Solar contacts: silver bullet?
The front contacts in today’s solar cells are made of screen-printed silver. Thus solar cells absorbed 11% of 2021’s silver market, and growing. Silver can be substituted with copper. But…
Solar: energy payback and embedded energy?
…solar panel is about 65% glass, 15% aluminium, c10% polymers (mainly EVA encapsulants and PVF back-sheet), c3% copper. Photovoltaic silicon is only 5% of the panel by mass, but about…
Energy economics: an overview?
…Ammonia, Carbon Fiber, Cement, Copper, Cyanides, Desalination, Glass, H2O2, Hydrogen, Industrial Gases, Lithium Batteries, Methanol, NaOH/Cl2, Nitric Acid, Paper, Plastics, Silicon, Silver, Steel, Wood Products. As a rule of thumb,…
Energy transition market sizing: hydrocarbon, new energies, capital goods and materials?
…largest materials markets in the world today include steel ($1.5 trn pa), plastics ($750bn pa) and copper ($250bn pa). We actually have a more detailed data-file, looking into more underlying…
Energy storage: top conclusions into batteries?
…fluorinated polymers and battery-grade nickel; then graphite and copper. We are less worried about cobalt. Our best data-file into materials used in a lithium ion battery, and their costs, is…
Silver demand: upside and substitution?
…the silver contacts in solar cells with copper contacts, which have 99% lower metals costs, but 3-7x higher manufacturing costs, compared to the easy screen-printing methods used in today’s silver…
Power grids: transmission and distribution kilometers by country?
…network impacts from rooftop solar. Overall, the build-out of renewables and electrification are transformational for power grids (TSE research summary here). And it pulls on the demand for copper and…
Energy intensity of fiber optic cables?
…cable will enable 1-10 Gbps download speeds, which is 30-50x faster than a comparable copper cable (25-300 Mbps), and an order of magnitude above satellites or DSL (0.5 – 75…
Metals and materials: strength and temperature resistance?
…and enable higher volumes of flow, even of mildly corrosive fluids, without requiring overly thick pipeline walls. In power grids, overhead power lines are not made from conductive copper, but…
Mine trucks: transport economics?
There are around 50,000 giant mining trucks in operation globally. The largest examples are around 16m long, 10m wide, 8m high, can carry around 350-450 tons and reach top speeds…