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January 28 We have barely started living in the Information Era (by KK Ong)Enter the historic era of the information age. Believe it or not, we are in it . . . trying to make sense of it all, floating in the sea of change. As we watch the laggards of the old world struggle with the new age, those at the frontier of change are pushing the limits of what this new era can offer. Fifteen years ago, there was much hype as the primitive versions of Windows starts to push our old envelops of thinking. Now, I believe that reality has finally sunk in and new exciting dimensions beckon . .
The two major constituents of the computer age, the ability to process volumenous information in an instant and the universalisation / mobility of digital communication spawns major changes in our society. (This, is actually happening parallel to the unprecedented gradual shift of economic power away from the US and the "flattenning" of the world, enabling barriers to be dissolved, competition truly worldwide . . as the developing world emulates and refines the tools of their inventor)
Arising from accelerated information processing, a wave of change is sweeping the fields of Information Technology itself (self propelling), bio-medicine (genomics, protein research and the accelerated discovery of new drugs), nanotechnology (sub-micro machines, different behaviours of materials at the nano scale), latest craze being energy research (thanks to the "peak oil" theory), all the way to the less sensationalized but important sciences of astronomy (understanding of our universe) and advanced computational mathematics. This era will see an unprecendented scale of change in our wealth of knowledge . . . all heir to machines we create that leverages and tries to replicate what the human mind is capable of. The human race will hopefully move forward . . . if we do not kill ourselvess with our violent nature, leveraged by technology, to begin with :-)
While the information processing capability of the computer age stuns us, the other harbinger of change, the standardisation, convergence and mobility of digital communication presents to us another wonder. Take the torchbearer of communication, the Internet for instance. Whilst it has initially wreaked havoc by overloading our world with information, it has also changed the way business is being done. With the Internet, not only can local enterprises penetrate the global market, the initiated will see also that the global giants are also penetrating our local market, often times killing the feeble local businesses which is just about to gain firm footing. Local governments are also scrambling to develop taxation mechanisms to cope with this situation. Information security suddenly steps into the limelight, and computer law has hence become a hot topic with the legal eagles. When the Internet in your palm soon becomes practical and affordable, these issues will even be more pronounced. Apart from marketing, let's wait and see how technology is indeed being used for the most important and fundamental challenge, to raise productivity to feed the growing billions that our poor mother earth is struggling to provide for. Hopefully, our ingenuity is not eclipsed by mere grappling with shell technology; it has to go deeper than that.
Business aside, this era facilitates the sharing of information and is changing the way we live, play or even kill each other (warfare). For instance, we now store and share family photographs in the digital format (on a DVD (and soon Blu-Ray winner), no more degradation of colour on photo-paper), we read the paper from the wirelessly connected notebook/smart phones one day ahead of the physical newspaper, we watch streaming movies and webcasts over cheap broadband, we use non-contact ID cards to enter our workplace or even the bus, make hotel/travel reservations via the Internet, talk to and see friends from thousands or miles aways via video conferenceing (Skype), receive the good old mail in a matter of seconds rather than days or weeks as before and of course . . kill each other using cruise missles that utilises the global positioning system (combined with Google Earth's mapping software?) and computes "on the fly" navigational information from changes in wind direction. The list goes on. . . .Our future generation may just wonder what a pencil looks like.
No longer are we in the caveman times where strength is power; no longer are we also in the monarchy where hereditry is power; no longer too are we in the industrial age where capital and labour is power. Now is the era when wisdom in using information and innovation reigns supreme. The intelligent users of information and drivers of innovation will eventually triumph. Will we be become the slaves of powerful and innovative corporations which can become economic colonists of the 21st century? We will be able to swim with different strokes and grace in the sea of seemingly confusing high technology? Will be able to compete when suddenly the world opens up and a team 6,000 miles away, unknown to you, is your scariest competitor ? The man on the street is uncertain and afraid. The businessperson sees opportunity. The optimists sees a new and wonderful world. The pessimists sees the darker side . What about you?
