htuttle]

6. Here's where to buy them

They seem more expensive than conventional photovoltaic panels, but the power output looks pretty good. If GE starts kicking them out en masse, the price should drop considerably:

http://www.altenergystore.com/cart/solar_panels.html?googleas_astropower#Astropower_solar_panels

On edit: on further inspection, I'm not sure if those are the new technology panels, or just conventional ones manufactured by AstroPower. They look the same as the ones in the picture in the article, but it doesn't mention what they are made of.

[mulethree]

9. single crystal

Those are single-crystal meaning wafers of pure silicon. Astro-tech's "new" technology is amorphous silicon, not-so-pure silicon deposited onto a substrate.

Uni-solar also has a deposited solar tech that uses multiple thin layers each tuned for different light wavelengths and deposited onto a long roll of stainless steel.

Neither of the new techs is as efficient as single-crystal but they avoid many costs like wiring lots of cells together and the panel (box).

One problem is storing the electricity they generate. Batteries are heavy, full of acid, expensive and will need replacing - probably twice - over the life of the panels. A system with solar cells and batteries never really pays for itself in electric-bill savings. So they are pretty senseless when there is access to the power grid.

They make more economic sense if you eliminate the batteries. This requires "net metering" where you feed the generated electricity back into the power grid "running the meter backwards". Still, unless you can combine a location that has both many sunny days and very high electric rates, a solar-electric system won't pay for itself within it's warranty period (and some have 20 year warranty's).

So, GE is betting that they can both make/sell them cheaper and that electric rates will be rising significantly?

[newyawker99]

14. Hi mulethree!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[yltlatl]

7. Yeah, but where's the oil?

I take your point on the terminology, which brings me back to my point: the panels themselves are not renewable, and must be created from a non-renewable resource. To ask my original question other ways:

1) How do you make pure silicon crystals to slice wafer-thin--are they found in an appropriate state in nature, or do you have to expend energy to get them in this state?

2) Can they make the necessary plastic without using petroleum as either energy source or raw material, or both?

[DeepModem Mom]

8. By the way, yltlatl, welcome to DU --

[Hegemony Cricket]

11. It depends on your goals..(warning: crazy subjective futurist crap)

The brief answer:
1 - Not certain, then, Currently Yes, you gotta work for it
2 - Not effectively anytime soon

In the short term (read: at least the next century) petroleum will remain as a base resource for many industries.

If alternative energy research/production can ever get a serious investment from our government (currently <1b) it will begin to reduce the need to use petroleum for the production of energy. Don't just think solar; think algae, wind, tide, etc.

Over time (the next couple of centuries if we're lucky enough to work on this stuff for that long) it is to be hoped that clean renewable energy production would completely replace dirty and/or non-renewables.

Since petroleum is still a major player in the short term, we should be thankful for the promise of thermal depolymerization. Although it results in dirty energy, it nonetheless effectively changes petroleum from a non-renewable to a renewable resource.

The problems currently facing that process is that it costs about $15 per barrel of oil. Compare that to the 1-3 dollars it takes to get oil out of the ground from the middle east...or the 8-10 dollars it costs to get oil out of smaller facilities (like the gulf, etc.). The cost per barrel will come down as the technology is refined...it just takes time.

So, as this process is deployed, mainstreamed, and then optimized, it could theoretically eliminate the need for traditional oil production (drilling, etc.) but transporting it will still be the same ecological nightmare headache (tankers, pipelines).

The danger is that innovation is stunted by this new source of old energy...leaving us with the same pollution issues we face today.

The promise is self-evident, if only we could all make it happen.

Oh well...still waiting for my flying car...

[otohara]

10. Bush Will Fund

he loves GE - big ass donors

[goforit]

12. Action speaks louder than words.

Hope GE won't look like a bunch of phonies in the long run.

We'll see.

[Joanne98]

13. They'll privatize the sun's rays

Then price gouge the human race.