Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
I wouldn't say that I'm pessimistic, just somewhat cautious on the timeline. I remember being super interested in things like the UofC competing in a solar race when I was about 10-12 years old, the Ballard fuel cells at about the same age and honestly, 30 years later we're seemingly in the same position with these technologies. I realise that behind the scenes we're not in the same position...but globally we've put huge amounts of money into these areas and the return on that is pretty paltry over that timeframe?
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On the solar front, I think we're starting to see some good returns:
Panel efficiency:
1990- ~22%
2020- ~47%
Cost:
1990- ~$6/Wp
2020- ~$0.30/Wp
Efficiency more than doubled, and cost fell by by 95%. That's pretty incredible. It's a fair question if that was the best spot for our R&D, but the results are there.