Eco-Thinker

Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory, along with partners at Microcontinuum Inc. (Cambridge, MA) and Patrick Pinhero of the University of Missouri, are developing a novel way to collect energy from the sun with a technology that could potentially cost pennies a yard, be imprinted on flexible materials and still draw energy after the sun has set.

Could this possibly mean what we think it means for electric cars? The question this raises is, if the Tesla, for a commonly known example, can travel 240 miles on a charge, will the new design allow for a 2,400 mile trip? It appears that little change to the size of the battery itself will be needed, but a major change to the life of the battery could result from the newer version.

Already, Nanosolar says that they can sell panels for roughly $1 per watt, which will result in $2 per watt installations. Suddenly, that starts to look a lot like the $2.1 per watt that it costs to build a coal plant.

And that is extremely exciting news.
Well said. Please check out the article at

This is how to make passive solar heater for under $20 or so. It is basically a greenhouse box. Simple yet brilliant. It is environmentally friendly (after it is assembled), green, handy, forehead slappingly easy to make, and even an awesome project for shop class. Ok so it will not become school curriculum, but most agree it should be damn it! grumble government subsidies grumble greed and priorities and blah…watch this and learn!

David Faiman has 30 years of research in the solar field and has come up with a design that will make solar energy competitive. Actually not only competitive, but beyond moronic to not start switching over from coal fired energy.

Some might argue, but I think this vehicle looks awesome. The all electric version has a range of 120 miles and a low charge time of 2 to 4 hours. While I couldn’t find a hard number for the range of the PHEV, the website did have this: “after 350-400 miles it eventually plummets to [...]

This is one of the 40 surviving EV1 electric cars built by General Motors, that had been completely disabled and then donated to various universities and museums. It was transported to EV Bones in Dec 2007, and powered up for the first time following three days of hardware and software work by university faculty, students, and EV Bones. Enjoy the short video.

I was scanning the YouTube eco videos and ran across a recently uploaded demonstration video showing Nanosolar’s progress in the solar industry. I was hoping to find some specs on their website, but couldn’t so we will just have to continue to be hopeful.