Natcore Technology Inc (NTCXF)

[Northsun0]

Great Article On Natcore:

Natcore Technology Illuminates A Sustainable Solar Future
By: Jonathan T. Orr

As the developed and developing worlds work urgently toward a globally sustainable energy future for all mankind, the all too human tendency toward ‘magical thinking’ becomes very dangerous in our pursuit of answers. We will never again be able to rely on one source of energy such as fossil fuels to power our relentless expansion and indeed our core civilizing concepts of progress and human development will need to be drastically re-thought and revised if we are to have a future at all. In a world more deeply interconnected economically, technologically and socially than at any other point in human history,any bright future we might conjure for ourselves will be one based on a patient, broad and deep set of strategies and techniques pursued over time.

Any feasible future global energy solutions will be developed through the pursuit of a combination of renewable energy sources and new technologies such as solar power, wind energy, hydroelectric power and others yet to be discovered, rather than the one hoped for new energy source or wondrous breakthrough.

However, many of these alternative energy sources and solar power in particular face one very daunting fact: as the present technology stands it requires massive and politically unpalatable government subsidies to make solar cost-competitive with conventional power.

Natcore Solar (NXT.V) are in the market prove this wrong.

Breakthrough Process Creates Hyper Efficient Solar Cells

Speaking as boldly as the sun itself, Brien Lundin Chairman and Director, says of the company's breakthrough process for the manufacture of solar cells, that it will “ ...will make solar power cost competitive with conventional power”.

Natcore Solar believes that with its exclusive thin film technology applied to the manufacture of super efficient silicon solar cells, it will be able to soon close the economic gap between solar power and conventional energy production and allow solar to become a completely viable and central part of our sustainable energy mix. To say nothing of increasingly profitable.

Within the prism of glittering possibilities for alternative energy, solar power is seen as the energy source with the most potential and as the one most fraught with economic and technological challenges. There it is in the sky everyday, heating our world day in and day out over millennia, but how to capture that evanescent ray of light and harness its vast power in a financially feasible way? Solar unarguably provides clean and abundant energy; we can all agree that we will never face the calamity of Peak Solar. In discussions of Solar energy the word that most often ends up in article headlines is Viability.

With current cell manufacturing technique solar power cannot yet compete with conventional power economically. With solar energy the challenge is different than with fossil fuels and other traditional power sources: the usual questions of a reliable source to not enter into the equation, what is required is simply to make it cost far less to produce. This is precisely the aim of Natcore and it's pursuit of thin-film growth technology.

The Holy Grail Of Solar Power

Within the solar power industry there exist a myriad of approaches and techniques being applied to achieve this goal, many of which are guilty of the same kind of wishful thinking found in the conventional energy world. Many companies are trying to create a total solution and a perfected process when what is really required to make solar energy viable as soon as possible are more focused achievements such as improving the conversion efficiencies of silicon cells while lowering their manufacturing costs and investing in practical refinements to already existing technologies.

This is the strategy Natcore Technology has been employing for sometime.

Natcore Technology is the sole licensee of a remarkable new thin-film growth technology from Rice University that may yield very significant improvements in costs and efficiencies in silicon wafer manufacturing, the building blocks of all solar power systems. Natcore’s liquid phase deposition technology will enable the solar cell industry to reduce silicon wafer thicknesses by up to two-thirds, which in turn will vastly improve output efficiencies and expand profit margins.

As explained by Natcore’s science team:

Silicon dioxide, or silica, is a fundamental building block in semiconductors, fiber optics and solar cells. It is an absolutely essential element in all these applications, and it is currently deposited onto silicon through a process called “Thermal Oxide Growth.” This process uses complicated, multi-million-dollar furnaces, operating in a vacuum and at temperatures of up to 1,000º Celsius (1,800º Fahrenheit), to grow the necessary thin films of silicon dioxide. In contrast, Natcore’s “Liquid Phase Deposition” (LPD) process simply grows these thin films of silicon dioxide in mild chemical baths using standard, low-cost equipment. Because Natcore’s process is so mild, it allows for much thinner silicon wafers, as well as the development of advanced materials and devices that would be destroyed during the standard Thermal Oxide Growth process.

Natcore’s LPD process has been independently tested and verified by one of America’s most respected laboratories and is ready to be used today in the manufacturing of highly efficient new solar cells, semiconductor devices, optical and optoelectronic components, prescriptive and protective eye wear, and energy-saving architectural coatings, among many other uses.

While the science behind solar energy is as necessarily complex as the sun itself, the market potential of Natcore’s unique ability to create super thin silicon wafers for commercial application is as clear the light our star produces.

With a conventional non-tandem cell costing approximately $540 to manufacture, Natcore's hyper efficient tandem technology can instantly double the efficiency and profitability of that cell. As Mr. Provini points out, with the aim of claiming a 10 percent market share every year for the licensing of this exclusive process, the company would stand to make an average of 500 million dollars per year in royalty revenue. Mr. Provini spoke to us with excitment and confidence about an going series of announcements from their Tandem Cell Research Program that will soon confirm the viability of this technology.

Bright investors will take this chance to invest in the illumination of a truly sustainable solar energy future.

Follow the company’s progress at:http://www.natcoresolar.com