The Story of Solar-Grade Silicon
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ย. 2022
- The worldwide solar panel market is growing at about 30% a year - with immense growth coming in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
90 to 95% of those panels are made from solar-grade silicon. I find it fascinating that two of our modern world's most exciting technology sectors - semiconductors and solar - are so dependent on a single simple slice of silicon.
In this video, I want to talk about another kind of silicon wafer. Those used for the solar industry.
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It's good that silicon is such a team player considering the fact that it also happens to be the #2 most abundant element in the earth's crust
Right.
Silicon is such a down to earth element.
Shame on those other stuck up elements. They even call themselves rare earth. 😅
This guy is amazed silicon is used in semiconductors and solar, what a fail
@@itsm3th3b33 "Earth" is an old obsolete name for ore. "Rare earth" elements tend not to form concentrated deposits which we can mine--ores--but overall the elements are not rare. They spread themselves around a bit too much. :-)
@@sirfer6969 Just like your birth.
not at 99.999999% or 99.999999999% purity unfortunately
Funny, I had a lecture today in university about solar panels and I wondered how solar silicon wafers are made compared to silicon wafers for leading edge lithography use. And now you uploaded this video.
I have now watched the video and it exactly answered my questions. Thank you very much!
The terms you're looking for were "Monocrystalline" and "Polycrystalline" silicon.
Is there any chance you could do a whole video on the production of ingots and the slicing process? You've done so many videos on lithography where you've touched on it, but for those of use not well educated on the topic, the slicing of wafers seems like an almost magical process, so a 'deep dive' on it would be awesome.
let's be honest it's just fun to see it sliced
@@LegendLength I mean there's that. But how the fuck do they do it so cleanly?!?
@@Alex.The.Lionnnnn He did explain to be fair, using wires that scrub grit back and forth. I'm surprised it's wire though you'd think it would flex etc..
@@LegendLength exactly! It seems bullshit! How is grit creating beautiful wafers?!?!?
@@Alex.The.Lionnnnn Simple... After slicing, the wafers are POLISHED.
There is still a lot of room left for optimisation and cost reduction.
Better heat recovery in refining, trichlorosilane production and ingot production, better recycling of the chlorine chemicals, better control of ingot production leading to improved ingots with fewer defects, better wafer yield (more usable wafers per ingot), optimisation of the P-N doping processes, better cell yield from the wafers, replacing the silver wires on top of the cells with aluminum, module manufacturing process improvements, thinner glass on the modules, eliminating the frames around the outside of the modules, cheaper mounting and wiring parts, reducing surface reflections on cells and panel glass -- hundreds of tiny things which add up. Moving from P-PERC cell construction to N-TOPCon and moving to bifacial cells can be added here too. Still plenty of room for silicon PV to get cheaper and better, and two-layer modules will reduce land costs by increasing module efficiency from currently around 22% to 30%. Still in the pilot stage ATM.
Great video, thanks. Note however that the wind has turned over the last two years: monocrystalline silicon now dominates in the solar market and multi is disappearing. This is mainly because of technological advances in Cz mono pulling, enabling lower cost mono, and also because of the increased requirements in terms of energy conversion efficiency.
The funny thing is, in many places solar is already extremely cost competitive. In the US at least, building new solar generation capacity & running it for 10 years is actually cheaper than running existing capacity of coal power for the same time. It's cheaper than new gas infrastructure too, but not cheaper than existing gas infrastructure. The barrier to solar adoption is not cost of panels or efficiency; it is political will
The barrier to solar adoption is grid instability. Something must smooth out the jagged generation. At best, this is hydro, simply turning the turbines on at night and turning off during the day. But natural gas power plant works too. Batteries don't work, their capacity degrade exceptionally fast.
Generaly, if wind and solar exceeds 1/3 of energy production in your grid, you get regular blackouts. And there is nothing to be done with it.
@@rainbowhyena1354 Solar can actually help the grid stability to a certain degree since the peak production of solar is around noon when the demand is also at its peak. To get the base load to run off of solar there would be the need for pumped hydro and battery/H2 installations (atleast pumped hydro is already there in most places since coal and nuclear aren't good at regulating so they run at a constant load and the overproduction during lows gets stored to get over peak demand which as i already stated gets a pretty good flattening from solar) and germany for example gets about 50% of it's electricity from wind and solar (and we don't get blackouts).
