UNSW engineers have made a major step forward in the development of a new type of solar cell that could help make future solar panels cheaper, more efficient and more durable.

The research team has improved the performance of solar cells made from antimony chalcogenide, which is an emerging photovoltaic material regarded as a strong candidate for next-generation solar technology.

Antimony chalcogenide has several advantages that make it attractive for use as that top solar cell.

Firstly, it is made from abundant elements that cost relatively little to produce, unlike some high-performance solar materials that rely on scarce or expensive materials.

Secondly, it is inorganic, which means it is inherently more stable than some newer solar materials that can degrade over time.

Thirdly, its high light absorption coefficient means a layer only 300 nanometres thick — about one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair — is enough to harvest sunlight efficiently.

Another benefit is the fact the material can be deposited at low temperatures, reducing energy usage during manufacturing and opening the door to large-scale, low-cost production.

It's great to see Australian researchers making such valuable contributions to the renewable energy sphere.

oh, it must be research grant season again.

Meanwhile.... "The World's Great Climate collapse"... http://www.axios.com/2026/01/13/climate-change-trump-collapse-world

Yep, this is what incremental progress in energy technology actually looks like.

No magic wand, just steady improvements in materials that matter at scale: abundance, stability, manufacturability and efficiency. Antimony chalcogenide is interesting precisely because it avoids the usual traps critics fixate on: rare inputs, exotic processing, or lab-only fragility.

It's also not about replacing silicon overnight. New materials complement existing tech. Tandem cells, thinner layers, lower-temperature deposition and cheaper manufacturing compound over time. That's how costs fall and performance rises.

And it's good to see this coming out of UNSW. We've quietly punched above our weight in photovoltaics for years, even if that only gets noticed when something breaks.

Progress often looks dull right up until it isn't.
____

I see you have your tinfoil hat on already, mhaze.

//oh, it must be research grant season again.//

Calling it "grant season" doesn't really engage with either the UNSW research or the article you linked.

The Axios piece isn't about climate physics "collapsing". It's explicitly about a political and policy pullback, driven by geopolitics, Trump's withdrawal from multilateralism, and short-term political risk aversion. The article is quite clear that the planet is still warming and that this shift is about ambition and coordination, not evidence suddenly changing.

In fact, Axios goes out of its way to say this is a retreat from maximalist net-zero timelines, not a wholesale retreat from climate action. Europe is still targeting a 90% reduction in tailpipe emissions, China is expanding cleantech investment, and even Trump's own legislation preserved support for storage, geothermal and nuclear technologies.

Which brings us back to UNSW. Materials research doesn't stop because Washington has a mood swing. Lower-cost, more durable photovoltaics aren't about virtue signalling or treaties, they're about engineering economics. If anything, a more fragmented, competitive world makes cheaper, more robust energy technologies more relevant, not less.

Political headwinds come and go. The underlying physics and the incentive to produce energy more cheaply and efficiently tend to stick around.

The article was simply another pointer to the way the great hoax is unravelling. Look around, you'll signs of it everywhere.

As to the research, well its all well and good. Let me know when its shown to scale and can be produced at a competitive cost to other forms of power generation. So far, as I've shown you, solar isn't competitive in the real world outside cloistered, government funded research labs.

You're asserting a conclusion, mhaze, not demonstrating one.

Calling it a "hoax unravelling" is just a label. The article you linked is about political retrenchment, not a scientific reversal, and it explicitly states that warming continues and that investment remains historically high, just off the 2021 peak.

The "let me know when it scales" line is a moving goalpost.

Every energy technology follows the same path: lab research -> pilots -> deployment -> cost decline. Demanding instant grid-scale competitiveness from materials research isn't scepticism, it's an impossible standard.

And you've already tried this framing before. You even titled a thread "The great unravelling", then abandoned it when the claims didn't hold up:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10726&page=0

You're free to remain unconvinced, but repeatedly declaring that the evidence doesn't exist, while ignoring how technologies actually mature and deploy, isn't an argument. It's just repetition.

"You even titled a thread "The great unravelling", then abandoned it when the claims didn't hold up"

I stopped posting when my point had been fully established and you began your little games to try to extricate yourself from the corner you'd talk yourself into.

"The "let me know when it scales" line is a moving goalpost."

No, its me pointing out that these announcements of some major break-through that's gunna change everything are a zac a dozen. They only matter when they scale. Let me know when that happens.

"repeatedly declaring that the evidence doesn't exist"

Well there you go again. I've never said the evidence doesn't exist but subtlety isn't your strong suit, is it? The evidence for warming is strong. the evidence supporting things like net zero is weak and largely political. The politics is changing and its interesting to trace that. I'm just wondering when Australian politics will catch up with that of the US and Europe.

