Another sixty years passed before Bell Labs invented the modern solar cell in 1954. Made from silicon, this breakthrough cell had 6 percent efficiency in converting sunlight to energy, which was a huge improvement from previous technologies. It allowed solar to be used for about $256 per watt. Even with that huge leap forward, $256 per watt was far more expensive than other sources of energy at the time, so it is easy to see why a transition from lower-cost sources of energy to solar power didn’t take place. As technology has improved, though, that rate has dropped precipitously, from $256 per
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