Scientists develop mega-thin solar cells that could be shockingly easy to produce: ‘As rapid as printing a newspaper’

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 408 points –
Scientists develop mega-thin solar cells that could be shockingly easy to produce: ‘As rapid as printing a newspaper’
finance.yahoo.com

Scientists develop mega-thin solar cells that could be shockingly easy to produce: ‘As rapid as printing a newspaper’::These cells could be laminated onto various kinds of surfaces, such as the sails of a boat to provide power while at sea.

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I mean, even if it's easy to do, that doesn't mean a manufacturing process is easy to ramp up. You need equipment to produce it, and people to do it. Logistics of that isn't like just turning on/off a light switch.

Without headlines, no investors. Without investors, no equipment. Without equipment, no product. Headlines like these drive investment.

I love shows like How It's Made, you get to see the Rube Goldbergian systems that produce stuff we take for granted.

Yes, exactly. My point is that I'm tired of these bullshit headlines that are implying that we have some great breakthrough; unless the discovery also accounts for everything you listed, it's not a breakthrough and we, the public, don't need to hear about it just so that a newspaper can sell clicks and ruin trust in science.

You seem to be conflating breakthrough with manufacturing capacity

No, I'm just not referring to a slightly novel manufacturing process that will probably lead nowhere as a "breakthrough".

Some of us like learning about science and technology, if you only want to know about products then watch adverts.

The average person understands the difference between 'will' and 'could'

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