THIN FILM SOLAR PANELS

Archive for July, 2009

Recently, I was given the opportunity to give a guest lecture for an entrepreneurship class at a local community college.  The teacher wanted to give his students a glimpse into the green business world.  For me, it was a terrific opportunity to reach out to an audience of poor, mostly minority students, many of whom had GEDs at best, and to test the universal appeal of green business.

The class went amazingly well, and I found that these students were as jazzed about green business and clean tech as any group of Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists.  More so, in fact.  Below, I present the outline of my approach so that others in a similar situation may build on this communication success, and adapt the approach as they wish. 

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The Army knows that extensive alternative energy installations are the best way to ensure continuous, reliable electricity production. That’s why the military organization is building the Department of Defense’s largest ever solar project at the Fort Irwin Base in California’s Mojave Desert.

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In passive solar design, a home is oriented with the main axis running east and west so that the home faces essentially south (or north if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere). With this orientation and lots of south-facing windows, the home is passively heated by the sun in the winter. With proper window shading, the windows will [...]

Building materials giant Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway company once best known for its asbestos shingles, has just announced that it is entering  the solar roof market in a big way.  The company will buy thin film solar laminates made by Michigan-based United Solar Ovonic, a subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices.  United Solar has already started bringing green jobs into Michigan, and the Johns Manville connection could mean that more expansion is in store.

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Our race to find alternative fuels is critical not only because gasoline-powered vehicles emit lots of CO2–it’s also important because we’re running out of the sticky stuff. But what if the Earth could produce fossil fuels without the fossils?

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