http://www.fungi.com/

We’ve all heard the hype: 99 cents per watt thin-film solar panels. Solar energy cheaper than coal. Solar energy for the masses; just roll out a few sheets of Solarply panels on your roof and kiss your utility bills goodbye! But where are they? Why can’t we buy them yet? What has Nanosolar been doing with the $500 million dollars that has been invested in their company so far?

Well, it seems they’ve been busy “building the world’s largest solar cell factory in California and the world’s largest panel-assembly factory in Germany.”

However, not one Solarply cell has been held yet in the hands of a consumer, causing many to point their fingers accusingly and shriek “vaporware!!!!” at the top of their lungs.

In a 2007 interview Nanosolar’s CEO, Martin Roscheisen, stated that:

“Our first 100,000 panels are already set to go into closed, private, utility-scale deployments, with a tall fence around them and not much accessibility to the general public.”

Indeed, much of the investment capital Nanosolar has received has been from large energy companies, such as EDF Energies Nouvelles in Europe, who are apparently eager to get their hands on dirt cheap solar energy harvesting equipment.

Nanosolar has made it known on their blog that they will first be focusing on municipal power plant installations:

“At Nanosolar, we genuinely believe that meaningful scale for solar will come foremost from utility-scale solar power plants, particularly from municipal solar power plants of 2-10 megawatts (MW) in size. These power plants consist of rows of solar panels mounted onto the ground of free fields at the outskirts of towns and cities, feeding electricity directly into the municipal power grid.

A 2MW municipal solar power plant requires about 10 acres of land to serve a city of 1,000 homes — that’s acreage generally easily available at the outskirts of any city of such size in even the most developed countries. With a solar power plant in each of several hundred cities, a Gigawatt of power is delivered locally to where it is needed, in a digestible size.”

In short: green energy utility companies have got first dibs on all of Nanosolar’s initial production.

But don’t give up hope just yet. On April 30th 2008 Martin Roscheisen posted to the Nanosolar blog:

“To those of you who are disappointed that our first product is not for residential homeowners, we can reassure you that we do have a fabulous residential solution on our near-term roadmap — one that will bring the utility scale economics of Nanosolar Utility Panel technology to homes everywhere, and completely redefine how residential solar is done.”

Not only does Nanosolar have plans to enter the consumer market sometime in the near future, but there are in fact two other companies, Solopower and Miasole, who are working to develop CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium and Selenium) technology similar to Nanosolar’s Solarply panels. Within as little as five years we might have several manufacturers competing in the consumer thin-film CIGS photovoltaic market.

[You may also be interested in viewing the Nanosolar video in our video section.]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYJe12X6T50

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss

www.DickProenneke.com

“Alone in the Wilderness” is the story of Dick Proenneke living in the Alaska wilderness. Dick filmed his adventures so he could show his relatives in the lower 48 states what life was like in Alaska, building his cabin, hunting for food and exploring the area. Bob Swerer has taken the best footage from Dick’s films and he has created 3 videos about Dick, “Alone in the Wilderness”, “Alaska, Silence and Solitude” and “The Frozen North”. You can purchase all of them in DVD or VHS format from the www.DickProenneke.com website.

An inspiring documentary on the Cradle to Cradle design concept of the chemist Michael Braungart and the architect William McDonough. Winner of the Silver Dragon at the Beijing International Science Film Festival 2006.

OUTLINE: Man is the only creature that produces landfills. Natural resources are being depleted on a rapid scale while production and consumption are rising in nations like China and India. The waste production world wide is enormous and if we do not do anything we will soon have turned all our resources into one big messy landfill. But there is hope. The German chemist, Michael Braungart, and the American designer-architect William McDonough are fundamentally changing the way we produce and build. If waste would become food for the biosphere or the technosphere (all the technical products we make), production and consumption could become beneficial for the planet. A design and production concept that they call Cradle to Cradle, a concept that is seen as the next industrial revolution.

1. Design every product in such a way that at the end of its lifecycle the component materials become a new resource.

2. Design buildings in such a way that they produce energy and become a friend to the environment.

Large companies like Ford and Nike are working with McDonough and Braungart to change their production facilities and their products. They realize that economically seen waste is destruction of capital. You make something with no value. Based on their ideas the Chinese government is working towards a circular economy where Waste = Food. An amazing story that will definitely change your way of thinking about production and consumption. Director Rob van Hattum Research Gijs Meijer Swantee Production Karin Spiegel en Madeleine Somer Editors in Chief Doke Romeijn en Frank Wiering

© VPRO 2006

http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/36632706/

www.BuildingWithAwareness.com

A solar straw bale home is an example of green building. This movie shows clips from the full-length “Building WIth Awareness” how-to video on building a straw bale house from start to finish. Learn how to build straw bale walls for insulation, build interior thermal mass walls (which greatly increases the efficiency of a straw bale home), mix and apply earth plasters for a beautiful finish, generate electricity from sunlight, and use passive solar heating and cooling. Beautiful aesthetics and energy-efficiency can both come from the same materials. It is how the structure is designed as a whole that makes the difference. See how aesthetics, comfort, and energy efficiency can all come from the same materials and design parameters. The full-length video (162 minutes) received 3 Telly Awards for production excellence.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tph_yIzBKg

www.khuladhamma.org/