Optical Furnace Bakes Better Solar Cells

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory just announced that they have found a way to create more efficient photovoltaic cells using 50% less energy. The technique hinges upon a new optical furnace that uses intense light instead of a conventional furnace to heat silicon to make solar cells. The new furnace utilizes 'highly reflective and heat-resistant ceramics to ensure that the light is absorbed only by a silicon wafer, not by the walls inside the furnace.'"

So, what? A month, six months, a year?

[ibsteve2u]

Until I read a Slashdot article about a facility in the PRC manufacturing photovoltaic cells using 'highly reflective and heat-resistant ceramics to ensure that the light is absorbed only by a silicon wafer, not by the walls inside the furnace'"?

Re:So, what? A month, six months, a year?

[ibsteve2u]

Ouch!, on your behalf....on a larger scale, America seems to be in the grip of this attitude of "If it won't make us a lot of money today, we don't want to play!" at the Wall Street/venture capital/NHWI level.

To our detriment; Rome wasn't built in a day - but it took about a day to fall.

Re:So, what? A month, six months, a year?

[ibsteve2u]

Thinking that is by intent: What better way for a big box retailer to ensure that their labor is cheap, than to destroy higher-paying manufacturing jobs that would - without question - successfully compete for their workers?

Re:The idea of removing impurities is cool...

[benjamindees]

solar panel efficiency is so abysmal a few percentage points more isn't going to help.

Utter nonsense. Photovoltaic efficiency is higher than every other end-to-end solar to electricity conversion process. It's higher than the dominant process (photosynthesis) by an order of magnitude.

The problem with photovoltaics isn't efficiency. It's cost.

Re:So, what? A month, six months, a year?

[Genda]

The problem has been a predictable result of Corporations railing against restriction and regulation. We put powerful rods in the reactor of capitalism when at the turn of the twentieth century a succession of economic disasters was precipitated by wholesale greed and financial practices that made a tiny few rich, but impoverished the masses.

We find ourselves learning the hard way, that we haven't changed in any significant way in 100 years, that greed is ultimately destructive and that our economic engines need exactly the same kind of checks and balances that our political engines require, because in the end, its all about the best and worst in being human. If you don't ensure stability, diversity and fair competition, you get boom-bust, profound disparity and a system which us ultimately unsustainable.

Corporations must be separated from government, for the benefit of both. Both must have a strong set of checks and balances (for example, corporations must not have the rights of human beings.) Both must have strong external guidance based on the greater good of society including environmental necessity, social responsibility and human dignity. A system of rewards and punishment must be implemented that moves these great forces in a direction that serves the needs of humanity and not the other way around.

Re:The idea of removing impurities is cool...

[Surt]

I think the point is 20% and cheap. Panels at the high end of efficiency are expensive.
Now, if they could only figure out how to get the installation costs down.