Solar Power By Nanosolar: Now Cheaper Than Coal!

According to the New York Times, a heavily funded startup named Nanosolar has come up with an innovative process of manufacturing solar cells... they are now cheap to make, easy to install, and very very sturdy. The projected cost is $2 per watt, whereas a coal fired plant is $2.10 per watt

A lot of Silicon Valley venture capitalists have been funding these guys... including the Google twins. I'm positive the boys at Dell and Intel are salivating as well... Everyone in the computer industry has jumped on the green energy bandwagon recently... which begs the question why do computer folks care so much about green power?

Because we have to.

I'm not talking about environmentalism or hippie sensibilities... the fact of the matter is that the entire computer and software business model has always been bigger, better, faster, more! We double the computing power every year and a half. Well suddenly, the power problem has caught up with us. Half of the Fortune 500 spend more on electricity for computers, than on computers! Data centers alone consume 1.5% of all power in the US... how many years in a row can we double that? Not to mention what will happen when India and China get as wired as Japan...

The only way to continue with our business model is to get into the energy industry. We need solar. We need fusion. There simply aren't enough fossil fuels on the planet to satiate our appetite for energy. At our current rate of increase, we'd burn through every drop within 20 years. If the politicians and energy companies are too slow or scared to do it, then the computer industry will be forced to pick up the slack. We got cash, we got ideas, and we aren't afraid of disruptive innovation.

Ideas like Nanosolar help in the short term, but it won't be enough. We need fusion, and we need it within the decade.

I hope the Google twins understand this as well...