by reducing the number of surface etchings and metal depositions you reduce the volume of harmful chemicals such as hf acid and acetone that are used in the fabrication process this reduces both the volume and cost of storage and disposal of consumed chemicals the amount of energy required to produce each cell is greatly diminished leading to a decreased use of energy and therefore a reduction of particulate and geothermal pollution at the utility source there is no traditional masking and therefore materials such as glass and photo developing chemicals are eliminated there is less solid waste materials such as glass masks wafers with poor contact structures or wafers that have otherwise been disposed of due to a glitch in the fabrication process typically end up in land fills using the proposed process there is no longer a glass mask used and unless the wafer 110 is structurally damaged the contact area can be cleaned and reused with the simplified process there are fewer man hours needed per cell for production manufacturing time is one of the most significant drivers of production cost for the prototype manufacturing time was less than 5 the manufacturing time required to produce a traditional schottky cell in mass production this cost advantage could significantly offset the disadvantage of lower cell efficiency design and modification of the collector grid pattern and color can also be performed on the fly from the computer terminal this leads to faster prototype testing and shorter testing to production times again for unsatisfactory grid pattern.