Why do you think the largest company in the semiconductor-equipment space (Applied Materials) is getting into the solar biz? Because they believe they can lower the costs of solar similar to IC’s.
Why do you think the largest company in the semiconductor-equipment space (Applied Materials) is getting into the solar biz? “
Because with all the Federal tax money and govt subsidies, there is a growing demand for equipment to make the stuff.
“Because they believe they can lower the costs of solar similar to IC’s.”
Nope, that’s ignorant babble. An Intel processor 1o,000 times more powerful than the Intel x286 (that came out 20+ years ago) takes up less silicon area than the 286 did... how? we made transistors that much more smaller. Solar energy depends on the *constant* amount of solar energy hitting a particular area. making devices smallar helps not one bit. It’s simply physically impossible to gain better economics for solar PVs the same way.
Anyway, that is solar PVs and your linked article said solar thermal is most promising. Which is it, thermal or PVs?