KK Ong
p.s.Think well and think great, because every thought, is a prayer. January 09 Green pursuits: Silicon vs. CIGS: With solar energy, the issue is material + Other useful greenSilicon vs. CIGS: With solar energy, the issue is material(See below for cutting edge solar articles & other green links)What should solar panels be made of? Silicon has history on its side, but the future may lie in CIGS. By Michael Kanellos Published: October 2, 2006, 4:00 AM PDT The booming solar industry is in the midst of an argument over which material will become dominant in the future for harvesting sunlight and turning it into electricity. Solar panels made from crystalline silicon currently account for more than 90 percent of the solar infrastructure today. Unfortunately, silicon panels remain relatively expensive to make. Without subsidies, it's still cheaper to get electricity from the grid. A two-year shortage of polysilicon, which may not ease until 2008, has severely limited growth and sales. Panels that harvest energy with CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) cost far less to make and install, say backers. The material can be sprayed onto foil, plastic or glass or incorporated into cement and other building materials. Conceivably, the entire exterior of a house or building could become a solar generator. CIGS also doesn't degrade in sunlight like other thin-film technologies. "The smartest investors are going short on silicon and long on thin film, especially CIGS," said Martin Roscheisen, CEO of Nanosolar, a start-up that has received $100 million in venture funds to build a plant capable of producing 430 megawatts-worth of CIGS panels. "The semiconductor is 100 times thinner. We combine low-cost materials with low-cost processes. The expenses on silicon are extremely high." A huge vote of confidence in CIGS came earlier this year when Shell, one of the largest solar companies in the world, sold its silicon solar business to focus on developing CIGS. So if CIGS is so good, why isn't there more of it out there? Mind share. Silicon has become one of the most studied materials ever discovered, and advances in reducing processing time and manufacturing that were discovered in the semiconductor world rebound directly to silicon solar-cell manufacturers. Other alternatives--solar thermal energy, photovoltaic dyes--have failed to undercut it in functionality and cost. "Silicon has a reliability record which is unmatched by any other material," said T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, which is the primary stockholder in the fast-growing silicon panel maker SunPower. "They could rename the company NanoDollar, because that's all they are going to be left with after we get done kicking their butt," Rodgers said referring to Nanosolar.
"The smartest investors are going short on silicon and long on thin film, especially CIGS." --Martin Roscheisen, CEO of Nanosolar He's got a point. Back in the early 1990s, CIGS was emerging as an alternative to silicon, but the declining price of silicon snuffed out the movement. "The three most studied materials in history are steel, cement and silicon, so they have a leg up on us there," acknowledged B.J. Stanberry, CEO of CIGS developer HelioVolt. "I'd say you're a fool if you predicted the imminent death of silicon. But their inability to deliver is creating an opportunity for thin film, and CIGS will have a significant portion of the market within 10 years." With demand cranking up to an all-time high for solar technology, the two types of panels will likely co-exist for years--especially considering the miniscule role solar plays now in generating electricity, according to various estimates, and that demand is expected to double by 2025. Solar accounts for less than 0.10 percent of the current total. Nonetheless, growing momentum for one technology among researchers, equipment makers and, ultimately, customers could pave the way for one to become dominant over the other. Similar debates weighing promise against pragmatism have occurred in chip making. Gallium, indium and germanium have also been used to produce superfast semiconductors, but the higher costs associated with these materials have kept them toward the margins in the market. Silicon hits and misses Silicon, even its adherents admit, is not ideal. Theoretically, silicon is capable of converting 29 percent of the sunlight that strikes it into electricity, according to Dick Swanson, a former Stanford professor who founded SunPower. "That imagines a cell that is perfect in every possible way. That would be without any energy losses or leaks other than those demanded by the physics of silicon," Swanson said. "The practical limit, most say it is around 25 percent to 26 percent." SunPower already sells panels that convert an average of 20 percent of the sunlight into electricity and will come out later this year with panels that will convert 22 percent. The high efficiency is due to the design of the company's panels. SunPower puts the electrical contacts at the back (or bottom) of the panel to increase surface area. The silicon also sits atop a reflective layer: Photos that would otherwise pass through the panel entirely are bounced back into it and effectively recycled. Most other solar makers sit at 15 percent to 18 percent efficiency. Still, a physical limit is a physical limit and silicon makers acknowledge they are approaching a barrier. Additional layers made of different materials could be added to silicon panels to harvest more energy, but that adds to the cost. Progress in the industry instead revolves around reducing the cost of the panels. So far, it's working. SunPower, among others, has figured out ways to automate many factory procedures. It also builds factories in the Philippines, where labor remains cheap. Panels are also getting thinner, which reduces the material needed and increases efficiency.
