[throwaway5752]

"A piece about 1cm square costs $200 or more. Solar panels need square meters of the stuff."

And that would be a real problem if solar panels producers had to have microprocessors etched into panels, had to pay the scientists to design the processors, and had to build the plants to scale that process to industrial levels, like Intel.

Happily, they just have to buy an ingot of the stuff and cut it with a saw into a 250 micrometer by 1 meter squared (or so) piece. I will leave it as an exercise to you to verify the spot price of solar grade silicon is less than $30/kg.

So lets say a panel takes 250 micrometers * 1 meter * 1 meter * 2g/cm^3 (density of silicon) * $30 / kg (assuming spot prices and not long term contracts or internal sourcing). That's 250 cm^3 * 2g/cm^3 * $30/1000g, or $15 for a whole panel of the stuff.

[ars]

Duh. I was saying that comparing to the computer in front of me is ridiculous for comparing to a solar cell.

I was ridiculing him for even suggesting it as a reply.