All week long (mid dec 2007) I've been hearing about...

I was saying the Evergreen was punished by crummy stock market practices, having absolutely nothing tho do wit the company or it's products; the fact that they survived it says just the opposite.

The practice of selling "Naked Shorts" is equivalent to printing counterfeit stock certificates, and was done by outsiders who saw an undervalued company.  More's the pity!  The investors & founders were robbed of millions of $$$ of equity.  I actually had some shares that I bought for under $2, but I needed the cash and had to sell them

String Ribbon(tm) is still a "poly-crystalline" system.  One that is marvelously frugal in the amount of silicon if consumes.  But being poly-Si, it still achieves efficiency in the 15% range.  That's why I like it.

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 This post was primarily about Nano solar.  They've been getting *huge* press for announcing $1/W based on "thin film" CIGS technology. 

Last week I found the reference to German paper from last July that actually mentioned 6.7% efficiency ( I had estimated 7.5% or half of silicon cells.  And I had thought I remembered the 6% figure, so I suppose they did make a minor breakthrough )

So as Chris (athena) mentioned it's not quite so bad as a football field, but it's still on the order of 2x the area for the same output as a Si counterpart.  So paralleling the bromide "It's not the heat, it's the humidity.", I'll say:  "It's not the panels, it's the installation" that'll get you.

Anyway, we'll see what happens.  The fact that I've not heard of a single silicon contract being cancelled since the announcement kinda indicates that I'm not alone in my belief. 

there are very good thin film solar panels. I have some made by Evergreen solar and they are super with a 25 year warrenty. ESLR , their stock is very good.

Also look at Fisrt Solar, they make thin film panels with no silicon, they use waste zinc mining cadmium. They stock FSLR has gone from $10 to over 276 when I checked today.

nano solar is coming, it's a private company. It will take years to get up to speed and produce a lot of long lasting panels but it is happening.

Just like PC's and other high tech it will be step by step with more and better each year. No quick over night Billions. Just steady clean green growth, like a tree or plants.

the solar stacks

That's absolutely what I'm saying!

Using the example above even if the solar material was $0/W the cost is still $6/W installed.  It's classic marketing, it's lousy engineering.

That's why my company focused st strongly on the total system.  Our panels still cost a few $ per sq ft, but a 170 sq ft panel goes up in minutes, not hours, so our install costs arent $3/W they're more like $0.15/watt to hang a panel.

And yes, total efficiency is critically important.  Back in '87 we developed a 2% efficient thin film, and it was as cheap as plastic trash bags... But the cost to install, and the short lifetime doomed it to the round file.

ctyankee           I'm terrible with numbers.......Are you saying that low cost for each watt produced means nothing if you need a surface the size of a football field to run a wallclock?