Comment by fooker
10 hours ago
You missed the point.
We can make ten or hundred times the number of solar cells we make right now, we just don't have a reason to. The technology is fairly ancient unless you want to compete on efficiency, and the raw materials abundant.
Tomorrow?
The limit isn't just about the current capacity or the maximum theoretical capacity, it's also about the maximum speed you can ramp.
>Tomorrow?
Eventually :)
Markets are forward looking, and not really bound to 'tomorrow'.
Do we really need to say (on HN especially) that time-to-market does matter?
Not just for startups either. If you ramp up the Polio vaccine in 1 year vs 10 years, that has a big impact on human wellbeing. The two scenarios are not equivalent outcomes, even though it still happens "eventually."
Speed matters.
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Surely the constraint will be the rate at which you can get them into and installed orbit, not the manufacturing rate
you would need 200 times the number of solar cells. I don't think you appreciate the scale that 200x is, especially when China is already:
1. quite good at making solar cells
2. quite motivated to increase their energy production via solar
The bottleneck is deploying solar physically, not making the cells.
We have increased the manufacturing of pretty much every piece of technology you see in front you by 200x at some point in history. Often in a matter of years.
I agree that part of the bottleneck is deploying solar physically. China is the best in the world in deploying solar panels. They are only managing linear increases in their solar capacity, year over year.