@jblue@mastodon.world @cassolotl@toot.wales my guess (I'm not an expert) is something to do with the fact it's only picking up certain wavelengths, and so losing out on probably a lot of potential energy, making it fairly inefficient. If I recall correctly, the amount of light that gets through our atmosphere and that's not in the visible spectrum is pretty small, no? Or maybe it's something else, like the logistics of getting public good tech to get off the ground if there isn't any significant money to be made off of adoption.