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Solar happenings

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And now some not so good solar happenings:

Thieves Are Stealing Solar Panels and Selling them - NYTimes.com
The panels were disassembled expertly, he said, leading him to suspect that someone in the solar industry had done it. He urges clients to install video cameras and alarms for their solar arrays, and likens his own revamped security system to Fort Knox.
“This is the crime of the future,” Mr. McCalmont said.
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Read this yesterday in the Cronicle:

California company has new approach to solar
The next wave of solar power technology may be a skinny glass tube that looks like a fluorescent light bulb painted black.
...
Solyndra Chief Executive Officer Chris Gronet said he got the idea after noticing just how much room traditional solar panels squander. Rows of standard solar panels perched on a flat roof have to sit several feet apart so they don't cast shadows on each other. Lay solar cylinders flat, however, and you can blanket the entire roof.
"Look at the picture long enough, and you're going to realize there's a lot of wasted space, and a cylinder might work better," said Gronet.
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"...Solyndra exits stealth mode Tuesday with $600 million in venture capital, $1.2 billion in customer contracts..." (!)

How do they get that kind of funding without some data? I want to see a white paper. Comparisons to thin film and standard Solar panels. Their selling point is "off axis". Let's see a study.

I wanted to email them about this but all they had was a sales page.
 
Loved the "series of tubes" joke. I would love to see them in San Diego this weekend but I was there last weekend :frown:, just missed Martin's car in Vegas by an hour this week:mad: but will be stopping by to see the MP store this morning. First time.:smile:

My goal, make every trip Tesla related. :biggrin:

Edit: MP TS moved to Sun.

Update: Never made it to the MP showroom.:( All of my SF trips are to the North Bay so it's hard to get south and the SFO trips were during closing time.
 
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Did you mean to link just the rpi front page? Or maybe this story?

RPI: News & Events - Solar Power Game-Changer: “Near Perfect” Absorption of Sunlight, From All Angles

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered and demonstrated a new method for overcoming two major hurdles facing solar energy. By developing a new antireflective coating that boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire solar spectrum from nearly any angle, the research team has moved academia and industry closer to realizing high-efficiency, cost-effective solar power.

“To get maximum efficiency when converting solar power into electricity, you want a solar panel that can absorb nearly every single photon of light, regardless of the sun’s position in the sky,” said Shawn-Yu Lin, professor of physics at Rensselaer and a member of the university’s Future Chips Constellation, who led the research project. “Our new antireflective coating makes this possible.”