Originally posted by Bonus
thank you for your input BobF. that is an excellent summary obviously with much experience in this field.
what is your background if you don't mind me asking?
you don't need to answer to avoid the trolls...
I work as a consulting analytical chemist assisting labs with method development and analytical instrumentation issues. I've spent most of my working life either working in labs or selling advanced instrumentation to labs. It's a big field but I do know a little about it.
This is basic chemical physics, but I would not expect most people outside the field to know the more abstruse details.
But as everyone will know, silicon (etc) photovoltaic solar panels are always carefully angled to the sun to ensure maximal absorption of light energy. It matters. ClearVue's glass panels will not be exempt from the physics even though they will mainly be vertically mounted. This has an effect that has to be taken into account.
Just think about this little detail for instance. If the panel is vertical and the sun is for example at 45deg to it then light will strike it at a 45 deg angle. How effectively do you think the light is going to be redirected back upwards to the panel's top row of solar cells as compared to the bottom row? Light has to be bent up by 135deg to reach the top cell, but only by 45deg to reach the bottom cell. I am not saying that it will not work, but I am saying that I would expect
some difference in the light harvested by each row. Maybe it is only 5% less at 135deg vs 45deg, but maybe it is 25% less, or even more than that. I do not know. The principal function of the technology in the middle layer is to bend the light by 90deg and constrain it to travelling parallel to the glass within the gel sandwich. That is a clever bit of technology! Fibre optics constrains light within the fibre in a similar way, but you cannot bend it beyond a set angle or the light signal leaks out! How
well this tech works I do not know, but I suspect that some posters here do not, nor could they be expected to, understand these basic issues and seem to see the technology as being almost magically good and universally applicable. That kind of ultra confidence will lead to investors making basic errors in what the panels can and cannot do.
A carpenter for instance will appreciate that the width of a sheet of plywood cladding will determine how many nails will be needed to hold it firmly against a frame without it flexing or blowing off, and that increasing the windspeed will make this vary. A carpenter will know that this is the case, and that it matters, and that he has to accommodate the wind loading the panel will be exposed to. The windier it is the more anchor points are needed. That is what building codes are all about. That kind of detailed stuff applies in the rest of physics as well - including in solar energy harvesting. The details that constrain the device's effectiveness always matter.
However I reiterate: I own the stock and I like it, and I think it will find a profitable niche. But it is not the same thing as silicon (etc) photovoltaic panels by any means. Glass, even horizontal glass, will never generate as much energy as a silicon photovoltaic panel will. It will supplement silicon, not replace it. Its benefit is that it is largely transparent so you can see out of it. But it is transparent
because it
only harvests a small proportion of the total light that falls upon it. Silicon traps it all even if it does not convert it all to electricity. So car windows will never power your car. Even covering your car in silicon cannot do that.
So I wait to see what the niche for the product is. It simply has to generate more dollars in
useful power than it costs to deploy it. If it does that then it will sell. The better it does so the more it will sell.
(20min delay)
