Thank you to Mark Learn

For a great update, from Technology Review, on some amazing advances in the solar cell production process:

Startup Aims to Cut the Cost of Solar Cells in Half

A new process uses a high-energy ion accelerator to make thin silicon solar cells.

• TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2012
• BY KEVIN BULLIS

Audio »

Twin Creeks Technologies—a startup that has been operating in secret until today—has developed a way to make thin wafers of crystalline silicon that it says could cut the cost of making silicon solar cells in half. It has demonstrated the technology in a small, 25-megawatt-per-year solar-cell factory it built in Senatobia, Mississippi.

Siva Sivaram, the CEO of Twin Creeks, says the company's technology both reduces the amount of silicon needed and the cost of the manufacturing equipment. He claims the company can produce solar cells for about 40 cents per watt, which compares to roughly 80 cents for the cheapest solar cells now. Twin Creeks has raised $93 million in venture capital, plus loans from the state of Mississippi and other sources that it used to build its solar factory...."

Here's the link for the balance of the story:  http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/39887/

The long-term health of the renewable energy industry will depend on lowering production costs and being able, based on that and other factors, to deliver competitive products, with good ROI's, that don't depend on government subsidies or credits.  This kind of innovation will push them much closer to that goal.

Yesterday, on our radio show (WARL 1320AM, Wed's, 12-1P, EST), we talked to Winston, from the Conservation Law Foundation, about our collective need to get off fossil fuel, particularly imported oil and gas. The reasons span every kind of environmental and economic benefit.  We hope companies like this, funded to create technology that balances the financial scale, will succeed and quickly.