As for ReneSolar’s “highly efficient and sustainable business model,” wafers from recycled silicon were the rule, not the exception in the PV industry a decade ago. The problem is that the PV industry now uses more silicon than the entire microelectronics industry does, so it can’t really survive microelectronics castoffs anymore. An individual company like RenaSolar can, provided it doesn’t mind limiting its size to about 10% of the microelectronics industry, but the PV industry as a whole cannot. So while RenaSolar’s business model might be highly efficient and sustainable for itself, the PV industry as a whole has already been there, done that, and can no longer sustain itself that way.

As for ReneSolar’s “highly efficient and sustainable business model,” wafers from recycled silicon were the rule, not the exception in the PV industry a decade ago. The problem is that the PV industry now uses more silicon than the entire microelectronics industry does, so it can’t really survive microelectronics castoffs anymore. An individual company like RenaSolar can, provided it doesn’t mind limiting its size to about 10% of the microelectronics industry, but the PV industry as a whole cannot. So while RenaSolar’s business model might be highly efficient and sustainable for itself, the PV industry as a whole has already been there, done that, and can no longer sustain itself that way.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-06/03/content_607740.htm

“China, the world’s second-biggest energy consumer after the United States, is pushing the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to generate electricity. At the beginning of the year the government passed the country’s first law on renewable energies.

Beijing aims to increase renewable consumption in the energy mix from the current 7 per cent to 15 per cent by 2020.

China’s major power companies have been ordered to ensure 5 per cent of their electricity generators are fuelled by renewable energy sources by 2010, Zhang Guobao, vice-minister of the NDRC, the nation’s top economic planning body, has said.”

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-06/03/content_607740.htm

“China, the world’s second-biggest energy consumer after the United States, is pushing the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to generate electricity. At the beginning of the year the government passed the country’s first law on renewable energies.

Beijing aims to increase renewable consumption in the energy mix from the current 7 per cent to 15 per cent by 2020.

China’s major power companies have been ordered to ensure 5 per cent of their electricity generators are fuelled by renewable energy sources by 2010, Zhang Guobao, vice-minister of the NDRC, the nation’s top economic planning body, has said.”

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-06/03/content_607740.htm

“China, the world’s second-biggest energy consumer after the United States, is pushing the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to generate electricity. At the beginning of the year the government passed the country’s first law on renewable energies.

Beijing aims to increase renewable consumption in the energy mix from the current 7 per cent to 15 per cent by 2020.

China’s major power companies have been ordered to ensure 5 per cent of their electricity generators are fuelled by renewable energy sources by 2010, Zhang Guobao, vice-minister of the NDRC, the nation’s top economic planning body, has said.”