That's quite some revisionism you're engaging in there, mhaze.

//I stopped posting when my point had been fully established and you began your little games to try to extricate yourself from the corner you'd talk yourself into.//

You titled a thread "The great unravelling", made broad claims about climate action collapsing, then stopped engaging once those claims were challenged with evidence. Saying "my point had been fully established" doesn't make it so. It's just a post-hoc description of a skedaddle.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10726&page=0

Pure projection and assertion.

As for scaling, no one here claimed this UNSW result "changes everything". That framing is yours. Materials research only ever matters once it scales, and everyone knows that. Pointing out early-stage progress isn't hype, it's how technological development actually unfolds. Calling every such result "a dime a dozen" avoids engaging with whether the underlying constraints are being reduced.

And regarding evidence, I didn't say you deny warming. I said you repeatedly assert that evidence for action is lacking, while treating political retreat as if it were evidentiary retreat. Those aren't the same thing. The Axios article you linked makes that distinction explicit.

You're free to track political shifts. But politics changing doesn't retroactively invalidate the physics, the economics, or the direction of technological improvement. Conflating those is the sleight of hand here, not a lack of subtlety.

Subtlety still eluding you.

"I said you repeatedly assert that evidence for action is lacking,"

Well actually you didn't. I said that and you've retreated with alacrity.

But then, in the same post, you assert that I "retroactively invalidate the physics, the economics, or the direction of technological improvement."

I suppose if I pointed out how wrong that assertion is you'd starting looking for some wording to retreat without acknowledging it. But just for the heck of it, I don't 'invalidate' the physics, just the hype, nor the economics, just emphasis economics you'd prefer to ignore, and don't think technology has a direction.

Quick JD, I'm sure you can find some wording in there to mispresent.

No retreat required, mhaze.

//Well actually you didn't. I said that and you've retreated with alacrity//

You're just arguing about phrasing instead of substance.

When you say the case for net zero is "weak and largely political", that is asserting that the evidence for action is lacking. You're free to prefer that wording, but the position itself hasn't changed.

And I didn't say you deny physics or economics. I said you treat political retreat as if it were evidentiary retreat, then backfill that with claims about "hype", selectively framed economics, and an insistence that technology has no direction. That's not subtlety, it's re-framing after the fact.

If technology had no direction, costs wouldn't fall, efficiencies wouldn't rise, and deployment wouldn't follow learning curves. Yet that's exactly what we observe across energy technologies, including solar. You can dislike the hype without pretending the trajectory is unknowable.

At this point, the pattern is familiar: assert collapse, shift to politics, dispute wording, then accuse others of misrepresentation. I'm not interested in chasing that loop.

If you want to discuss which economics matter, or which constraints remain unresolved, that's a substantive discussion. This isn't.

"Quick JD, I'm sure you can find some wording in there to mispresent." - mhaze

Heh. Theatrics are fun, aren't they?

Something with precedent would land more effectively, though.

"In a major milestone for Australia's energy transition, the National Electricity Market (NEM)—which supplies electricity to the eastern and southern states—achieved over 50% renewable energy generation for a full quarter for the first time in history. According to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), renewables supplied 51 per cent of total demand in the December 2025 quarter."

As he emerges from his cave, for his daily hunt of a dinosaur meal, the neanderthal knuckle draggier claims that research is really a waste of time and money, he personally discovered fire by accident. Maybe the NKD believes everything comes about by accident or chance, or through the work of the gods.

If technology had no direction, costs wouldn't fall,

Meanwhile...

"Annual Goods inflation was 3.4 per cent in the 12 months to December, up from 3.3 per cent to November. The main reason for stronger annual Goods inflation in December was Electricity, which rose 21.5 per cent in the 12 months to December, compared to a rise of 19.7 per cent to November. "
From the ABS December Qtr release.

Don't you just hate it when the real world doesn't measure up to your fantasies.

That's a category error, mhaze, not a rebuttal.

You're citing retail electricity prices in a single inflationary period, not technology costs. Those are different things, measured differently, driven by different factors.

Retail electricity prices reflect fuel prices, wholesale volatility, transmission costs, market structure, regulation, and post-COVID inflation shocks. They are not a direct proxy for the cost trajectory of generation technologies.

When people say solar technology has a direction, they mean this: the levelised cost of generation for solar and wind has fallen dramatically over time due to learning curves, scale, and efficiency gains. That's been documented repeatedly across decades. A short-term spike in consumer prices doesn't negate that any more than petrol price spikes negate engine efficiency improvements.

If technology had "no direction", costs wouldn't fall at the technology level over time. Yet they do. What you're pointing to is a temporary price signal in a stressed market, not a refutation of technological trajectories.

