Lee's Comments

The list of companies announcing thinner, lighter, more flexible PVs requiring less energy upfront and selling for less gets longer and longer and yet they still don't even register on Mr. Koot's predictions of the near future.

Possibly Renewable Energy Access.com could devote a separate section to track these nontypical PV upstarts. The goal of using less energy upfront to produce photovoltaics is more than a good idea. It's essential if PV is going to take on the brunt of energy production. It's the future and it's speculation so a reluctance to spend too much time on the subject is understandable. It's also important that we stay focused on the future and on potential. If all these new methods of producing photovoltaics don't amount to a blip on Mr. Koot's assessment, it may be wise to offer a separate stage where we can all watch just these new upstart actors perform.

Tracking the cost of this type of thing in dollars is helpful and important. What would be really neat is if we could also see a similar comparison, tracking costs in energy. Not as easy as dollars, I recognize, but probably a worthwhile goal.

It's difficult because the harvesting equipment is probably all diesel and most of the rest of the energy used is probably electricity supplied by the grid. And there's probably some gasoline thrown in there to boot.