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It's also interesting where we choose to draw the line for what's considered "low-tech." The most common method for producing monocrystalline silicon was invented in 1915, and doesn't produce that much waste or involve exotic materials:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czochralski_method



A good question is "how complex is the supply chain?"

Low tech has a simple supply chain, high tech has a complicated one.


I imagine your question isn't about companies vertical consolidation, so I am not sure how to measure "supply chain complexity".


How many different materials and processes are required, especially those which can't be easily substituted.


Oh, ok. I don't think PV fare any worse than CSP on that. In fact, CSP needs so many independent engineering domains that it's probably among the worst things you can choose on that metric.




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