Comments on Edgar M. van-Wingerden's articles RSS Syndication from SeekingAlpha.com http://seekingalpha.com/author/edgar-m-van-wingerden/articles http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-247686 247686 Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:50:30 -0400
brenkov, all - RSI is a winner but still as messy as any method. If you still want to get in and if you've got a lot of money, write me off-list.

The difference between semi-conductor semi-metals for IC wafer and photovoltaic conductor semi-metals for cells is that Moore's Law is dependent upon the Raw Materials Supply Law with cells. This inverts the relationship because with the core technology of IC wafer we are getting things smaller, whereas Raw Materials Supply Law dictates the we are getting things larger, trying to achieve cost efficiency while "spreading out" the core material's technology, not shrinking the technology's material core. Surface area in subatomic frequency of cyberspace is not the same factor as surface area in the photonic-scale real world. In fact it is the inverse. We may be learning at regular clip but it may take longer and longer to increase cost efficiencies of silicon PV by way of Moore's Law reasoning. It's a totally different playing field.

While the world grapples with an accelerated and cascading pace of problem definition change, as volatile as that is, I'm thinking more along the lines of chaotic attractors, inclusive of the human brain's "cognitive efficiency" (basically, learning, or mimicking how computers think so efficiently) vs. our incumbent human "bandwidth" issues effect everything we perceive as changing.

It's often said that the more things change the more they stay the same and I think investors and the general public and individuals, me included, often forget this old adage. The Raw Material Suppliers in demand will effectively (and efficiently) in concert with the rest of the financial and energy markets, will keep the cost of PV supply right around "wherever it's been" in any more-demand-than-supply fluctuating market, protecting their maximum profits, just like the dirty energy industry.

How breakthroughs in silicon PV efficiencies and/or with the material supply production are perceived and how the effect of efficient assembly, distribution, deployment of PV or other clean energy schemes are amortized into the energy markets, should be just as important as other types of events that dramatically effect financial markets , but they are not.
]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-244811 244811 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:34:24 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-229717 229717 Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:06:49 -0400 Fully endorsed, dipstick and all.

truman:
Without getting into tech talk here Moore's law has performed very well over the past 40 years ( and made stock holders a great fortune) because it is based on a fundamental law of nature: the learning curve.
It expresses a constant % improvement in some performance metric each time the cumulative number of trials or practice attempts is doubled.
This is a no brainer: we learn by doing.
Economic drivers explain why Moore's law exists.
Learning curve theory explains how.

'The cost per unit decreases by a fixed percentage every time the total cumulative output volume doubles when measured in CONSTANT currency'

Taking measurements of more than 35 years the learning rate for solar PV has been an exceptionally stable number: 20 %, right in line with...computers.


]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-227370 227370 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:07:44 -0400
blogs.spectrum.ieee.or...]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-225049 225049 Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:49:44 -0400 In any case, the McCain Dipstick is hilarious and pathetic at the same time.
Thanks also for your replies to commenters by name and my new shortened blogger moniker I've adopterd.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-216331 216331 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:12:30 -0400 diatribune.com/breakth...]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-215230 215230 Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:09:59 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-214889 214889 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:11:49 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-214776 214776 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:40:35 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-214772 214772 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:31:23 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-214771 214771 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:28:18 -0400
alb1309: You noticed I skipped the issue of LDK. On the one hand existing silicon PV shareholders will benefit from LDK's additional supply. On the other hand LDK shareholders carry the burden of an electr. grade silicon production facility with all the risks of possible delays, cost overruns. Then there are risks of production disruptions, fires and the like a-la WFR. I am not invested in LDK. An investment in LDK has become complex. I am considering an option strangle on LDK, but haven't done the research yet.

asd: which scam? what companies?

sloemoe, nmcotwpv: Fundamentally it is now generally recognized that information could be thought of as interchangeable with energy and we can measure its contents. But fundamentals aside, i did not state that solar PV= Moore's law, but is subject to it. Moore's law itself is indeed about squeezing twice as many transistors onto an Integrated Circuit every two years. This is an inverse to the solar PV surface area which doubles in same period. Beside the fact both technologies operate DC and presently use (mainly) silicon, given that the electrons would consequently have less distance to travel in order to do usefull work, there is exponential growth in the price performance of compution as well as the solar PV sector. That is how they are related and how these laws can be derived from each other.
Another way of looking at it is the fact that solar panels reduce the entropy of a system and we can measure that.
That there will be juice from the grid out of your sockets tomorrow is a hypothesis and this means: you don't know. The issue here is going to be finding secure means of making electronic information available. This is a fundamental economic concern. Google does not see the solar PV sector as separate from information technology. In fact they are integrating both technologies and there is enormous potential added value in doing so.

The paradigm shift described here is a production method of solar grade silicon allowing continued exponential growth of the solar sector. Each time a paradigm has run out of steam another has picked up speed.
My mean point is indeed silicon PV's ability to remain competitive.




