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See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

bloomberg.com

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Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#61

Post by S_A_P »

copsarebastards wrote: post #44
S_A_P wrote: post #23

Again, this is tomorrows revolutionary technology. Im all for solar, I am excited by the prospect of solar! I work in an area that partially depends on the oil industry for a large portion of the work I do. As has been said in this thread, Oil is never going away until its gone, there is just too much utility to be had from the stuff. However, being able to generate electricity from our sun would be a great boon to o…

It's true that petroleum is used in a lot of different industries, but the primary uses of petroleum are still energy production and transportation. Everything else happens because it's cheaper to use the byproducts of petroleum refinement than to dispose of them. If we weren't using petroleum for energy and transport, we wouldn't dig up oil just to make plastics--there are plenty of renewable starter materials that…

I disagree on that plant based plastics, and you are missing my point. My point on petroleum was just to say I derive some of my lively hood from commodity markets based on trading Crude, NGLS, Ethanol, and some other things like metals, coal, etc. Even though this is the case, I still am a huge proponent for solar! However, we need to focus on a systematic cheapening of solar output per dollar for mainstream use, not clear solar panels that don't even make use of the most powerful spectrum of light.(even so I am still mostly in favor of this research)

Which brings me to my second point and why I disagree on plant based plastics. Oil is way cheaper to make plastics with than any other organic element. Further when you devote arable land to something other than food there is always going to be market pressure that will drive up food prices. I have enough experience in commodity markets to know that ethanol is a losing proposition right now. If we stop making oil based plastics we are going to run into the same issues with unnatural subsidies propping up the market. I do wish that we could just stop pulling oil out of the ground and use our plant waste to make all the plastic we currently use, but it just isn't the case. Attitudes and consumption per capita would need to go WAY down for this to work out.

Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#62

Post by webXL »

meggar wrote: post #38

so what would happen if you put the transparent panel on top of a normal panel?

You end up with a really expensive solar panel. We already know the transparent panel is less efficient than traditional, so I doubt it would capture any energy that wasn't already being captured.

Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#63

Post by LordKano »

higherpurpose wrote: post #17
joss82 wrote: post #2

Oil is primarily used as fuel for transportation. How can I power my kilowatt car with these? How about flying a megawatt plane? This seems more like a milliwatt application. Probably nice and useful for phone, but not to replace oil. The title is misleading. What is the efficiency of this technology compared to the usual solar panels? We need terawatt-scale energy sources if we want to meet actual demand. How many s…

> Oil is primarily used as fuel for transportation. How can I power my kilowatt car with these? Easy. You build batteries using energy from solar panels, and then you charge them with energy from solar panels.

After you mine rare earth minerals using energy from solar panels?

Simple perhaps but certainly not easy.

Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#64

Post by Elrac »

I haven't had a chance to watch the video, but I question the thinking in various parts of this article.

The first thing that hit me was: Cell phones? Sure, they don't need a lot of juice so a tiny patch of solar could power them. BUT there's 2 problems: These panels work on UV and infrared. Unless your phone owner spends a lot of time outdoors, he won't be exposing his phone to that kind of radiation, neither of which is found (significantly) indoors. Second, where do people carry their phones? Where the sun doesn't shine - I'm referring to their pockets, of course.

I wonder about the efficiency of window panes on buildings too: UV and infrared are in short supply when the sky is overcast, whereas visible doesn't dip nearly as much. So this is low-efficiency technology capturing light that's mostly restricted to sunshiny days? I still think it makes a heck of a lot more sense to simply slap "normal" PV on the roof, or possibly the walls around the windows. This looks gimmicky to me and I'm not sure the author understands the technology.

Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#65

Post by slm_HN »

jacquesm wrote: post #41

Flagged for being totally hyped and factually incorrect (even the title is nonsense). I really wished that people reporting on Solar/Wind and other alternative energy sources would at a minimum gain a basic level of understanding of the subject matter before writing nonsense articles like these.

Having "Bloomberg" in the title already works as a flag for me. I don't think I've ever been pleasantly surprised by any of their articles.

Life is just too short to click on Bloomberg links.

Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#66

Post by fsavard2 »

diafygi wrote: post #45
jameswilsterman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It baffles me why more entrepreneurs haven't realized that 87% of the energy sources we use are going to be switching to other sources in our lifetimes" What leads you to think entrepreneurs haven't realized this? What should they be doing once they do realize it?