@@minespeed2009 in 2021 Germany got 8.8% energy from solar and 20.1% from wind. So 28.9%, which is well below 33.3%.
Battery and H2 storages is unfeasible and unsustainable large scale. And hydrobatteries have already been built everywhere, where it was possible. Not much such places, turned out.
And no, consumption peaks in the evening, and pv generation peaks at noon. Therefore pv doesn't help in smoothing this out.
@@rainbowhyena1354 Got any evidence for this statement "Generaly, if wind and solar exceeds 1/3 of energy production in your grid, you get regular blackouts. And there is nothing to be done with it" ?
The South Australian grid has very high wind and solar penetration but doesn't experience regular blackouts.
There are huge costs associated with the backup electricity generation when the sun doesn’t shine, both in terms of money and in terms of political instability. It turns out that the best backup in practice is pipelined gas, high is exactly why Russia thought it was safe to 1) start the Ukraine war in 2014 and 2) escalate drastically in February this year.
Eventually, batteries should be good enough, plentiful enough, and cheap enough so we can avoid using gas for backup.
Here and now, it is much better to just use nuclear power plant.
Somewhat tangential but just as important a video on the rise of the imaging sensor is needed
Complementary metal oxide!
I agree with you that the flaky poly-silicon looks really cool 😎
Jon, thank you for all your work, I have enjoyed your productions for more than 2 years now and have always been impressed with your research - I hope to keep enjoying your work and
I hope it is worth it to your bank account.
*While in M.I.T. we made amorphous solar panels with a giant commercial ink jet printer used for printing canvas for outdoor signs. It could handle larger particle inks very well like conductive inks full of metal powders. We got up to 9% efficiency but the panels where dirt cheap to make at 1/50th the cost of crystal and could take a beating like 500 bullet holes (We used a rock pick) and still make about the same power outputs when the surface was compromised. We even sprayed down the rear collector out of cheap iron dust mixed with coal dust and the front collector grid out of Aluminum powder/Carbon black ink. Both sides got a tough clear silicon coating and was thin and flexible and could be rolled up. Shade or Clouds gave us higher power outputs than Crystal silicon which just quit working on cloudy or rainy days. We also got good power for the 2 hours of twilight in the morning and evenings where Crystal did nothing due to light scattering. Amorphous sucked in the light like a sponge due to it's micro 3D surface. We even measured some power from moon-light which was not expected! Amorphous also lasted longer easily breaking the 50 year life / 20% power loss criteria. Conclusion: Amorphous will rule the world once true competition starts but so far the real problem we fight is COMPANY PROFITS and keeping it difficult to manufacture ensuring monopolies.*
this year solar panel prices crashed. its like 10-15 cents per watt. the issue isnt the price of panels but rather the difficulty of permitting and contract labor here in the US coupled with issues like home insurance. for a $10,000 solar project, the actual panels now represent around 500$ worth of the cost. all that matters for panels is basically durability now since it costs an arm and a leg to fix/repair anything. this is where amorphous panels underperform.
I just put up some 20 year old panels that are monocrystaline, made in Germany and they are still 98% efficient! I sure hope my newer panels also hold up like those over time!
They wont
@@devondetroit2529 how could you know that? The incredibly old phrase "they dont make them like they used to"
@@640kareenough6 "I sure hope my newer panels also hold up like those over time!"
- They wont
You are agreeing with me then?
Monocrystaline panels were developen in germany like 30 years ago. However billions were invested into nuclear power instead of this. Germany could have been world leading.
They will, no worries :)
Solar panels have become more and more durable over time.
Have you ever considered doing deep dive videos? I think it would be awesome to see your style of videos go even deeper into a topic, with interviews, etc and targeting closer to an hour run time. I know it is a big ask, since you are just 1 person and already publish a ton of content but it would be really cool to see a special episode every once in a while.
That would be amazing
I will think about it. Let's see
What an insightful video!. Thank you very much. No silly sponsored ads. Straight to the point and in full details..
Thank you once again
Loved your last line, 'Silicon is here to stay'. It made my day.
