Tellurium supplies, as related to CdTe solar cells (First Solar Inc.)

[phantom power]

Using their 72 watt panel, I actually get 109 metric tons per gigawatt, but I don't think that alters the nature of the problem.

According to USGS and Arizona State Geologist Lee Allison, the world produces anywhere from 160 to 215 metric tons of tellurium a year.

Tellurium was traditionally used in metal alloys and other uses. Demand from emerging new applications, like DVD discs, digital camera, computer flash memory and CPU thermoelectric cooling, among other things, has caused a severe shortage in recent years, and drove the price from below $4 a pound to over $100 in 2006, according to Lee Allison. Jack Lifton on Resource Investor suggested that investors could sense the shortage and start to hoard physical tellurium, adding fuel to the fire and causing a huge tellurium price run.

How much tellurium does FSLR use? They use about 7 grams of cadmium and about 8 grams of tellurium in each of the 2 feet x 4 feet CdTe solar panel. That's roughly 135 metric tons per each 1 giga watt (GW) of products. They have signed a bunch of sales contracts with per watt price fixed and mandated to go down 6.5% yearly, and they are aggressively building new factories and expanding production capacity. After finishing a new factory in Germany, they are building four brand-new factories in Malaysia.

(...)

But, where are they going to obtain all the new tellurium supplies needed for future expansion, at a price cheap enough to ensure profitability, and a quantity large enough to keep the new factories running? On Nov. 8, 2007, the CFO publicly commented that "we have identified terawatts levels of tellurium availability." He seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. One terrawatt is 1000 GW. Nowhere on earth does this amount of tellurium even exist underground, let alone available in a secret vault somewhere.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/54614-dark-future-ahead-for-first-solar