Found this when I was reading mercola.com

Nanosolar - Home Page


=== excerpt from mercola.com ===

The Nanosolar company is working to build the world’s largest solar cell factory in California (slated to be in full production in 2008, and the world’s largest panel-assembly factory in Germany.

They have successfully created a solar coating that is as thin as a layer of paint, while at the same time reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to only 30 cents per watt. For the first time in history, solar power will be cheaper than burning coal.


Nanosolar won the Popular Science Innovation of 2007 award, and they plan on producing their first product next year. They have been able to reduce the price of solar power by 90 percent. This has the potential to radically change the equation when it comes to choosing your energy sources.

how we heat our home ,produce our power ,store it and transmit it will change radically in the next "few " years . things that use power will become more effective. there won't be one thing that replaces fossil fuels. There will be A great number of options.

fossil fuels will have their place . Just not as large of a place as they do now.It is a matter of storing the energy.Which doesn't hit peak production the same time demand peaks

ken

Phil,

I think that's a great stride taken... but the biggest issue of solar energy is still the storage.

We need batteries that are 100 times more efficient and pollute around 1000 times less.

Phil, that made my day! VERY encouraging news. Thanks for sharing. Love that Mercola.

Vin,
Transmission is as bad a problem as storage. I don't remember the exact figure . I think it was 1/4 to 1/3 of electricty is lost as heat as it get from where it is produced to where it is used.

Nanotech is being used to make better and better batteries and other storage method. I have seen compressed air as an option as well. Once many of the alternative methods come online. power won't have to be transmitted as far. Then as storage gets better and better. Storage system can be charged up at off peak times. And released at peak times.

that way even regular power stations can run at a constant rate 24/7. The enterprising sort can own their own batteries. charge them up off peak and sell it back a few hours later at peak.

The biggest roadblock to the development of alternative energy. Is much of the same group who cries out for it . i live in Mass. The past few years the rich elite liberals . Have been blockign the development of a wind farm off the coast. That would supply a lot of energy to the Northeast part of the country.

Why? Because on a very clear day they might see them just a little. Or thats right out where they sail the boats. The horrors.

Similar things are happening around the country. you can't build a solar farm on desert land without a long environment impact study. Windmills also kill to many birds.


The think that will irk these people more than anything is when people start you know .. making a profit from alternative sources of energy "the sun shines the wind blows . how can you charge us for stuff you make for free "

Hey, who needs solar when you can have a Pico Hydroelectric generator in your backyard.

Despite the big stink made about wind farms off the Cape, I still see a lot of them around...in Hull and elsewhere.

MA is about to pour a lot of money into going green. A lot of the liberal stuff drives me crazy, but I have to credit our state with taking progressive steps.

Sometimes you have to move ahead and then fix the kinks as you go along.

Also, I tend to bash liberals more than republicans on many things (although I'm not a partisan of either party)...but I have to wonder if all that screeching about the wind farms off the Cape came from libs.

Yeah, Kennedy was at the forefront of opposing them...but the Cape is the one bastion of Republicanism in a liberal Democrat regime.

Phil,

Thank you for sharing this exciting article.

Just as breakthroughs in capturing and converting solar energy continue, so will breakthroughs in storage technology. Efficiency and productivity of this energy source are moving in the right direction, and the rate of innovation is accelerating.

Thanks again for passing this along.

Nigel

Hey Sue,
I see as much stupidity on both side when you get to the far edges. Personally when it come to this global warming stuff. I will believe there is a problem when the high profile people. Who tell us there is a problem. Stop flying their private jets and traveling in suv caravans. To give lectures about there being a problem.

Tell me to cut back. No you first. pfft. WE will go to greener sourse of electricity. Not for their reasons. But because people will figure out how to make a profit while doing it. Which is what will really irk these people .