Ranging from common Si-based solar cells (SCs) [1] to highly efficient although expensive III V semiconductor-based SCs (single or multi-junction [2, 3]) and cheap but less efficient organic photovoltaic devices, the SC technologies remain in active search for optimal materials.
Organic photovoltaics, the cheap but less efficient cells that can be produced in flexible films, are getting closer to mass production with improvements in efficiency, production and investment.
Other conspirators include "Europeans [who] now see global warming as a means of hampering U.S. economic competitiveness" and yes, even Wal-Mart, the conservative stalwart, which is scheming to sell compact fluorescent bulbs rather than the cheaper but less efficient incandescent variety.
Likewise, Carlson [8] demonstrated a similar principle of supply and demand by showing in silico that E. coli will likely favour the use of cheaper, but less efficient, pathways in stress inducing environments.
Comparatively, Archaea and Bacteria may likely favor the use of cheaper, but less efficient amino acids, which lead to the relatively low concordance that we observed.
But efficient cheap LEDs, combined with (soon cheaper) solar arrays and batteries, will permit a leap past wired lights, just as cellphones permitted a leap past landline phones in the unwired part of the world.
"For example, a system may be cheap and efficient, but not enduring," he said.
American car companies failed when they tried to sell cars that were cheap and efficient but that did not change from year to year.
The daily input of solar energy to the earth's surface is enough to fulfil our energy needs many times over, but cheap and efficient ways of converting it, especially to electricity, have remained elusive.
Recent developments on MoS2 monolayers (MLs) are more encouraging in developing cheap and efficient catalysts, but the majority metal atoms are on the basal plane and catalytically inactive.