"Silicon has a reliability record which is unmatched by any other material." --T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor
Right now, it takes about nine to 10 years for the cost of a solar installation to pay for itself--meaning the cost equals the amount you would have paid the power company in electric bills. In five years, silicon makers claim they can cut that time in half. And as an added bonus, solar panels aren't as ugly as they used to be. PowerLight has come out with roof tiles with embedded silicon solar panels, which get installed when a house is built. A complete system can run around $8,000 to $13,000, according to Grupe Homes, which has included PowerLight panels in some homes in a few relatively new developments. Solar needs real estate The problem, however, is that solar electricity takes a lot of real estate, said Stanberry. The sun radiates about a kilowatt of energy per square meter on the surface of earth. There are 2.6 million square meters in a square mile. Thus, every square mile gets about 2.6 gigawatts. (A million kilowatts equals a gigawatt.) On a practical level, solar energy is only going to harvest about 10 percent of the energy that hits a large area, so it takes about 4 square miles of solar panels to generate a gigawatt, or about the same amount of electricity provided by two power plants. "If you look at the thousands of things that humans do, there are only three things that take up thousands of square miles: agriculture, highways and construction," said Stanberry. "The unavoidable goal of solar technology is how do you cover thousands of square miles inexpensively." CIGS, say advocates, can do this because the panels are cheap to make. David Pearce, CEO of CIGS manufacturer Miasole, says that his company can erect a factory that can put out 100 megawatts worth of solar panels a year for $25 million. (The measurement means that, if you gathered all of the panels produced by the factory, they could provide 100 megawatts of power at the same time.) Evergreen Solar, a silicon maker, plunked down $75 million to build a 30-megawatt facility in Germany in 2006. While extra capacity can be added more cheaply than the first 30 megawatts, CIGS still has a cost advantage, says Pearce. "The battle is going to be won on the manufacturing floor. What we have to do is transfer this into high-volume production," he said at a recent conference. In 2010, the costs of generating a watt of electricity from a CIGS panel--including installation and other expenses--will come to around $2.50, when you consider the lifetime of the panel. That will be roughly equal to grid power at the time, Pearce said. By the end of next year, Miasole expects to have the installed capacity to produce 200 megawatts-worth of panels a year. Pearce further added that the company will be profitable next year. While it trails in efficiency, CIGS is not far away, Miasole has shown a CIGS solar cell that converts 19.5 percent of sunlight into electricity; in a manufacturing environment, that means 15 percent to 16 percent efficiency, the company acknowledges. So why isn't CIGS a perfect solution? It barely exists commercially and the alternatives don't have a great track record. Thirty years ago, producing solar energy cost about $100 a watt, said Swanson, so the U.S. Department of Energy began to fund alternatives to silicon. Now, it's about $8 or $9 and going down. The alternatives are just getting out of the research phase. Reliability of silicon, he added, is unquestioned. The fact that CIGS can go on a variety of surfaces also may not be as big an advantage as it looks. "There is a lot of roof space on American homes," said Ron Kenedi, general manager of the solar unit at Sharp, one of the big silicon solar makers. Ultimately, the two technologies could co-exist by going into different applications, said Walter Nasdeo, an analyst at Ardour Capital. "It's a hard question to answer. If you are talking about solar on a house, you're probably better off using silicon, particularly in the near term. It's been around for a long time," he said. By contrast, CIGS might be best suited for large industrial roofs or signs. Then over time, CIGS could build out a network of home installers. "Right now what they (CIGS makers) face are engineering issues, not technical issues," he said.
Cutting Edge Solar Technology from MIT - Solar dye increases power collection by 10x ! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7501476.stm
What is solar energy all about? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Energy
How to choose the correct solar energy system? http://www.canren.gc.ca/prod_serv/index.asp?CaId=101&PgId=559
What are the ways we can help to save the earth we live in?
Another good site dedicated to our mother earth
Part of my work on solar systems (I have two potential solar business plans, one almost done & the other at plan stage, contact me if there are interested parties):
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