What happens at night?
What happens when its cloudy?
What happens during the winter-time?
Does Nanosolar’s $1 per watt investment guarantee a consistent 24/7/365 source of electricity?
Does Nanosolar’s $1 figure include the cost of installing transmission lines?
Does Nanosolar’s $1 figure include the cost laying cement for a power plant, assembling the cells into solar panels, installing the panels, and commissioning the power plant?
Does Nanosolar’s $1 figure include the cost of building base-load generating capacity to provide electricity for when the sun doesn’t shine?
Installing electrical transmission lines costs about $1 million per mile. Most PV power plants are located far away from demand centers.
This sounds like vaporware.
This is precisely the problem with the Obama administration's plan for a "green energy" future -- trying to shoehorn high-cost intermittent power sources into low-cost high-reliability applications.
Nanosolar is ignoring what solar sells are good for.
Photovolatics have traditionally enjoyed a niche market in applications where cost is not a factor, where weight is at a premium, where there are no other power sources, and where frequent fuel delivery is not an option -- orbital telecommunications satellite solar panels, remote radio transmission towers, offshore oil and gas platforms, mobile power sources for forward-deployed military units, etc...
Utility scale power generation is extremely cost-sensitive, demands high-reliability, has no weight constraints, and has no constraints on mobility and/or fuel delivery -- the exact opposite of applications in which photovolatics make sense.
Nanosolar's emphasis on cost-per-watt suggests that their target market is utility-scale power generation -- a dubious proposition at best, considering the cost and reliability problems with renewable energy sources.
Marc Andreesen has famously argued that the number one job of a startup is to achieve product-market fit.
Nanosolar, like most renewable energy companies, has a product which they are trying to force unto a market that does not want it.
That's the trouble with government subsidies -- they allow people to operate outside the constraints of reality. At taxpayer expense.