The article has a slight oversight - it is a bit behind the state of the art.

S. Korea develops technique to recycle discarded solar panels into high-performance solar cells

South Korea moves forward with long-expected solar panel recycling scheme

Reclaiming the aluminum has been possible for a long while. Reclaiming the glass has been "not worth the effort". Reclaiming the doped silicon is apparently a reality in South Korea, however.

As for the story itself, wow - very interesting. :)

“My hypothesis is that George Cove stumbled upon a Schottky contact photovoltaic cell, decades before it was described by Walter Schottky. 21 There is the possibility of both photovoltaic (predominantly) and thermoelectric responses from these devices. The plug was an alloy of zinc and antimony – which we now know is a semiconductor. It was alternately capped by German silver (a nickel, copper, and zinc alloy) and copper on opposite ends. This formed an ohmic contact and Schottky contact, respectively. This is a photovoltaic device.”

According to Philip Pesavento, George Cove probably started with “German silver” as the negative material on both ends of the plugs, and an antimony-zinc alloy (ZnSb) as the positive material. These were the best available thermoelectric materials at the time:

“He probably ran out of German silver and substituted copper to finish making up a bunch of plugs since the difference in thermoelectric voltage between using copper and German silver was small. Then, during testing, Cove noted that these plugs (with a German silver cap at one end and a copper cap at the other end) gave a much greater voltage: 100s of mV’s versus the usual 10s of mV for a thermoelectric generator.”

We prefer the most efficient solar panels where space is limited, such as rooftops, however there are vast areas of the earth that are almost unused sunny desert, perhaps there low-tech could make more sense?

that website is still alive ? how nice

also we need to achieve net positive: pv panel factories need to be fully powered by solar, else a panel would always carry some carbon footprint

To put some numbers to things, using this calculator, I could generate ~14,000 kwh per year with typical panels on my roof. According to wikipedia, the average US household uses ~17,000 kwh per year of energy (n.b., not electricity). 3/4 of that is HVAC. An air-source heat pump might have a coefficient of performance of 5, in which case the actual electricity requirement would be 7,000 kwh per year.

Basically, I could generate double the average household needs, so I could deal with a hit to panel efficiency. Granted, that's only for domestic energy consumption. If you factor in things like food production, transportation, water treatment, etc, my consumption would be higher.

Worth reading this investigation into the historic photos: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/08/16/untangling-the-mystery-of-the-worlds-first-rooftop-solar-panel/

Also worth pointing out there is some question as to whether these solar panels ever functioned. Someone should build one to test it out!

Couldn't we decrease demand with more efficient solar panels too? It seems like the critical tradeoff here (given unlimited space and funding, which is actually important) is the environmental cost per kwh energy produced.

PBR ran a documentary that showed how solar panels were made: by “smelting” quartz with coal, and the harmful emissions from that process which are overlooked in most conversations around solar panels. So indeed this older design of just using two dissimilar metals seems superior in terms of production.

something about the curse of competence, that our solar panels will increase daytime energy use without reducing emissions by much, if we don't fight the idea of consumerism and unlimited energy.