“The solar manufacturing story has a clear takeaway: In a rapid turnaround, the U.S. transformed from import-dependent to almost self-sufficient in producing the finished photovoltaic panels that turn sunlight into electricity.
The U.S. was on track to install 40.5 gigawatts of solar generation during 2024, per a December analysis by research firm Wood Mackenzie. Manufacturers had built nearly 40 gigawatts of domestic solar panel production capacity as of that report’s publication; 9.3 gigawatts of that came online in the third quarter alone. Solar panel manufacturing capacity has nearly quintupled since 2022, the year that the Inflation Reduction Act created tax incentives for domestic fabrication.
This lightning-fast turnaround belies a lingering challenge: The U.S. makes very little of the solar cells that go into the finished panels (which are also called modules, in the industry parlance). And it’s way behind on the steps that precede cell production: forming silicon ingots and slicing them into wafers. These heavy-duty industrial processes are more costly to build and generate more complicated environmental impacts than the relatively straightforward assembly of modules.”
A cloud of cold, trapped strontium atoms inside the atom interferometer. (Image: Timothy Kovachy / Northwestern University)
What will it take to detect dark matter—the invisible, nigh-intangible substance that might make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe? Dark matter should be all around us, exerting tiny effects on normal matter, but searches have come up empty so far. But a new study suggests that a strategy employing machine learning could help quantum sensors finally hunt it down. Such hyper-sensitive sensors may also have other applications, such as GPS-free navigation, the detection of underground bunkers, and the discovery of gravitational ripples in space-time from the moments after the Big Bang.
One possibility to detect these minuscule interactions is atom interferometers, a kind of quantum sensor that depends on an effect known as superposition. Quantum effects are vulnerable to outside interference, and quantum sensors capitalize on that fragility in order to respond to the slightest disturbances in the environment—such as an interaction between dark matter and normal matter. (IEEE Spectrum)
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