Why Did Leading Solar Panel Maker Solyndra Fail?

[PamW]

13. Agreed.

But the whole concept really only works if you can put a sufficiently cheap PV material on the cylinders.
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Yes - if you take it to the limit and had free solar cells; then "wasting" solar cells by pointing them in the wrong direction wouldn't matter.

The problem is, the cost of the cells is one of the major costs, if not THE major cost.

The economics of solar power are such that solar just doesn't have the "free energy" ( that's in the thermodynamic sense ) to throw away efficiency per unit area.

PamW