Hi,

Take a peek at a company called Konarka. They produce photovoltaic materials using plastic.

Cheers!

How 'bout--Chaos or Kaos?

You write that solar power is heavily subsidized in New Jersey. It's still hilariously expensive, though. I priced out a tiny 10kW system from NJ Solar Power at $30,000. That's after the $51,000 state rebate. Oh, but I could get $2000 off my taxes starting next year, too.

That's about a ten year payback even if electricity rates go up wildly. Being ecology-minded is still astronomically expensive: Green is still the color of money, it seems.

Hybrid cars are the same: I bought a regular old Ford Escort which gets nearly 30 miles per gallon for $5000. Even if I could squeeze 60 miles per gallon out of Toyota's hybrid, the payback on that is almost a decade, too.

I just thought these numbers might be mildly interesting. I'll be following this column for sure.

(Andrew Leonard writes "....the healthy annual growth rate of solar power is now set to plummet, hamstrung by the surging prices of a key raw material...") This is only true if you look at photovoltaics. We should be looking more to point source reflectors driving Stirling Engines. Check the University of Nevada Las Vegas site, or http://www.stirlingenergy.com, for info this efficient, practical solar electric generating system, developed in the 1970s, but then neglected after Reagan took office and derided renewables.

At least one Solar energy company seem to be on this:

Evergreen Solar and Q-Cells Announce Partnership with REC; Leading Solar Silicon Supplier Joins EverQ

All Business Wire NewsEvergreen Solar, Inc. ESLR, a manufacturer of solar power products with its proprietary, low-cost String Ribbon(TM) wafer technology, and Q-Cells AG, the world's largest independent manufacturer of crystalline silicon solar cells, today announced a partnership with Renewable Energy Corporation ASA (REC), based in Hovik, Norway. The world's largest manufacturer of solar-grade silicon and multicrystalline wafers, REC is joining EverQ, a strategic partnership between Evergreen Solar and Q-Cells that is currently building a 30-megawatt solar wafer, cell and module manufacturing plant in Thalheim, Germany....

See more by looking up the ticker (eslr) and checking out news stories.

REC may be setting its aim on Washington state for its $365 million expansion facility.

(see www.grantedc.com/index.php?page_id=12&newsletter_id=29)

Located in the state's east-central area, the site would offer relatively cheap Columbia River hydroelectricity from one of the local public utility districts, and the existing Advanced Silicon Materials facility that was repurposed in 2002 for the exclusive production of polysilicon for solar applications.