As of last month, a new record was set in how efficient a solar cell can be. Sharp Corporation announced that its research has produced a cell that can turn 44% of the sunlight striking it into electricity.
All solar cells now in operation capture less than 44%, discarding/wasting/unable to use well over half of the light. There's no such thing as 100% efficiency in the producing of any energy; we just try to waste less and capture more. Why? To use fewer/less of our resources (of materials, time, labor) while getting more energy to feed a growing global need.
Nova (pbs show) has an explanation of how solar energy is produced here.
There's an enthusiastic drive to use the sun's light as an energy source because of its huge potential: there's sunlight shining everywhere on earth and the process of producing it is thought to be more benign to the environment.
Germany leads the world in producing units of electricity per citizen in this way by a very big margin.
Two of Germany's biggest corporate producers of solar just filed for bankruptcy four days ago.
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