According to the Australian Manufacturing Forum (AMF):

An Australian company “….has developed a cell metallisation technology that uses copper which is 100x cheaper and 1,000x more abundant than commonly used silver” to produce solar cells.

“Currently, silver accounts for approximately half the cost of converting a bare silicon wafer into a finished solar cell and solar manufacturing accounts for approximately 25 per cent of the world’s annual industrial silver consumption. “

 AMF goes on to say:”…..has also pushed the performance of its technology beyond that achievable with silver by creating the world’s most efficient commercial-sized solar cell. The technology also has environmental benefits as copper is easier to recycle and is less carbon intensive in the manufacturing process.”

AMF quotes ARENA CEO Darren Miller who said “…..it was crucial that scientists and researchers keep innovating and improving solar cells and module design.”

Miller said: “…..technology that replaces silver with copper is a potential game changer and highlights why now is the time to invest in technologies for our future economic success.”

now is the time to invest in technologies for our future economic success.”

The real thing or just another hype to get more funding ?

Solar is still non-dispatchable energy no matter how cheap it is to produce. It's all the extras like storage, control and transmission, as well as the fact that you need at least six times as much to make up for the low capacity factor. The spruikers act dumb about the realities that make solar far more expensive than nuclear as a low carbon energy source.

Investors overseas are backing away from renewable energy. Dumb-bum Australians just haven't caught up yet; and as long as the government has moron acting as Energy Minister, they won't catch up. He seems to think that what has turned to shite in other countries will work here.

WTF?

ttbn says: "Investors overseas are backing away from renewable energy."

Just another unsupported shout into the wind from ttbn.

Australia is, in fact,the third most attractive destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) into renewable energy in 2022, according to a new report from fDi Intelligence.


South Korea’s POSCO plans to invest A$40 billion in Australia’s green hydrogen industry.

A Japanese consortium has committed A$2.35 billion in the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain, the world’s first liquefied hydrogen supply chain.

Spain’s Iberdrola and Australian hydrogen developer ABEL Energy are planning to build a green hydrogen and green methanol production plant in Tasmania.

Denmark’s European Energy has made a major investment in the 3,600 MW Pacific Solar Hydrogen Project in Gladstone.

Norwegian oil and offshore wind giant Equinor is co-developing a 1GW wind farm off the coast of north-east Tasmania.

The US’s Recharge Industries is building a lithium-ion battery factory in Geelong.

All of this investment in Australian renewables from overseas companies that will have an economic boost for regional Australia.

Just another unsupported shout into the wind from ttbn.
WTF? - Not Again,
Don't be too hasty in dismissing this trend. The more information comes to hand the more the pragmatists move away from the idealism that the Woke can't detach themselves from.

The reason all those con artist renewable energy spruikers are coming here is because of all the taxpayer subsidies still on offer, currently $7+ billion a year. Overseas they have been operating long enough to show people the reality and the subsidies have been heavily cut back.

Remember Max Green coming here with all the glossy brochure claims about how cheap and wonderful renewables were and how expensive and impossible nuclear was? He went on about pumped hydro for energy storage. Well Snowy 2.0 is a disaster, along with many other rusting pieces of junk that were touted as part of the renewable energy revolution a few years back.

The people promoting this nonsense need to be called out for the economic and environmental vandals that they are.

And this was Max's pet pumped hydro project, now abandoned because it is not economically viable, just like all the other renewable energy garbage being built here.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-26/wa-government-abandons-pumped-hydro-plans-south-west/103026522

Australia is an attractive turd for FOREIGN blowfly investors because of our stupid political class, with its big subsidies and rip-the-environment-to-bits attitude. The foreigners in their own countries can't get away with what they get away with here. They've been shunned in their own dunghill, and Hickstralia is a real goldmine for them.

In the meantime, there is plenty to "support" the lack of investment overseas, where people with the brains that Blackout Bowen hasn't got have woken up to reality.

WTF?

ttbn says: "In the meantime, there is plenty to "support" the lack of investment overseas"

This of course is wrong and just another example of ttbn's inability to accept factual information.

