East Asia - Solar silicon is of a purity and consistency that is not as highly scrutinized as that used for semiconductor silicon wafers.  Still, there are several business analysts who believe the solar silicon market will continue growing at a rate of 30% - 40% per year.  Solar silicon is used to create solar cells based on silicon.  Currently, the highest-end silican solar cells are about 41% efficient.  Current reports are coming in that there are shortages of solar silicon.  And many analysts believe the 30-40% growth rate is unrealistic.

Read more ... Digitimes.

Viable solar solutions

Other solar solutions include traditional solar cells, which are approximately 63% efficient using a three-layer stack for ultra-violate, visible and infrared conversion.  Plastic solar cells operate below 7% presently, however new technology was discovered earlier this year that pushes researchers to believe 15% is achievable.  Plastic solar cells, even at 15%, would be very desirable because they are extremely inexpensive to make.  For many applications, their strength and resistance to atmospheric wear and tear would be desirable for raw external applications.  An area roughly three times the size would be required to equal that of silicon efficiencies, for example, but the cost would be well under 10x less.

Some researchers in Australia were able to extract hydrogen and oxygen from salt water in the presence of strong sunlight, in an efficient enough process that, according to their claim, an area of 40 square kilometers located in their desert near the coast would provide enough power for the entire continent.  The technology for this would be viable in 5-10 years.

Off-shore power from electrical nets

Researchers continue to push for environmentally friendly ways of creating renewable power.  One report I read recently talked about harnessing ocean currents using millions of tiny propeller-like devices arranged in a net.  As the currents flowed back and forth, even from the motion of waves near shores, the propellers would each spin electric generators connected to an electrical net providing external power.  As potentially silly as it sounds, the amount of power these nets could generate was extremely high.  It would still take many 10s of miles of coastline to power even a small city, but for remote applications that might actually be a desirable solution.

Other solutions

Many of our readers have posted alternate sources of renewable energy.  We'd like to hear your opinions about the viable alternatives which are out there.  For example, one researcher found a way to utilize a 5-gallon bucket sized container of goo, and the bacteria and enzymes within, to generate electricity.  It would take about 40 buckets to produce enough power to charge a cell phone, but I suppose the argument there is "it's a start".