This guy used to be an Australian citizen and was enticed back to China by 6 million in seed money he then started a solar company and is now worth 2.2 billion shame Australia didn't cough up the 6 million. This link is to a Forbes magazine article.
Shi grew up in Jiangsu Province, on an island in the Yangtze River, and received a master’s degree in laser physics before leaving home for Australia in 1988. There he studied under Martin Green, whose laboratory at the University of New South Wales set a string of efficiency records for solar cells, raising the amount of sunlight energy that can be converted into electricity from 18% in 1983 to 24% in 2004. For the moment, that attainment is a phenomenon of the lab only; commercial cells typically deliver 16% to 17%.
In 1995, three years after finishing his Ph.D., Shi went to Pacific Solar, a joint venture between the university and an Australian utility, Pacific Power, that specialized in a new variety of lower-cost photovoltaics called thin-film solar cells. Shi became an Australian citizen but was lured back to his homeland in 2001 by $6 million in seed capital offered by the city of Wuxi, 80 miles northeast of Shanghai.
His is an interesting story.
It proves there is money to be made in alternative energy.
I am glad he got it up and running even if it had to be other than in Australia..
alex
