Search results for: “semiconductor SiC silicon”
-
Lithium ion battery costs: materials and manufacturing?
Lithium ion battery costs range from $40-140/kWh, depending on the chemistry (LFP vs NMC), geography (China vs the West) and cost basis (cash cost, marginal cost and actual pricing). This data-file is a breakdown of lithium ion battery costs, across c15 materials and c20 manufacturing stages, so input assumptions can be stress-tested.
-
Silver pastes for solar contacts?
50 companies make conductive silver pastes to form the electrical contacts in solar modules. This data-file tabulates the compositions of silver pastes based on patents, averaging 85% silver, 4% glass frit and 11% organic chemicals. Ten companies stood out, including a Korean small-cap specialist.
-
Solar+AI: bootstrapping a sci-fi scenario?
What if a data center was powered entirely by solar, and then the profits and spare computation resources from the data-center were fully reinvested in building more solar and building more racks? Could you end up with 100TW-scale data-centers?! Would this scenario fail to materialize because we would run out of things to compute? Or…
-
Electric vehicle: battery life?
Electric vehicle battery life will realistically need to reach 1,500 cycles for the average passenger vehicle, 2,000-3,000 cycles after reflecting a margin of safety for real-world statistical distributions, and 3,000-6,000 cycles for higher-use commercial vehicles. This means lithium ion batteries may be harder to displace with novel chemistries?
-
Model of losses in a solar cell: surface, emitter and shading?
This data-file calculates the losses in a solar cell from first principles. Losses on the surface of the cell are typically c4%, due to contact resistance, emitter resistance and shading. Sensitivity analysis suggests there may be future potential to halve silver content in a solar cell from 20g/kW to 10g/kW without materially increasing the losses…
-
Hydrofluoric acid: the economics?
Hydrogen fluoride is a crucial commodity chemical. This model captures its production from acid-grade fluorspar and sulfuric acid. We think marginal costs are around $1,850/ton, in order to earn a 10% IRR on a production facility costing $4,000/Tpa, while the fully loaded CO2 intensity is around 0.75 tons/ton.
-
Solar: energy payback and embedded energy?
What is the energy payback and embedded energy of solar? We have aggregated the consumption of 10 different materials (in kg/kW) and around 10 other energy-consuming line-items (in kWh/kW). Our base case estimate is 2.5 MWH/kWe of solar and an energy payback of 1.5-years. Numbers and sensitivities can be stress-tested in the data-file.
-
TOPCon: maverick?
A new solar cell is vying to re-shape the PV industry, with 2-5% efficiency gains and c25-35% lower silicon use. This 13-page note reviews TOPCon cells, which will take some sting out of solar re-inflation, tighten silver bottlenecks and may further entrench China’s solar giants.
-
Chlor-alkali process: the economics?
This data-file captures chlor-alkali process economics, to produce 80MTpa of chlorine and 90MTpa of caustic soda. Our base case requires $600 per ecu for a 10% IRR and a growth project costing $600/Tpa. Electricity is 45% of cash cost. CO2 intensity is 0.5 tons/ton. Interestingly, chlor-alkali plants can demand shift.
-
Solar costs: four horsemen?
Solar costs have deflated by an incredible 90% in the past decade to 4-7c/kWh. Some commentators now hope for 2c/kWh by 2050. Further innovations are doubtless. But there are four challenges, which could stifle future deflation or even re-inflate solar. Most debilitating would be a re-doubling of CO2-intensive PV-silicon?
Content by Category
- Batteries (89)
- Biofuels (44)
- Carbon Intensity (49)
- CCS (63)
- CO2 Removals (9)
- Coal (38)
- Company Diligence (95)
- Data Models (840)
- Decarbonization (160)
- Demand (110)
- Digital (60)
- Downstream (44)
- Economic Model (205)
- Energy Efficiency (75)
- Hydrogen (63)
- Industry Data (279)
- LNG (48)
- Materials (82)
- Metals (80)
- Midstream (43)
- Natural Gas (149)
- Nature (76)
- Nuclear (23)
- Oil (164)
- Patents (38)
- Plastics (44)
- Power Grids (130)
- Renewables (149)
- Screen (117)
- Semiconductors (32)
- Shale (51)
- Solar (68)
- Supply-Demand (45)
- Vehicles (90)
- Wind (44)
- Written Research (354)