I want to add that besides polysilicon for solar and monocrystal silicon for chips, the metallurgical grade silicon that serves as the starting point for all this can also be used to produce (via some intermediate chemical steps) silicone. Not coincidentally there are more then one companies out there that deal with both sides of converting silicon at the same time.
PV for space tend to be 3 or 4 junctions GaAs is only one layer: Ge, Si, GaAs, etc.
It would be interesting to hear how multi-crystal cells degrade. I heard they do it twice as fast as single-crystal cells. In which case the higher upfront cost and production energy intensity of single-crystal cells can pay off in the long run (~20 yr).
Single-crystal cells can look even better if you add the cost of recycling. With a degradation rate of 1% per year, solar installations can remain operational for more than 50 years.
There's that phrase again, 'under investment'. This material is arguably one of the most important we have. So why is there so much investment in hydrogen? Hydrogen is cool in rockets and everything, but it's no environmental saviour.
Some people made some very silly bets.
There are some serious applications for hydrogene, e. g. steel production, and probably air traffic. Otherwise it is just a big hype. There isn't much investment, just people talking about who want to get your money.
I'll love yo hear more about solar cells. It always amazed me why is not more wide spread and used
lol . . . I wonder how many people look at their keyboard after seeing
a misspelled word, to see if the wrong letter is right next to the correct
one? I just caught myself doing it again after reading your comment.
The ole 'fat finger' strikes again.
The image at 5:10 shows the third set of solar arrays on the Hubble Space Telescope, installed on Service mission 3B (STS 109).
They were Iridium satellite spares, with a driving mechanism build by EADS Astrium in Germany and delivered by the European Space agency (ESA). ESA also build the first set of solar arrays and I think also the second set. :)
Source: ESA website “How Hubble got its wings: 6. Hubble's second-generation arrays“
Also you nailed the pronunciation of Czochralski! Well done!
Whenever i heard something very innovative, Bell laboratories comes into picture. It must be magical lab having god level scientist.
They had a UFO from the 50s that they reverse engineered.
Awesome video again, thank you so much! However, let me comment that these days multi Si PV cells are almost out of the market. It’s all mono by now (2022). Also, FBR poly for solar is produced by only one company (ramping up though).
Poly are very price competitive, in New Zealand, currently under US$1.50 per watt. Need more power, just put more panels up.
Great work as usual
I built my first solar power system in 1998. I love the beautiful wafers. Magical.
As always your content is accessible. Insightful and informative. Cudo’s to you
Kudos even, Kokkie.
It’s been a handful of years, but I used to ship used low purity used test wafers to be made into pv cells. 5-9’s quality at a minimum.
Broken wafer’s were sold to another company to become abrasives.
Asianometry is Bliss from Neuralink!!! We saw your video earlier today - incredible presentation
Another excellent video. PV solar makes sense in far flung places, especially many small islands, that must ship diesel fuel (or maybe coal).
Great ep, thanks
Many thanks!
Thank you for your excellent videos, I always learn something new. For example, I did not realize that the invention of the solar cell actually preceded the invention of the transistor, For some reason, I always thought the transistor was first. Live and learn, thanks!
The transistor, as a concept, was indeed first. The transistor, as a working device, was not.
Loved this topic
I signed up for the newsletter. Next I suppose I'll have to read it.
Brilliant channel
Great video always wanted to have a recap on the topic, but what about energy break-even i wish to know.
Thank you!
@15:41 the pellicle in dry aged beef is great for burgers :) Seriously mix some in with the ground beef and nom nom nom flavor.
8:30 I will never understand why people don't express such numbers in terms like in this case: impurities of 1 part per 100'000'000 and 1 part per 1'000'000.
They do. ppm and ppb are commonly used. The difficulty is when you need to know what that means, as they could refer to parts on a mass or atom basis.
When expressing the number of nines, the convention is to count all the nines. So 99% pure would be considered two nines etc.
Becquerel at 19 looks like he partied REALLY hard
Thanks!
My grandparents had some soviet magazine from 1957 at home and one of the article was in typical Soviet fashion named ''Time to put Sun to work!'' and it was about early solar heating I think. Thing is though, Sun is already working and keeping us alive :D
Wish to know about underwater acoustic communication. And it's comparison with EM wave communication.
Laser enrichment silicon? Currently achieving remarkable purity for some quantum computing applications. Highly scalable for a volume production I believe.