My startup is in the SfunCube solar startup accelerator program[1]. So far, all of the entrepreneurs who have applied to the program are from within the solar industry (i.e. they previously worked at a solar company). Additionally, I organize the SF Cleanweb meetups[2], and we rarely see people from the normal tech companies/startups come to events to learn more about the space. I don't really blame anyone for not re…

I'm not at all knowledgeable about the solar industry, but I'm curious: how would software reduce the "soft" costs described in that third link (NREL)? It seems to me to be a bunch of costs related to the actors involved, and I don't see how software would help with that. Also, do you have examples of such software?

Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#67

Post by diafygi »

fsavard2 wrote: post #66
diafygi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My startup is in the SfunCube solar startup accelerator program[1]. So far, all of the entrepreneurs who have applied to the program are from within the solar industry (i.e. they previously worked at a solar company). Additionally, I organize the SF Cleanweb meetups[2], and we rarely see people from the normal tech companies/startups come to events to learn more about the space. I don't really blame anyone for not re…

I'm not at all knowledgeable about the solar industry, but I'm curious: how would software reduce the "soft" costs described in that third link (NREL)? It seems to me to be a bunch of costs related to the actors involved, and I don't see how software would help with that. Also, do you have examples of such software?

Sure! My startup, UtilityAPI.com, is an example of one that is targeting customer acquisition soft costs (10% of total installed cost). When you want to write a proposal for someone thinking about going solar, you need their utility usage and billing history. Collecting that data is currently a very time consuming and painful process, so not only do you spend a lot of man-hours on it, you also lose a huge portion of your funnel at this step.

We are building software that automates that utility data collection process, so solar companies can just bake it into their online forms/apps/internal tools. We estimate we can shave 5-10% off the installed price of solar due to time savings and increased conversion. The Department of Energy agreed and recently awarded us with $25k to build SDKs for our API (with the opportunity for $100k more in May)[1].

[1]: http://catalyst.energy.gov/

Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#68

Post by fsavard2 »

diafygi wrote: post #67
fsavard2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not at all knowledgeable about the solar industry, but I'm curious: how would software reduce the "soft" costs described in that third link (NREL)? It seems to me to be a bunch of costs related to the actors involved, and I don't see how software would help with that. Also, do you have examples of such software?

Sure! My startup, UtilityAPI.com, is an example of one that is targeting customer acquisition soft costs (10% of total installed cost). When you want to write a proposal for someone thinking about going solar, you need their utility usage and billing history. Collecting that data is currently a very time consuming and painful process, so not only do you spend a lot of man-hours on it, you also lose a huge portion of…

Ok I see, you're saying that hidden away in the various strata in that graph are, e.g., process inefficiencies which software can eat away. I was naively looking for something that would solve many categories at once, and being an outsider I think of solar as mostly hardware (like you said). Thanks for the answer.

Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#69

Post by cmsmith »

diafygi wrote: post #21

> See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil > ...screens and windows that soak up light could power your home or your phone These two things don't compute. Oil is mostly used for mobile energy, and solar is mostly used for stationary energy. However... I work in solar, and solar is a threat to oil. Why? Not because of transparent photovoltaics, but because it and batteries are getting so goddamn cheap. The Depart…

I don't really get the constant focus of the energy conversation on transportation (Some environmentalists might not like that process because it's market-driven and doesn't involve any economy-shrinking monastic self-sacrifice (e.g. Kyoto protocol), but it is the reason I'm reasonably optimistic about climate change.

Re: See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil

#70

Post by Roodgorf »

diafygi wrote: post #45
jameswilsterman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It baffles me why more entrepreneurs haven't realized that 87% of the energy sources we use are going to be switching to other sources in our lifetimes" What leads you to think entrepreneurs haven't realized this? What should they be doing once they do realize it?

My startup is in the SfunCube solar startup accelerator program[1]. So far, all of the entrepreneurs who have applied to the program are from within the solar industry (i.e. they previously worked at a solar company). Additionally, I organize the SF Cleanweb meetups[2], and we rarely see people from the normal tech companies/startups come to events to learn more about the space. I don't really blame anyone for not re…

> solar

> not a very visible industry

Hah.

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