Remember the StarTrek saying: “the acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives, we work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity”
just one of many examples: The world was not allowed to make longer-lasting solar panels from 2000 up to the year of 2020 when the patent expired.
“the reason we have been stuck using boron instead of gallium over the past 20 years is that the process of doping silicon with gallium was locked under a patent.”
gallium crystal
CC BY-SA 3.0
By a Japanese company: Current Assignee: Shin Etsu Chemical Co Ltd Shin Etsu Handotai Co Ltd
Inventors: Takao Abe, Teruhiko Hirasawa, Katsushi Tokunaga, Tetsuya Igarashi, Masafumi Yamaguchi
“This prevented manufacturers using this approach.” (src)
“Thanks a lot”
Gallium-doped silicon heterojunction solar cell. Robert Underwood/UNSW
“In fact, at the start of 2021, leading photovoltaic manufacturer Hanwha Q Cells (Southkorea) estimated about 80% of all solar panels manufactured in 2021 used gallium doping rather than boron — a massive transition in such a short time!” (src)
“We open sources all our (Tesla) patents”
“Patents are like a mine field” (Elon Musk)
Elon Musk, who appeared on CNBC’s “Jay Leno’s Garage”, took the host tour around the SpaceX Starbase facility in Texas. Leno asked if the material they used to build the ships at SpaceX is something they patent, and Musk answered, “Patents are for the weak,” CNBC reported.
He added that they don’t “really patent things.” (src)
That’s one reason releasing products under Open Source & GPL & other open licenses is so important.
But now there are other political problems: the US-China trade wars, as China wants to limit it’s export of Gallium in order to put pressure on the West to give up Chip-sanctions.
What this also means:
There is STILL GREAT POTENTIAL in bettering solar cells in efficiency and quality 😀
Mankind might soon (next 10 years) see solar cells that can absorb wider light spectrum (btw, did the user know, that mankind actually does not know what light really is?)
Making solar cell efficiency of over +30% a reality 😀 “Over 30% efficiency bifacial 4-terminal perovskite-heterojunction silicon tandem solar cells with spectral albedo” (src)
Links:
here are the details of why Gallium is better than Boron in solar cells: “some degradation is observable, the extent of degradation seems to be very small, in particular when compared to solar cells made on B-doped Cz-Si wafers” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-11831-3
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