Confusing CPI movements with technology learning curves doesn't make the "real world" bite back. It just mixes up levels of analysis.

Try again.

Retail prices incorporate ALL costs. Most of the net-zero cheer squad want to just look at the costs that suits their world-view.

Retail prices include many costs, mhaze. That's precisely the point.

They bundle generation, transmission, distribution, retail margins, hedging, regulatory charges, network upgrades, fuel volatility, and short-term market shocks. That makes them a poor instrument for isolating technology learning curves, even if they matter to households.

As I've had to remind you in multiple other threads discussing costings, no one is denying retail prices. The disagreement is about what question they answer. Retail CPI tells you what consumers paid in a particular period. It does not tell you whether generation technologies are getting cheaper, more efficient, or more deployable over time.

If you think there are specific generation-level costs, integration constraints, or system expenses that invalidate claims about declining technology costs, name them. That's a substantive discussion.

But waving at "ALL costs" while refusing to disaggregate them isn't realism. It's just aggregation used as a shield.

The technology is at about 10% efficiency currently. I can buy solar panels with about 25% efficiency and a twenty year life from under $300 per kw.

Great for rooftop solar, but what is needed is a safer battery with a longer lifespan for lower cost. Once electricity becomes cheaper off-grid, consumers will vote with their feet.

The commie wind and solar energy grid scam will end one way or another, but it will never be economically viable, especially when people don't have to take part in the con.

Thorium is still the gold standard for energy storage with a half life as old as the universe, although it lacks the versatility of fossil fuels currently.

Trumpster,

The rise in retail electricity prices was due to government subsidies state and federal coming off, and prices returning to normal. A bit like happy hour at the pub, the $7 schooner drops to $5 at 4pm then go back up to $7 at 6pm. I'll get Indy to explaing that to you, he's very familiar with Happy Hour down at God's Waiting Room. What about you?

You're mixing several different things together there, Fester.

First, efficiency. A lab result at approximately 10% for an emerging material isn't meant to compete with mature commercial silicon today. It's about cost, stability, materials abundance, and manufacturability. Silicon didn't start at 25% either. Comparing early-stage materials research to finished retail products is just a category error.

Second, batteries. Yes, storage is critical. That's not a revelation and it's not something renewables advocates deny. It's why grid-scale storage, demand management, interconnection, and diversified generation are all being deployed in parallel. Falling storage costs are already changing system economics, even if challenges remain.

Third, "off-grid voters". Most consumers don't leave grids because grids are "a con". They leave when grids are unreliable or overpriced. Ironically, rooftop solar plus storage is already one of the pressures forcing grids to modernise, not evidence that renewables are a scam.

Fourth, calling wind and solar a "commie scam" isn't an argument. They're built because, in many contexts, they're among the lowest-cost sources of new generation. That's why private capital keeps deploying them globally, including in markets with no love for government mandates.

Finally, thorium isn't "energy storage". It's a potential nuclear fuel, still facing unresolved engineering, regulatory, and cost hurdles. It may play a role in future generation, but invoking it doesn't magically solve grid storage or make current renewables uneconomic.

If you want to argue about system-level costs, integration limits, or where storage still falls short, that's a serious discussion. But bundling lab efficiency, retail panels, batteries, ideology, identity, tribalism, and speculative nuclear into one narrative doesn't get you there.

John

Really, you are a complete moron.

"Finally, thorium isn't "energy storage"."

Yes it is. Thorium is effectively stored energy from supernovae, some even from larger stars before their lives end. Where did you think all the energy from radioactive decay came from? And your other comments don't get any better.

"They leave when grids are unreliable or overpriced."

Yep, and that will start to happen when battery costs drop enough.

"Fourth, calling wind and solar a "commie scam" isn't an argument."

Did I claim it was? It was getting s off my liver, like saying you are boring, obnoxious and ungraciously verbose.

The personal abuse does you no favours, Fester.

As for the actual substance of your reply, no one disputes that nuclear fuels contain stored energy in a physical sense. The point is that thorium does not function as grid-scale energy storage, which is the constraint I meantioned. Dressing that up in astrophysics doesn't change the system-level problem.

Regarding batteries, you've just agreed with me: off-grid adoption increases as storage costs fall. That's already happening.

//Did I claim it was [an argument]?//

No, but people rarely ever begin or end an argument with a declaration like "This is an argument."

That said, it was tribal signalling and identity affirmation; stating that it wasn't an argument was my way of highlighting this gently.

Too gently, as it turns out.

Fester,

"John

Really, you are a complete moron."

"The personal abuse does you no favours, Fester."

Fester, I thought you were better than that. You may not agree with JD, but he's never thrown abuse your way ever.

Some years back I was suspended from this forum for using the word "ignoramus" towards another, also abusive poster. Hummmm.