That AI created “stock photo” of the 70s cars was good enough to pass a glance but letting it linger gives the eye an opportunity to catch flaws!
Ha... yeah, at first glance, I was thinking it might have been a photo of some '70s cars at an Australian gas bar.
Thank you for physics historical experiment review
FYI ---
If you want to store electricity, the longest-life battery is the nickel-iron (invented by Thomas Edison). Jay Leno has a 1909 Baker Electric car in his collection that still runs on the original battery. The cheapest storage of electricity is pumped hydro, but it requires a pair of lakes at different elevations, which is not available in most geography's, and tends to draw the ire of environmentalists.
2:58 the effect of diffusion within the silicon could be said to be like magic...
It is interesting to watch this, as solar providers here in Arizona don't market asynchronous polysilicon any more - all of the residential and commercial offerings seem to be monocrystalline currently. As a consumer, I would be very reluctant to purchase a residential system with polycrystalline panels, because I would expect them to break down fairly quickly relative to the payback period.
They do not break. From personal experience with Kyocera poly panels from 1998 that aren't even being made anymore, they still deliver more than 80% of their original power.
Thanks
I miss the history content :( this is interesting and valuable to many, I just hope we get some history videos again soon
For pv to become a big part of the global energy mix it does not need more efficienty then it already has.
More efficient is always better ofcourse, but at current levels pv could provide nearly 50% of the energy requirement for the eu by only using available rooftop space within the eu.
Which is already amazing.
Add to that the lost land that currently can not be used for anything and pv will become the dominant energy source over the next decade together with wind.
Land next to highways is now starting to be used for solar instalation over here, which reprisents massive amounts of acres that are perfectly suited for pv exploitation and also contribute to lowering noise polution.
The solar industry has been booming for multiple years now since it has become the cheapest form of energy generation. The only problem we have at the moment is that 30% yearly growth in production capacity is simply not enough and more and bigger production facilities are needed and are constantly being built all over the world.
It is also a great economic bennefit as more and more businesses and people have access to free energy, which is a game changer.
And it decreases dependence on international energy interests as well.
Bossman, you have not spoken about energy storage at all. You cannot run a national grid on renewables only without massive storage infrastructure.
People who ignore this inconvenient truth coughgermanycough are in for a very unpleasant time
@@flubadubdubthegreat1272 this video is about pv silicon. Not battery technology...
But it is the exact same story. Decentralisation is key.
8:24 LMFAO
@ 6:23 . . . . that sure looks more like a solar water heater. . . . . or 'pre-heater', as
the temperature does not get very hot once you start drawing from it at any
sustained rate.
Can you do a video on doping of silicon and how, what, why it is used to increase efficiency?
16:46 - An RP2 SoC. Possibly, RP2040.
It's worth noting that solar thermal is widely applied in the Mediterranean, for example most hotels in Greece will use solar thermal and residential. Interestingly, I've seen evidence that while solar thermal is relatively cheap, solar PV has advantages even for water heating because the starting sunlight threshold for PV to provide energy to heat water is lower than solar thermal. PV can provide energy even when cloudy, it's not much, but it helps.
Hot water from solar is cheap and easy. The resistave heater load can be fed directly from the solar array without regulators or inverters, Whatever the panels produce will add heat. My hot water comes painlessly from my panels, when up to temperature the load gets transferred to battery charging.
its crazy, you can now get solar panels shipped to your door for $0.40/watt. if youre recycling old panels or buying clearance directly from an import location/port, you can get them for around $0.10-15/watt. The ROI on DIY solar projects is getting to be around 2-3 years in my area. The frustrating part is just how expensive all the middle men are who barely lift a finger and offer next to nothing in terms of warranty once they go bankrupt on a biannual basis. for a $10,000 solar project, the actual panels represent around 500$ of the total cost now. so many people would be better off just hooking up a bunch of panels and coupling them to a DC powered heat pump and keeping everything separate from your utility company.
hard to name an investment that pays for itself in 3 years, thats like 30% market return in the stock market.
i put 80$ worth of 200w solar panels on my plug in hybrid car and immediately noticed a range improvement. nothing complicated, just going straight into the low voltage battery to offset the 12v parasitic loads so my high voltage battery lasts longer for actual driving around.
