Solar cell

Yep, that's the one. Thanks!

ALL the numerics you could possibly want or need appear at

I expect you can find plenty of anecdotes both for and against this surmise.

Lasers are perhaps a good example of technology that was incredibly nichey for many decades (being fragile and expensive) until someone figured out how to build a semiconductor version of one (making them cheap and reliable), and now the average person likely owns half a dozen.

It also took a number of decades for gasoline to become the defacto standard for powering autmobiles -- early on kerosene, coal, and other unusual fuels were in use because gasoline couldn't be made as easily and hence was expensive; thermal cracking is what changed all that.

Even the Internet as we know it today might have taken another few decades if it hadn't been for all the government DARPA funding way-back-when...

On the other hand, some people suggest that DOS retarded the development of PC operating systems by at least a decade as well... :-)

In general it makes sense to have the government subsidize "promising" new technologies; the tricky question is just "how much is too much?" -- when do you decide that the taxpayers have given enough in the hopes of discovering the Next Big Thing and just leave it entirely up to private industry to continue development?

---Joel

Can you build it cheaper than what it would cost to buy it?

$16, 1.5W@12V:

$12, adjustable 3/6/9/12V:

Michael

Lasers are a special case. The technology's usefulness was known long before it was practical. Gordon Gould mopped up on that delay.

Again, not exactly the same thing.

Nope. Not buying that one. Networking was ready. The Internet wasn't even the largest network until the mid '80s.

...and Windoze stopped it dead. ;-)

TNBT should be left 100% to industry. Let the government do some basic research, if that. Government wasn't required for *any* of the examples you cited.

Hi Keith,

Well clearly photovoltaics is incredibly useful as well, with plenty of immediate application. If someone figured out how to decimate the per-kW cost of PV panels, their growth rate would immediately jump up into the triple digits, I expect.

Perhaps... I'd have to admit it's difficult for me to really estimate what would have happened without DARPA, and on what timeline.

Agreed, government isn't required for any of this -- but I think that government can, at times, successfully speed up the development of technology and thereby increase our standard of living more quickly than would otherwise occur. Of course, they can do the opposite as well, implementing policies that very much decrease our standard of living! It all gets back to that basic question of just what "we the people" want government to do for us and it's often a slippery slope and there are an awful lot of vested interests at play -- everyone wants, e.g., a reasonably pollution-free environment, but somehow that desire gets twisted into Al Gore wanting you to pay his company for carbon credits while he flies around the country in a private jet getting fix-digit fees for giving speeches.

---Joel

As near as I can tell, NOT ONE CENT of present solar subsidies is going into new technologies that will solve the crucial net energy crisis.

Instead, people are paid to put known gasoline destroying net energy sinks on inappropriate rooftops, thus SETTING BACK any possible net energy pv breakeven by many decades.

A $1000 per year per kilowatt tax on any pv panel incapable of net energy would do far more good a lot faster. The quicker conventional silicon pv is flushed, the faster that net energy pv can arrive.

Detailed analysis at

The calculator people are happy as a clam paying $500 PER KILOWATT HOUR for their pv electricity. This is by far the largest pv market in terms of units sold.

It's really the customers who are happy to pay that. And no one who's buying a calculator is thinking about how much per kWh they're paying, it's more a "convenience" feature of not having to change those little button cell batteries that the local drug stores gets $5/pair for (...which is... let's see... assuming alakaline LR44 cells... 150mAh*3V = 450mWh or 450e-6kWh --> $5/450e-6kWh = $11,111 PER KILOWATT HOUR! OH MY GOD IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD! :-) )

People who are heating water or their homes or running motors or furnaces or air conditioners are the ones who start worrying about the cost of a kWh...

I like your presentation, though -- it makes a lot of good points, although I do think you need to place more emphasis on how here "in the real world" there's a lot more that goes into energy decisions than just efficiency and the direct costs: Where does the pollution go? What are the indirect costs? Does it look attractive (it's amazing how many people object to having, e.g., an oil refinery in their town primary because it's ugly and smelly)? Etc...

Consider how much energy was wasted building the pyramids, and how much more is today as people fly from all around the world to see them. :-)

---Joel

Also note how horrificially energy inefficient the diet of those in the U.S. is -- we tend to expend an order of magnitude more energy to create one calorie of food product (e.g., meat products) than is strictly necessary (e.g., rice & veggies). And worse yet, the government largely subsidizes this means of food production!

:-)

---Joel (off to eat some beef...)

Check out Jamie's Kitchen and the "Unhealthiest City in America".

My home town :-) ...Jim Thompson

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Nice. :-)

Bet they're selling a lot of these as of late:

---Joel

Any "original" patent on the PV cell, as it is, has long expired. There is a big difference.

The Internet wasn't even the first, it couldn't have been the only.

They get it wrong far more often than they get it right. AGW, anyone?

When I grew up there, it wasn't like that. The cafeteria ladies were from your own neighborhood. If you didn't eat your green beans they'd call your mother :-(

Of course Huntington is representative of where America is heading... the ultimate nanny state... now about 100% "projects" :-(

Robert Byrd became Senator the same year I graduated from high school... 52 years ago :-( ...Jim Thompson

The pyramids were built by imported Lemurians who had not yet lost the power of levitation. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

You are confusing inverters with synchronous inverters. There is a world of difference.

Only ten dollars per peak watt. Golly gee mister science.

That is only FORTY TIMES what is required for net energy.

And clearly a net destroyer of gasoline.

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Ah. So the liberal wing nuts have partially accomplished their goal of making America a third world economy. Damn, i should have been a better citizen and campaigned against Obummer more vigorously.

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An irrelevant financial calculator is not helpful. Show some traceability on the numbers you present.