Down to Earth Blog

Coming One Day: Print or Paint Your Own Power Source --  I saw a great technology story today on LiveScience.com, "Simple, Printable Solar Panels Envisioned." It seems that scientists at the New Jersey Institute of Technology have created a way for people to create inexpensive solar cells by printing them from a home computer or painting them on a plastic sheet. You would then stick the solar cells on your roof or a wall and start converting sunlight into electricity.

The paintable solar cell coating is made of carbon nanotubes "that function like electric wires but are about 50,000 times smaller than a strand of hair. Yet, just one nanotube can conduct current better than typical electrical wiring. "

The article did not say this technology has been tested -- and it sounds almost too good to be true. It holds great promise for our energy needs, however. I wonder what this paintable solar coating would retail for?

Solar can be done -- witness this story ("Solar Energy Shines Bright in One City") about Freiburg, Germany, where solar panels are on everything from residential homes, to a soccer stadium and the "Solar Ship" mixed-use commercial and residential building, in which the apartments on the top use solar panels to generate four times the energy they use.

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• #1 Comment from forbes82604
  8/5/07 3:41 PM | Permalink

  Print or paint your own solar panels? What a concept! Just what the Universse needs. Seriously, I'll take a dozen, and make that as soon as possible, please.