Efficient Solar Energy from MIT Students

Back in November, I posted some notes on a talk John Doerr gave at Google about the need for economically viable solutions in Greentech. Tonight, I read about an MIT team that would make him proud.

The students have made a dramatic improvement in the efficiency of collecting solar energy, producing an inexpensive parabolic solar dish that they claim could repay itself in under 2 years (vs. 10 years for earlier solar technologies). This piqued my interest, as a two-year time horizon could help solar energy fall within the investment criteria of many large corporations and governments, potentially accelerating adoption of the technology. Even better, as the students' professor explains, "all of the materials are inexpensive and accessible anywhere in the world."

You can read the full article here. Be sure to watch their video; to demonstrate the power of the dish they show it incinerating a wooden beam in seconds.

Also, read-up on Google.org's RE less than C initiative to fund the development of renewable energy sources that are cheaper than coal on a per-unit basis. Why is this so important? Watch this short video, which explains why replacing coal in a cost-effective manner will be critical as China industrializes.