Very sad to see professors at UCLA acting as directors for this, if its a scam. I'm hoping they're just ignorant of the economics and not committing willful fraud.
Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
11–20 of 65 posts
Re: Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
#12As an expert on silicon and solar, the technology is doomed- here's why: •It is totally possible, in terms of the physics, to do what they're proposing. All you have to do is take your ingot or boule of FZ or Cz Silicon, draw a vacuum on it, backfill it with hydrogen, and run your ion implantation head over it. Like a Durandal bomb, the upper surface is relatively undisturbed but a cutting effect occurs beneath the s…
One more:
* Silicon is not a rare material. It's one of the more common elements in Earth's crust. The price is largely in processing and fabrication, meaning it's going to continue to fall like a rock due to economies of scale and optimization.
Re: Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
#13Its just a liberal contract, and you just have to hope they won't do it the way this article flags. Most crowd sales have unlimited discretionary use of the funds, and that doesn't mean you can't make a profit, especially if you receive something tradable back. This is probably another reason why equity companies (or at least, purchases of their private equity) are going to go the way of the dinosaur, without liberal…
Existing securities laws didn't develop in a vacuum - they were a response to real problems in capital markets. Receiving something tradeable presupposes a counter party to trade with. Those likely will be in short supply once you've bought a lemon.
A secondary market which eschews many of the practices of the established markets vis a vis investor protections, and relies on information discovery and reputation, eventually will develop so much friction related to those costs as to stop being viable.
Re: Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
#14As an expert on silicon and solar, the technology is doomed- here's why: •It is totally possible, in terms of the physics, to do what they're proposing. All you have to do is take your ingot or boule of FZ or Cz Silicon, draw a vacuum on it, backfill it with hydrogen, and run your ion implantation head over it. Like a Durandal bomb, the upper surface is relatively undisturbed but a cutting effect occurs beneath the s…
I think their interest is clear enough, and not long term...
“After each closing, funds tendered by investors will be available to the company and, after the company has sold $7,000,000 worth of Common Stock, selling securityholders will be permitted to sell up to $3,000,000 worth of Common Stock.
Re: Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
#15Its just a liberal contract, and you just have to hope they won't do it the way this article flags. Most crowd sales have unlimited discretionary use of the funds, and that doesn't mean you can't make a profit, especially if you receive something tradable back. This is probably another reason why equity companies (or at least, purchases of their private equity) are going to go the way of the dinosaur, without liberal…
Existing securities laws didn't develop in a vacuum - they were a response to real problems in capital markets. Receiving something tradeable presupposes a counter party to trade with. Those likely will be in short supply once you've bought a lemon. A secondary market which eschews many of the practices of the established markets vis a vis investor protections, and relies on information discovery and reputation, even…
> Existing securities laws didn't develop in a vacuum - they were a response to real problems in capital markets
They were still developed in a vacuum. US securities laws are 90% promulgated by the SEC unilaterally, for quite some time, and even when Congress is involved the SEC still spends years warping the intent and implementation of the law. The SEC's public comment periods are a total farce and their decision is unilateral, doesn't provide more confidence in the markets, hampers interstate commerce, usually increases transaction costs and the cost of capital, and doesn't prevent scams.
There are alternatives now.
Re: Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
#16As an expert on silicon and solar, the technology is doomed- here's why: •It is totally possible, in terms of the physics, to do what they're proposing. All you have to do is take your ingot or boule of FZ or Cz Silicon, draw a vacuum on it, backfill it with hydrogen, and run your ion implantation head over it. Like a Durandal bomb, the upper surface is relatively undisturbed but a cutting effect occurs beneath the s…
One more: * Silicon is not a rare material. It's one of the more common elements in Earth's crust. The price is largely in processing and fabrication, meaning it's going to continue to fall like a rock due to economies of scale and optimization.
Silicon of the requisite purity is not just lying around. Purifying it takes a significant amount of energy, which puts a floor under the price.
Re: Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
#17Hopeless, ridiculous scam from top to bottom! Silicon isn't even a big factor in price of solar cells. It is dirt cheap nowadays, there is less than 1 cent worth of silicon in 1 watt of solar cell (which is worth 22-24 cents nowadays). And that is a small fraction of cost of watt of installed system ($1-$6 depending on type, size, country, and who you ask). That means, for solar industry, that is at best fraction of…
Some kindhearted people aren't very smart. I'm not sure anyone deserves being scammed aside from the scammers themselves.
Re: Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
#18As an expert on silicon and solar, the technology is doomed- here's why: •It is totally possible, in terms of the physics, to do what they're proposing. All you have to do is take your ingot or boule of FZ or Cz Silicon, draw a vacuum on it, backfill it with hydrogen, and run your ion implantation head over it. Like a Durandal bomb, the upper surface is relatively undisturbed but a cutting effect occurs beneath the s…
I agree that this is going to be a commercial failure even if funded. Additional stray observations:
- The "magic," if anything, is supposed to be that super-thin kerfless wafers could justify the industrial scale use of float zone silicon. FZ has often been the material of choice for lab scale fabrication of champion devices. Unlike ordinary boron doped p-type Cz silicon, it doesn't have dissolved oxygen traces from crucible walls, so it doesn't suffer B-O complex light induced degradation.
- High efficiency is still worth a premium, even if low-mid range quality cells are stuck in a brutal commoditized competition. (But high efficiency is not worth a large premium, hence the problems of even well-established high efficiency manufacturers like SunPower and Panasonic.)
- Super thin wafers are less sensitive to bulk recombination. Though this theoretical advantage is unneeded if you're starting with superpure FZ silicon in the first place.
- FZ silicon is only available in smaller diameters, so the cells wouldn't be drop-in replacements in the usual 60/72 cell module that starts with 156 mm cells.
- Silicon's resistance to damage by cosmic rays goes up dramatically as the cell thickness drops down to the few-tens-of-microns range. But that's not relevant for terrestrial use and compound semiconductors are still more efficient and more damage-resistant for space use.
Other companies that proposed to do kerfless wafering with ion implantation and failed to reach commercial success:
Twin Creeks Technologies
GT Advanced Technologies (later owners of Twin Creeks assets)
SiGen
1366 Technologies appears to have the closest-to-industrial kerfless process at present, though it's not as dramatic as as some kerfless technology concepts. I hope that their partnership with Hanwha Q Cells goes to full scale production before the money runs out.
Re: Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
#19Regarding Bill Nye, this makes me sad. He really was instrumental in making science fun and exciting when I was young. In his post TV life he's become just another political idealogue. Even doing as far as censuring[1] his own TV show when the science contradicts his social justice message.
Now it seems he's coming to normal people with an ax to grind. It's hard to see him not profiting from this endeavor.
1. https://thefederalist.com/2017/05/02/bill-nye-censor-transge...
Re: Rayton Solar: Legitimate Investment or Scam?
#20Regarding Bill Nye, this makes me sad. He really was instrumental in making science fun and exciting when I was young. In his post TV life he's become just another political idealogue. Even doing as far as censuring[1] his own TV show when the science contradicts his social justice message. Now it seems he's coming to normal people with an ax to grind. It's hard to see him not profiting from this endeavor. 1. https:/…
He also provided a platform to legitimize creationism by debating it as if it is a valid explanation of how the world came to be. I understand the desire to promote debate but I think he fell into the false balance trap.
He did a great deal to advance STEM in the millennial generation which should not be understated but nobody is faultless. He is a great educator but I question if he really knows how best to use his platform.