According to the International Energy Agency:
"About USD 2.8 trillion is set to be invested globally in energy in 2023, of which more than USD 1.7 trillion is expected to go to clean technologies – including renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear power, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency improvements and heat pumps."

If ttbn wants to argue that $US1.7 trillion in one year (and set to increase) amounts to a "lack of investment overseas" that I think that maybe only Indyvidual would agree with him.

"According to the International Energy Agency:
"About USD 2.8 trillion is set to be invested globally in energy in 2023, of which more than USD 1.7 trillion is expected to go to clean technologies – including renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear power, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency improvements and heat pumps.""

Yes, that's what gets all the chumps like Bowen jumping up and down with excitement. The pertinent question is "Will things go as planned?". There is mounting evidence that renewable energy is not living up to expectations. Ironically, the best low carbon option is nuclear, but it has long been rejected by save the planet types, mainly because it doesn't fit with their ideology.

Renewable energy is a dysfunctional mess. It is what happens when ideological nutjobs think that they can pick winners.

These foreign investors are laughing up their sleeves. Making money out of, and buggering up someone else's country, with the help of its communist government: and they don't give a sh-t about the little bit of electricity produced; they care only about the Renewable Energy Certificates.

For all the 'decolonisation' ratbags: Australia is being colonised and exploited by these bastards (with the help of the Canberra Commos) and their entirely unreliable, hideously expensive windmills and solar panels, which Australian taxpayers will have to carry the can for when the contraptions wear out - which they are already starting to do.

WTF?

Fester says: "There is mounting evidence that renewable energy is not living up to expectations."

Well Fester where is the evidence and whose expectations are you talking about?

In this thread I have provided information from the Australian Manufacturing Forum, fDi Intelligence and the International Energy Agency.

You have provided no evidence at all.

If you read carefully, nuclear power is one of the investment strands (overseas anyway) so it has not "long been rejected by save the planet types" (whoever they are - I don't see them posting here).

Stop ranting and provide some evidence - and no references to youtube videos.

WTF?

Just another word soup rant from ttbn.

ttbn talks about "hideously expensive windmills and solar panels" - no evidence, no references just a hodgepodge of thought bubbles in a ttbn rant.

Since 2018 there have been at least 5 studies undertaken around the world involving the energy return on investment for wind energy.

It typically takes about six months for turbines to achieve energy-payback time, or EPBT, the time it takes for a system to generate more energy than it took to make it.

A US Environmental Protection Agency report said the typical lifespan was 20 years for wind turbines. Other sources estimate from 18-25 years.

The lower end estimates include everything from pre-mining of materials to decommissioning and recycling.

The article is about championing Australian technological excellence - the scientists involved developed this in the garage and it is now an international first.

What a sad, sad little world ttbn seems to inhabit.

Dear WTF? - Not Again,

Don't stress with this lot of anti-Australians mate.

The path of Australian innovators in the renewable energy space having to head overseas is unfortunately well trodden. Antipathy and downright hostility, particularly during the Coalition years, has seen many great inventions ending up outside of Australia enormously benefiting those who had the foresight to invest in it.

We are pretty good at digging dirt.

The purpose of an electricity generator is not so much to produce electricity, per se, but to provide a specified amount of electricity to a particular place or places, at a specific time.

That doesn't sound like renewables.

Hello SteeleRedux,

Thanks for the input.

One of the scientists involved said that at one time (10-15 years ago?) that solar cell production took place in Australia - this is no longer the case.

The hope is that this new technology can restart Australian production.

These pessimists that go through life playing "I am the main character" (as the younger ones say) have been left way behind.

The rent-seekers in the US have declared that a doubling of the prices they receive is now necessary to make offshore wind a viable investment. This is another counter to the ludicrous proposition that renewables are the cheapest way to generate electricity, something to which Albonese still clings.

Australia’ has downgraded its expectations, and now expects that 2023 investment may not reach three gigawatts.

Un-Australian? Jeez Steele, I thought that we were just a bunch of peanuts, although I will concede that I am a very angry peanut regarding the mess of Australia's energy future.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-19/windorah-solar-dishes-to-be-replaced-with-panels-ergon-energy/102968984

Have a look at Jo Nova's site today to see how offshore turbines are interfering with radar signals in the UK; and elsewhere for VW's cessation of EV building (300 jobs gone) and Toyota's concentration switched from EVs to hybrids.

