Green on the Roof, Green left in your Pocket

Just a little something about my background, for the purposes of full disclosure. I'm a homeschooling mom with a Master's degree in Chemical Engineering. I'm a pro-life republican nature-lover who is concerned about the environment. I am pro-industry, pragmatic, and I still think we should all do what we can to be wise stewards of our natural world. That being said, I'm always excited about opportunities to conserve resources without blowing our most practical one, the bucks in our bank accounts. Here's a video on a company called Nanosolar and it's product:

I don't have stock in the company, but maybe I should. I've had my eye on it since a 2006/2007? issue of National Geographic mentioned them in a photo caption (I do notice the weirdest things). If it piques your interest, check them out at Nanosolar.com. They were also cited as Innovation of the Year in Popular Science's Best of What's New 2007.

To summarize, they are producing solar panels on a system something like a printing press. It's a lot faster and less expensive to make since there's no silicon in it. It's also on a film, so it is not brittle like traditional solar panels. For now they are releasing their product to energy companies overseas, but look for this product and stuff like it in the near future for your home. It's an opportunity to drastically (green, like the environment) reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons, it's just about the cleanest fuel alternative we have (BTW the whole corn thing stinks, byproduct processing a la South America is a much more efficient alternative), and this product is made to be affordable (green, like cash).

Need a good reason to be thinking about alternative resources? Check out this report on ocean acidification:

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Thinking about the repercussions is not for the feint of heart.

Just in case you need a little good news after thinking about that, if you like science, bookmark KQED Quest and browse a bit. It's loaded with wondrous stuff, nice footage and more in-depth reporting than we're used to seeing on the regular big name news spots.