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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (102190)	6/6/2008 3:48:13 PM
From: Archie Meeties	Respond to of 206114

You can break the photovoltaic world down several ways. Thin Film: FSLR, Nanosolar, Miasole, etc. (cheap to produce, moderate/low efficiency) Old School Crystalline: Sharp, QCells, BP, many many others. (expensive to make, moderate/good efficiency) Multijunction Cells : EMKR, Spectrolab (very expensive to make, very high efficiency) Solar Cell manufacturing equipment supplier: VECO, AMAT, etc. Solar Cell material suppliers: WFR, AXTI, etc. Another way to break them down: Distance from grid parity. Closest - Furtherest CT Thin film - CIGS thin film - Low production cost "old school" crystalline (China)- high production cost crystalline (everywhere else) - ? concentrating multijunction. Another way to think of them: What influences final cost the most; installment, materials, land use, manufacturing? Currently 45% of the cost of crystalline panels come from the silicon costs, material costs for the multijunction cells are greater still. Thin film requires 5% of the silicon that traditional cells need, the rare earth metals needed are a small part of the cost. Yet another way: technological lead. The argument that when somebody develops X, somebody else develops X' but cheaper, is clearly a misguided way to invest. It may be true over decades, but nobody but FSLR can make a thin film panel remotely close. If they could, they would. Like in many other areas, the technological barriers are high. It will take an army of researchers chained to their labs to get you there, and by that time FSLR will have moved on to something else. Same goes for EMKR and Spectrolab, there are only 2 companies who can make a high efficiency multijunction solar cell, they represent >90% of the cells used in satellites and have for 4 decades. Where's the X'? The same could be said for the entire semiconductor equipment suppliers, many areas of software, processor design, etc. In many areas there are only a handful, sometimes just 1-2 companies who lead and have for decades, but I digress. I agree that rapid transfers of technology are occuring, one only has to witness just how fast India and China have taken western technology into their own economies, mastered them, and built their manufacturing or technology bases around the transferred knowledge. But in the world of investing, a 2 year technological lead is enormous, and that's what FSLR has. Another company that has it is INFN, which I also own. Now back to original idea. Thin film solar will reach grid parity in many parts of the world far before you see much oil coming from major deepwater discoveries of 2008. If breakthroughs in battery research come into production within 5-10 years, then you will have the following situation: Economic non carbon sources of energy + Energy dense forms of storing this energy. That's the death knell for petroleum. Coal will trudge on because shoveling earth with giant shovels is cheap. BTW, try this thought experiment. What is the maintenance cost of a field of solar cells vs. the maintenance costs of a refinery? Or this one. How much energy is lost through transmission of energy from a coal fired plant 200miles away vs a set of panels on the roof of your house? Brazil has plenty of space, more than it needs, for solar. Plus, with the right panels, you'll still be able to graze livestock on the same area. SUNCOW Energy, call it. It's coming, my portfolio is ready for it (I own COW and solar) -g-.