2013 chevy volt with 130k miles on it, currently getting 45 miles of range each day while only using 10.3kwh of the 16.5kwh battery. because gas is so expensive right now, the solar panels paid for themselves after 3 months. I was getting about 38-40 miles of range before. it sounds tiny but when youre saving on gas, its about 20x as efficient as having them power your home. upgrading my 12v battery soon to a 4kwh lifepo4 pack so I can get more out of the solar panels. because lead acid batteries are this bizarre monopoly in the US who now raises prices every year, the 4kwh lifepo4 battery was actually the same price as the ~200wh usable AGM battery, and as mine is original (15 years old), i was going to replace it anyways.
That PN junction not only makes solar cells, it makes LEDs and other diodes. in fact reverse the current and a solar cell that takes light and makes electricity reverses and it takes electricity and makes light. Electroboom and Steve Mould have entertaining videos about that effect.
As an Asian, I fully relate to 8:24.
I love the content of your videos, but I most commend your writing (The crucible = "Not Arthur Miller" ). You clearly had a good education.
11:45 onward, basically a nilered video
@Asianometry is solar grade silicon a finite resource which might be used up at some point? In the documentary by Michael Moore Planet of Humans, they implied that the silicon that is pure enough to make solar panels could be depleted similar to using up all of the crude oil.
purity is being achieved by refraction.. meaning it's being melted and gravity acts on the molten 'soup', with the heaviest elements wandering to the bottom and the lightest to the top. To get to 99.999999% purity they even remelt the ingot with a moving zone to move the unwanted elements out and then cut that part of.
“Silicon is here to stay” . . . at least until we figure out how to overcome the durability issues with perovskites. Then printable, flexible, more efficient and cheaper panels will start to take over.
I just ordered 30k dollars worth of solar.
My sympathies to whoever is paying for subsidizing your virtue signalling.
Great explanation. I'm also interested in how China came to dominate the market for solar panels.
Dumping and IP theft.
Jon has already done a video on that.
This story always get me, in a sheer luck, they just discovered the f***ing P-N junction
1:18 What was I doing at 19? Finding the photovoltaic effect, until I realized it already existed.
15:39 someone watches Gugafoods 😉
We can make fuels artificially with energy. We can anything like Hydrogen, all components of Natural Gas, Petrol, etc. Plants can also use solar energy to convert carbon, hydrogen and oxygen into oils but it is infeasible due to some obvious reasons.
Woah woah - This graph at 7:46 doesn't make any sense to me. What are the differences between these two sources of data? I'm assuming that this is being measured in USD, but is that actually true? Also, a year of when this estimate was made would be beneficial, as I cannot immediately tell if any of this is based on historical fact, or just all purely estimates. Finally, the crucial crux of this slide, where are these two estimates actually from? It's always possible the source has a bias, making the source clear could be viewed as a type of bias.
this month the quality of your videos incresed! more interesting, les politics
Thanks for the great informative and entertaining video:)
Just a thought: "Solar cells need to get cheaper" ... They do get cheaper, but I don't think that there is any emphasis on the word "need".
They inevitably get cheaper, seen relative to other energy carriers, like fossil fuels. The latter just can't do other than get rarer and therefor more expensive.
5:26 That's an astoundingly cursed representation of the 1973 oil crisis.
What about Perovskites? Not so long ago I heared from SGU that it's getting financially feasible. I'm really looking forward to get my hands on some perovskite solar PV cells!
Perovskites may remain the "panels of the future" for a while yet. In-theory, they'll eventually be cheap to manufacture. But in-practice they are horribly toxic and break down quickly. So you need something like heavy glass covers, and you have to refresh more than annually, and safely dispose of panels fairly regularly. A new variation of the material could be developed tomorrow that solves all the problems, but that's very unlikely. More likely is a series of smaller advances in material, manufacturing, design, etc., iterating on each other but taking a lot of time and money to push the state of the art one step at a time.
What are called Perovskite solar cells are confusingly not actually made of Perovskite, but rather of other perovskite-structured materials. And the working cells are currently almost exclusively lead-based, which (as the other reponse points out) is rather toxic. A lot of research is being done on so-called lead-free perovskite solar cells. It will be a long time before these can be considered viable for industrialization. Poly-crystaline is just to cheap to compete with...
some weird ai art at @5:31
Unlimited Power! 4:38
Strange somehow the fact that perovskite just start to rise is missed.
