Does Moore's law apply to solar cells? SA Guest Blog

[eqfan592]

I just found this to be a very interesting (and encouraging!) read that I wanted to share with you guys!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=smaller-cheaper-faster-does-moores-2011-03-15

[msongs]

1. thanks 4 the article - we have solar, no electric bill for almost 2 years now :-) nt

[eqfan592]

2. Nice!

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of set up do you have and what was the cost? My wife and I will be looking at either buying or building a home in the next couple of years and this is something that really interests us.

[JDPriestly]

3. Great article -- gives me hope.

[Confusious]

4. Chip manufacturers gave up on moore's law 5 years ago. nt

[Casandia]

5. Thinking about solar for my home

so this was a very timely article for me. Thanks

[DCKit]

6. Moore's Law refers to chip capacity/strength, not cost.

Regardless, anything <$3/watt is really good news... especially for people in California where the subsidies, grants and tax breaks level the playing field with coal, NG and nuclear installations.

[phantom power]

7. No, I don't think it does

There is a reason that Moore's Law works for computation and not for other technologies. Computation (and data storage) is all about patterns. Patterns of logic gates. To make a computation device faster and cheaper, all you need to do is reduce the size of the pattern. I don't want to belittle the talent and hard work of all the engineers who have made Moore's Law happen for electronics over the last 30 years, but in a sense, the problem stacked in their favor. As long as you can come up with ways to make the logic gate patterns smaller, you get all of the famous benefits of increasing speed, reduced cost and reduced power usage.

Energy production is only peripherally affected by patterns. There is no Moore's Law for energy technologies. One of the biggest blunders of the 1990s was the erroneous assumption that Moore's Law was somehow going to apply to energy, commerce, the stock market, etc. The "Wired Fallacy."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=86088&mesg_id=86088

[Recursion]

9. Not to mention the feedback

Smaller chips -> more powerful computers -> more powerful chip design tools

[Kablooie]

8. Interesting that in the charts the price per watt jump UP during the Bush years.

Then plummets as soon as Obama takes over.