The new company from Intel, SpectraWatt Inc. will manufacture solar cells for distribution to solar panel manufacturers, in an efforto to diversify from electronic componenents. In a green company, wich always is a good notice. Among the other investors we can find Cogentrix Energy (a Goldman Sachs subsidiary), since this Investment Bank is the biggest private equity investor in the world. Salvador Trinxet. Banco Internacional de Investimentos. www.bancoii.com

Well, the king of silicon is getting into a new industry. More silicon. Maybe those non-silicon thin films won't take over the market so fast, if Intel gets it's best engineers on the problem. Or maybe it just wants to make a business out of all the expensive silicon that isn't good enough quality to make chips with.
All I have to say is, more money for solar has got to be good.

"Or maybe it just wants to make a business out of all the expensive silicon that isn't good enough quality to make chips with."

The mis processed wafers are typically sold to make solar cells already, and the price paid for this "scrap" has been rising steadily for a few years.

Intel may simply be eliminating the middle man in this case.

Solar is the only long term sustainable energy source, but Intel is a gross company, just like Microsoft. Hopefully it will fail, and it's innovations will be made public. We all know that Intel hogs the shitte out of their patents.

Intel seems to identify energy as one of the drivers of growth though late but keeping in mind their track record you should see them making headlines once they started with their venture . They command a lot in the silicon valley but we have to see how it fares outside the silicon valley .

Here's one of the things high oil prices is good for.

It's looking like Ray Kurzweil's predictions might be on the mark - which is very good news.