Yes, but what did Henri Becquerel's son do, collapse into a black hole from the pressure?
please do one on ribbon ingots.
Stacked solar cells are the new hotties, multiple layers of solar cell on each other....
I'm guessing he meant to say "Germanium arsenide" when talking about space solar cells.
Now do perovskites!
It amazes me that such economic dominance was achieved on the back of a material that has quite a mediocre conversion efficiency.
Photoelectric effect > photovoltaic effect
It would be worthful to tell something about market processes. Around 2000 Germany had an leading position in solar cell production. But then China takes over nearly the entire western industries. Not only solar. Currently Europe and USA loses with cars industry the last domestic industries to China. Also wind turbines had been produced domestically in Western World up to 2020. But also here China begans now to take over the entire wind turbine industry and also the investment activities. Wind turbines all over the world are made in China and run as chinese economic property. It is a serious problem. But only weakly discussed.
China is doing two major strategic things: first - it makes itself independent from foreign technology; second - it tries to get control over all the world major economic sectors. Basically they looked at what industries would be important in the near future and went all in into those sectors. Solar energy, wind turbines, carbon fibre, electric cars are among those things. They also have quite a beneficial rare resources like lithium and rare earth metals which are crucial in the green transition.
Steinmeier have said recently that Germany is going to make it's policies more independent from the US, that it'll start to take on more responsibilities and so on. So it's all going to change.
I also remember in 2013 a start of negotiation process for mutual investment agreement between EU and China, that was when Britain didn't agree with the German approach and decided to go the separate way, and that was also when protests in Ukraine have started. From my own pespective it looks like Britain decided to make more financial approach with China, while Germany decided to leverage it's manufacturing. Many luxury BMW models and all electric ones are only made in China now, and were (not sure how it's done now) sent to Europe via train. I think that neither russia, nor the US liked this increased integration between EU and China. I also think that China is doing exactly the same thing with it's technology as russia was doing with it's cheap energy and control over logistics, they are just run by the same leninist ideology.
@@sshko101 The success of China has nothing to do with "Leninism". It is rather economical "fascism". China suppresses its folks and make mass factory chickens from chinese workers. Resulting in that for example a drilling machine can be sold for 5 Euros in european hobby markets. If such a drilling machine would be made in Germany, like it was normal before 2000, than the same drilling machine would cost 200 Euro or more. Also during German fascistic epoche "Drittes Reich", Germany build a lot of things, which would not be possible under democratic coverment with labour organisations preventing exploitation of worker class. Currently the entire world becomes colonist from China with its "economic fascistic system". Able to produce solar panels, wind turbines and every thing else much cheaper than democratic nations can achive. The result is that Africa and South America is completely colonized from China and Europe and USA is on the same way to become completly colonized as Chinese (economical) property. This runs with full speed since 2000 and up to now nobody in the old world can press the break to stop this. Meloni in Italy claimed, that she will do something against it. But what and how ? I bought always rubber boots from Italy in garten market for around 16 Euro. They had been made in Italy for long time. Then the production was given to yugoslawia. To hold the price there was bad rubber qualtiy used. Than this boots production was given to India. India (like China) can pay lower wages like anywhere in Europe. So better rubber can be used on cost of havely exploited workers. And to do anything against this system is fairly difficult.
@@wolfgangrenner4152 Do you think that Deutsche Arbeitsfront was better than regular trade unions?
@@sshko101 The "German Arbeitsfront" is an means of an totalitarian system. Living in an totalitarian system is always worse than a modern democratic waelthiness situation. But China conqueres the entire world with an "Chinese Arbeitsfront", which finally will lead to an komplett KO situation of Western World. It is difficult to reindustrialize old western societies. Meaning that Italian workers should produce rubber boots for one Euro wage per hour, to cope against China and India. But the problem is really: Who has the taffest economy will conquere the world. And China has the taffest economy. Europe is an lazy and decadent retirement house. Not able to retain former wealthiness. Selling all industrial "silver spoons" to China to get some money to retard the economical collaps western world will anyhow finally reach.