Has there been a resolution of the offshore wind cable failures?

AFR headline 5/11 - 'Fortescue Dumps Vast WA Wind, Solar Farm Project'. The same fate that met the you-beaut undersea cable from
Australia to Singapore after reality and common sense kicked in.

common sense kicked in.
ttbn,
Common sense in this day & age ? A sign from above ?

Just heard on the News that a company in Nth Qld is doing trials at this time with vegetable based oil & an important additive called HVO. Let's hope our investors aren't greedy enough not to invest in producing HVO here.

Indyvidual

- green diesel fuel has been around for a long time but usually on an individual or small scale.

The technology works, it's acutely quite simple but it limited by available and cost efficient inputs.

If this changes in the future then it can only be a good thing.

As people and companies invest their minds, time and money into technological improvements and innovations the world we live in will be a better place.

Just look at the example of these young Australian scientists and their new solar cell.

If it were up to the luddites on this forum we would still be living in caves.

Thanks for that ttbn. Breakthrough is a tad overused these days. I'm still waiting for the 80% efficiency quantum dot solar cells touted as a breakthrough some years back.

Hello Fester,

My advice is to not wait and get involved with the latest commercially available energy supply options.

I haven't updated my almost 11 year old energy system and it still works just fine.

It isn't as efficient as what is available now but that's the good fortune for those who are buying now.

When I do upgrade I expect there will be a number of innovations to boost performance - all due to human ingenuity.

WTF?

ttbn says: "Fortescue Dumps Vast WA Wind, Solar Farm Project."

I'm not sure ttbn understands how a laissez-faire capitalistic economy works.

On the same day Fortescue moves away from that project The Australian Manufacturing Forum announces that the WA Government has reached an agreement with a different company for eight GW green hydrogen production facility powered by wind and solar near Carnarvon.

These are business decisions and Fortescue is looking elsewhere.

In the month of October alone Fortescue has make investments in green technologies in Norway, Brazil, England and the U.S.

Global inflation is effecting many business opportunities and supply chain issues for offshore wind generation is no exception.

Fortescue is not moving away from green technologies it sees opportunities elsewhere - this is how our economy works.

There were crippling losses for investors in wind and electric vehicles for the past quarter. These losses have now extended to solar. While US stocks were up by 15% generally, solar stocks slumped by 40%.

For domestic solar panel users in the US, subsidies have been slashed by 75%, and it will now take 10 years for the panels to pay for themselves. As for wind, America's largest wind farm developer has just decided to abandon two of its intended projects.

The latest Fortescue cop-out might be the start of Australia cottoning on to the lessons from overseas, although with the nincompoop Bowen running the show, and Albanese never in the country, that might not happen

WTF?

ttbn says: "might be the start of Australia cottoning on to the lessons from overseas"

Well the lessons we can learn in Australia are that the AEMO which sets the energy markets states:
"Renewables push NEM electricity prices down to historical levels."

Now if they are advertising and publishing this and it was not the case then the retail energy companies would be letting us know in no uncertain terms.

"Renewables push NEM electricity prices down to historical levels."

That's an example of a misleading truth. There's no shortage of such information from the renewable energy industry, a fact which reinforces my opinion of them as a bunch of con artists.

In contrast to the floundering renewables industry, last week the UK government granted 27 licences for oil an gas exploration and development in the North Sea.

Using solar is problematic but in vehicles it is more problematic because solar needs storage whereas hydrocarbons are their own storage. As I understand the e-vehicle market is slipping with many left "on the lot". But green lobbyists are pressuring legislators to force people to use them in order to prevent the market slide.

WTF
They are right the solar renewables are pushing the prices down.
I have seen Sth Aus with a price of -$200, not a mistake minus $200.
So they were paying another state to take their excess power.
You cannot get it cheaper than that !
That is what put the coal fired power stations out of business.

Qld also sells at a negative price fairly often.
Funny, they never offer those prices after sunset ? I wonder why ?

Obviously this cannot go on and on and that is why the whole thing
will collapse in a heap.