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I listened to the webcast live, although I did not actively participate. Two days ago I interviewed Mr. René Boisvert, CEO of Bécancour Silicon Inc., the wholly owned Timminco subsidiary, which has been producing metallurgical grade silicon metal for more than 30 years. My conclusions, the reasons for which I will spell out in a moment are, first and foremost, that I have just become aware of a brilliant and innovative change, patent applied for and pending, in the upgrading of metallurgical grade silicon. The upgraded metallurgical grade silicon (UMGSI) is of a purity level that can be directly used to manufacture photovoltaic (PV) solar cells with efficiencies and lifetimes equal to those currently mass manufactured from solar grade silicon that has been prepared by the much more complex, and more expensive, processes in use today to upgrade metallurgical grade silicon to solar grade silicon.
The most startling fact I learned, as least to me it was startling, was that the new Bécancour-Timminco process can be carried out on 5-to-10 tonne batches of molten silicon. I am the kind of (once-upon-a-time) high temperature metallurgist who though very familiar with the ultra purification of silicon (for use in making integrated circuit base wafers) always expects to see large single crystals of silicon being grown in multiple vacuum chambers slowly and laboriously as mass production.
Mr. Boisvert literally had me speechless when he described his company’s process for mass producing solar grade silicon in multiton ‘melts’. I have to also tell you that although Mr. Boisvert is very close to the vest about the details of the new process, I completely understood from his description exactly what his company had done and why they had done it that way. The Bécancour developed process has realized, in my opinion, the finding of the Holy Grail (no, editor, I am not being too dramatic) of a practical process for the large scale ultra purification of a material for electronic use.

resourceinvestor.com

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Down dooby doo down down …
SOME readers may be mystified by the above nonsense, but baby boomers won’t need any further introduction to Neil Sedaka than the opening sounds of his 1962 pop classic Breaking Up is Hard to Do.
During his 50 years in the music business, the singer-songwriter has had dozens of hits and sold millions of records; his songs have been covered by performers ranging from the Carpenters to Frank Sinatra. He even has a street named after him in Brooklyn, New York.
Few artists would have survived Sedaka’s roller-coaster career: after initial pop success at a very young age, he disappeared from the charts in the mid-1960s. He spent a decade in the wilderness: the "hungry years" when he performed at leagues clubs and had only two hit songs.
Then in 1975 he came back with a vengeance, returning to gold and platinum sales with his Solitaire album, the song Laughter in the Rain and the enormous international success of Grammy-winner Love Will Keep Us Together for the Captain and Tennille.
He describes himself as a fighter, a survivor and an optimist.
"Australia has been very wonderful to me over the years," he says by phone from New York. "I have a very warm relationship with Australia, it’s an ongoing love affair."
Sedaka never lost his enthusiasm for work and is looking forward to collaborating with orchestras across the country, performing old hits and new compositions. The tour begins with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, which will premiere Sedaka’s first classical piece, Joie de Vivre.
"It goes back to my roots," he says. "I started out as a classical pianist at Juilliard School in New York."
Born in 1939, Sedaka was a prodigy from a working class family in Brooklyn. He had ambitions to become a concert pianist and practised for hours each day on a second-hand piano. His parents were shocked when at 13 he began writing pop songs.

theaustralian.news.com.au