Big Solar Cell Improvement

Superefficient, Cost-Effective Solar Cell Breaks Conversion Records

This is great news, and a trend to keep a close eye on as a speculator. Perhaps the electric car concept will even pan out one of these days, a major downside has been the cost of electricity (not to mention environmental impact). Oil’s days are numbered and this is one more piece of evidence that we probably won’t skip a beat moving to alternatives as they become cost effective. Hopefully solar technology will be viable for "northerners" too, but in the very least we could one day see vast desert or ocean based power stations.

The article is not very specific about costs, but does mention “this system could potentially generate electricity in the range of 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour--roughly equal to consumer electricity prices today.” It also said “"There are at least three or four different approaches to take the efficiency into the 45 percent range. And that means the price of energy harvested directly from the sun will continue to drop.”