How *long* will it take nanosolar to build a 430MW factory? If the factory produces 430MW in 2007, then, yes, it may triple US PV production. But if the factory doesn’t finish ramping up until 2010, then it’ll be a nice big factory but it won’t dominate the landscape.

Not quite. While being able to roll-print solar cells is an important milestone – on par with the Gutenburg printing press, IMHO – solar faces one serious hurdle: the US consumes roughly 100 quadrillion BTUs of energy from all sources annually. A quadrillion is a 1 followed by 15 zeros (usually: The British quadrillion is a 1 followed by 24 zeros but I’m being charitable here). This works out to roughly 3,352,449 MW of power. It would only take ~7800 years for the Nanosolar plant to replace all other forms of energy but I’m afraid that doesn’t count as “game over” quite yet.

That being said… game over, especially when you throw available solar/renewable subsidies on top of it, then you will have net energy costs CHEAPER than traditional energy sources.

There’s the bottom line, period.

Also, it will subsequently remove a lot of the hurdles in production of other renewables such as hydrogen, where the biggest roadblocks were distribution points and the fact electricity used in production would still have ultimately been sourced from fossil fuels. With cheap solar, the distribution AND manufacture of hydrogen can be very modular and 99% green.

Not true. For years amorphous silicon solar cells have been available from Energy Conversion Devices in Detroit and Iowa Thin Film. The small solar cells on calculators and watches are made from amorphous silicon.

>That’s why you get these big old thick solar panels that some think are an eyesore.

Also not true. Solar panels are big because you need a large area to generate a large power. Unless efficiency jumps up (which is not something Nanosolar promises), then their technology will not change this fact. Solar cells printed on foil can be lighter and thinner but you can already order such solar cells *right now* from ECD and Iowa Thin Film.

What Nanosolar is offering that is novel is a solar cell manufacturing technology that is all solution-based and does not require expensive vacuum systems. This distinction has gotten, ahem, a bit obscured in the Merc’s coverage.

>The resulting cells are efficient as traditional silicon cells, but can be manufactured at one-fifth the cost.

We’ll know if they can make cheap, efficient solar cells that way when the first product ships.