Comment by dredmorbius
1 day ago
Setting aside the veracity of the article for a moment ...
... a key factor in industrial-scale silicon production (microchips, PV, or otherwise) is the purity of the raw material. It may well be that high grade silica is fundamentally scarce, or that access to it may be restricted or limited by other factors. Sand theft is an issue that's emerged as a concern, largely as it's a huge industrial input, particularly in concrete, and the most suitable sands are found in riverbeds, rather than either deserts or beaches, both of which are far more abundant. Discussed five years ago on HN here:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21758301>
There are abundant materials whose useful stock or rates of production are limited by other factors. Nitrogen fertiliser is a canonical example: the raw element is abundant in air (70% of the atmosphere), but its fixation is extremely energy intensive, relying most keenly on natural gas supplies and prices. Ammonia and ammonia-based product costs (fertilisers, cleaning supplies, explosives) tend to fluctuate strongly with natural gas prices, despite the underlying abundance of nitrogen itself.
I don't refute this point, but the alternative materials would have to be more available than high-grade silicon for it to matter.
Pretty much agreed on that, and I haven't followed the perovskites discussion closely enough to know where it falls on that basis. I have been aware of the technology vaguely for a decade or so.
The raw material itself is CaTiO₃,[1] which are three fairly abundant elements, though how that compares with sufficiently pure silica isn't clear to me. My general feeling (from what I've read and experience with other strongly-promoted energy alternatives) is that applications are more likely to be niche, where conditions specifically favour perovskites' specific advantages.
Those seem to be greater incident sunlight conversion efficiencies (~30% vs. 15--20% more typical of silicon PV, which is often less significant than might at first be apparent), and potentially lower manufacturing costs. As is noted in the discussion, panel cost itself is increasingly dwarfed by less-fungible labour and infrastructure costs (e.g., physical support, see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_(structure)>