Using Solar Tech to make Solar Tech

Apparently, somebody thinks the idea of using a solar furnace to bake photocells is an original idea. How many of you have I spoken to and mentioned my ideas for using solar heliostats and similar methods for heating things like an oven, cookout grill, sauna or steam room, water desalinization furnace tower and the like? I'm not claiming credit for the idea, I just assume it's common sense that anybody who's ever burned newspaper or lit a cigarette with a magnifying glass has likely already thought of. Appearantly, the Department of Energy and the manufacturers of over-priced comercially mass-produced solar cells think it their own original idea.

Yea, so maybe it is a good idea, but isn't the high profit mark-ups part of the problem? The petroleum industry uses the simple fact that comercialy produced solar setups cost so much that they take 20 years for the average buyer to "break even" as a key point in convincing people that solar is not cost effective to begin with.  How would it really be much better to say their $20k systems can be sold for as little as $15k or even $10k (usd), when the reality is that you can make your own of equal output for less than $6k? (And for $6k, that includes paying full price of about $5k for a comercially mass-produced grid-connect inverter)

Please read the article first, before continuing to my response to the article...

... to which I replied:

"Why do people still insist that photocell production is so costly or inefficient? I have a supplier who can sell me blank chrystaline silica wafers as low as 20 cents each and anybody who can sketch a trace stencil and bake solder paste can turn them into good photocells. Are we supposed to be joyous that the DOE wan't to take over technology or credit thereof that many home brewers of alternative energy have already been using? The tech isn't new, nor is it owned or invented by the DOE. The information delivered in this article leads some to believe that somebody is still buying into the DOE's share of petro interests or petro-propaganda, that the technology still isn't within anyman's reach and that it's not cost effective. The first step to proliferation of affordable and renewable energy is to first realize that anybody can do this, then to teach them how.

I'm not arguing or debating the final conclusion that solar is indeed the ideal path to focus in, I just find it misleading to suggest that this would reduce the costs of all solar cell availability, when it really only applies to comercially mass-produced photocells. In my opinion, it's that comercial production the keeps the costs at a premium. They are the ones who set their prices so high that a homeowner would need 20 years of use in order to break even on the costs. They are the ones who dread the thought of people discovering how cheap and easy it is to bake your own photocells. It's that 20 year payoff that feeds into the petroleum industry's argument that solar is not cost effective."

What are your opinions? Was I out of line, over-reacting or just off on a wild tangeant? The article is good in itself and it's nice to see that it's not just another case of a fuel-burning facility being used to make non-fuel-burning technology, but in some ways, I feel it still feeds into the misleading propoganda.

~Chaos Zen