@@wolfgangrenner4152 They want to obtain total political control over the whole world via economic means. That's why I've brought up leninism, Karl Marx didn't finish his volume on politics. Despite the fact that their politycal system is leninist they kind of extrapolated his political tactics to economics. It's now not just value, what is defined by their party, they also want to obtain control over all crucial technologies while pretending to be a fair player.
The only thing that concerns me about the proliferation of solar panels is what is going to happen with them once they are worn out, to the best of my knowledge we don't have any way to recycle these panels, meaning that in the future we will have a massive waste problem to deal with as mountains of these things are taken down and disposed of, but how? Where? Just bury them all in landfill?
Probably yes, just throw them in a landfill. The only solar panel components worth recycling are the copper wires and the aluminum frame. The rest will be grinded into glass-silicon dust and thrown somewhere. Fortunately, silicon panels are not as toxic as CdTe or perovskites
Eh, nothing out of our current capacity. Coal plant already generates toxic waste everyday, and decommissioning a coal plant requires decontamination of the soil. Solar only generates waste at end of life and leaves a clean environment, it looks like child's play.
Third world reuse, as long as they still generate, just use more. A bit like the crowded market for used EV lithium batteries for home PV application or used jet engines for gas turbine generation.
15:14 define "currently". According to Laser Focus World the break-even of monocrystalline Si occured in 2018, and already 2020 monocrystalline solar cells held a market share of 80%. In 2022 in Europe, noone will use multicrystalline PV anymore. Your report seems to be quite outdated. The numbers you present are at least 5 years old and completely wrong for today.
Edit 18:13 "These numbers are from the 2000s" - this is a ridiculous reference, for such a fast developing technology.
I too was surprised by this.
Correct. Up to date figures can be found in the annual "Trends in Photovoltaic Applications" report from IEA-PVPS. They estimate a 89% global monocrystalline (sc-Si) market share for 2021 (p. 49) - industry appears set to completely consolidate around sc-Si.
17:52 That seems to be highly sus data, Hungary has effectively banned commercial solar farms and recently effectively stopped all residential deployments too due to... uh... politics.
Solar panels have to be the most amazing technology created in the last 50 years and probably the most reliable..It is complete madness that we get charged 45c pkwh for something that falls out of the sky for free. It is like selling ice to eskimo's :)
It's not free to use PV to create electricity
@@disadadi8958 I said the sunlight was free, you are clearly another youtube Genius...
@@jedics1 Yes, once it's paid off... Who is going to do the investments and then give the electricity to you for free?
You don't really have the capability to see the whole picture here
@@disadadi8958 Investments in what? My point is Pv is so cheap now that it is affordable and practical for most people to have instead of paying a company extortion rates for it.
@@jedics1 Really? I haven't seen clear sky in a couple of days, and sun is up for barely 6 hours during the day. You think it's even half reasonable to buy some solar panels and still have to rely on the grid electricity.
It might be worthwhile somewhere, but it's not applicable everywhere for everyone, nor is it ready for large scale use to replace power plants.
why can't the silicon melt be poured and rolled the way glass is?
Glass is (by definition) amorphous. i.e. it has no crystal structure.
Crystals need to grow undisturbed from seeds.
You can't roll it out /or even float it/ because the lattice that carries electrons would be destroyed.
@@jimurrata6785 what a great answer, thanks!
@@DanJanTube I'm sure I've offended a few scientists and experts with my explanation, but it's true in basic and understandable layman's terms.
I'm glad if it helps you understand the difference! 🙂
TL;DW you have a tasty steak on your roof
i vote for scene from Terminator 2
👋🏾👋🏾👋🏾👋🏾
O fuck yeah, I’m one of the first 100 comments! Asians are cool, I wish I had more asian friends, silicon solar is dope, cool beans
You said aluminium therefore you are a man of taste
Perovskite solar tech is advancing rapidly. It is not a given that silicon will be the top of the heap in a few years. Silicon is near its theoretical limit in efficiency. Perovskite is already past that, with plenty of room to go further. Currently, at 32.5% Perovskite requires much less energy to make as well.
The main obstacle is durability over time. But that too is increasing. When it gets to 10 or 20 years, that could easily put silicon out of business. Or maybe push silicon to greater durability, so at least large scale power where they have cheap land will continue to prefer them.
5:34 Is this AI generated? Bruh