]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-213905 213905 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:39:32 -0400
On the other hand, I agree with User 232175 that Moore's Law (or some equivalent) does not apply to PV. Moore's Law states that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles every two years. The cost of an integrated circuit has remained more or less constraint for the past 40+ years while its capabilities have increased in line with the number of transistors it contains. (As far as I can tell, Moore's Law is just a logistic function (S-curve) with nearly unlimited growth potential.) For there to be a solar equivalent to Moore's Law, there would need to be a nearly an unlimited potential to increase its efficiency.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-213616 213616 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:05:30 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-213114 213114 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:50:27 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-212718 212718 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:47:15 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-211464 211464 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:24:43 -0400 thx again for comments.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-211293 211293 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:21:50 -0400
JohnM: Concentrator PV will probably be cost effective in larger applications. My purpose is to compare the various solutions as they come up in a series of articles, as data come out.

Vpratt: The ETF issue will come up again in an analysis of First Solar inc.

Tellavision: Yes the news is old. This post had been ready long before the Rohm and Haas thing. Usually when I do a research and something like this comes up I have to act fast, as I have noticed I'm not far ahead of Mr. Market. Now that I'm set up with an authors page, I will publish more immediately, then we'll see what happens. But Rohm and Haas might have been the last best opportunity to profit from the silicon supply crunch, and I think now is a good time to get into the silicon PV solars.

Sopot: thx for pointing out Arise's efforts: I will look into it. Of course, tough small by comparison this only adds to my thesis.

Jim: If you read my post carefully it states a doubling every TWO years. This means ten doublings in 20 years, roughly a thousand times today's market share. By implication, if the street values these companies correctly, a mere $1000 investment would be worth one million $ in 20 years.

Jack: Silicon PV has great efficiencies especially when compared to thin film. The maximum is around 29 %, still a great price performance. The wafer thickness is limited by solar cell size. The market average is about 9 grams/watt. This leaves room to downsize. Then Evergreen (ESLR) has an innovative technology of 5.5 grams/watt. They expect 4.8 by 2009 and 2.5 grams/watt by 2012.
Of course all off this adds to my main thesis.
But which individual stocks to pick depends (increasingly) on future SoG-silicon prices. RSI will start producing at the 5000 mt Pennsylvania plant @ start of Q3 2008. This production is sold out so won't affect the market. On the other hand a 24000 mt plant such as this could be build in China in a few months.

User 226214: The term UMG is somewhat misleading. The Siemens process upgrades Metallurgical Grade silicon by gasification. Timminco (CSIQ's supplier) upgrades MG by remelting the 'dirty' silicon in a furnace and cleaning it up, with less capital upfront. Timminco can deliver 4N, 5N and 6N. It is CSIQ's luck to have been involved from the start. The amounts are still relatively small.
But by 2015 half of all silicon used in solar panels will probably be produced by such methods.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-211200 211200 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:38:32 -0400
Has anyone wondered where all that absobed heat goes from the projected hectares of solar farms?

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; how many windmills does it take to tilt the earths axis?

Uhm... yes Emperor your new cloak looks very PC!


]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-211033 211033 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:14:27 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-210826 210826 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:20:32 -0400
So far, I know only CSIQ producing Solar PV using UMG material which is much cheaper than the regular silicon.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-210816 210816 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:07:29 -0400
This will be due to two key things: (1) increasing efficiency from about 16% today to mid-20's in 5 years (SPWR should be rolling out 23% panels next year), and (2) thinner wafers.

So even if poly prices did not change, cost of poly per watt will decrease substantially over the next few years. Factor in a drop in poly costs, and overall panel prices are well on their way to costing half as much as they do now within a few years.

Jack]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-210720 210720 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:36:27 -0400
Like mistermaumau I see this rather as validating the silicon solar panel technology, not really a traditional paradigm shift as it is not a new technology replacing another. Makes the outlook for FSLR look very bleak, so why do they still get these high ratings.

Also my comment on the oil prices. The "falling" oil price (very relative) is seen as tempering demand for panels, but all I really see is shipping costs for panels from China coming down...

Regards ]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-210656 210656 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:43:31 -0400 Have you seen guntherportfolio.blogs.../ where he shows videos from InterSolar presentations last week in San Fran where they can keep up with Silicon (and its relatives) demand, which also keeps growing. They say the supply pinch is mostly inventory and logistics issues. And they can increase supply much more, as needed.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-210633 210633 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:22:02 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-210498 210498 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:27:54 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-210309 210309 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:37:39 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-210291 210291 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:59:50 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-210035 210035 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:42:35 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-209997 209997 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:03:26 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/85370-solar-grade-a-silicon-revolution?source=feed#comment-209989 209989 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:02:03 -0400