Found this on yahoo news this morning. Sounds kinda cool, I wonder about feasability though?

 

Nice of the Army to field test a commercial product, eh?

I wonder how tuff the material is, if it can be easily patched or connections repaired, or if it's a throw-away setup. How long lasting could a flexible sheet be?

 

Good question. I know the military tests the heck out of stuff before they adopt it so if it makes it to the market I'm sure it will be at the least a decent product.

 

Brilliant! Maybe we could integrate this into Wolf's miles per gallon thread???

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=370503

At any rate, I hope this type of thechnology finds its way into our vehicles as a form of hybrid. Just a thought...

 

Sounds interesting. Keep in mind, though, that $1.5 million is not much when it comes to government spending. It sounds as though this is basically a research and development expenditure, to see if the technology does hold up. As Birdhunter1 said, the Army tests the the heck out of stuff. This is probably the first step in that testing.

But, as one who used to have to carry all those batteries and generators around, I sure hope this works out!

 

Hopefully one day we'll see it on that show Tactical to Practical.

 

^ If I'm not mistaken, we already did.

 

I first heard of this company back in 99' or 2000. Then, they had grant money coming in a few hundred thou at a time, primarily looking to go after the roofing market. I was trying to build my own solar panels, at the time, using individual cells and really like the idea of a flexible system. (Anyone that's played with the cells knows they crack if you look at them wrong and trying to solder to the "conductive paint" is a real pain.)

Thanks for the heads up... Over the years they've picked up at least three top nanotechnology scientists working on it. Recently, they picked up an ex chemical warfare officer that really steamlined the production of thin film at one of the photographic companies, (I believe Kodak?). So, I imagine they are tooling up.

The $1.6 mil. is really just a drop in the bucket, compared to the millions in R&D money they've received over the years. A lot of heavy hitters have put money into this and once they get a return, then the price will drop for us "little guys." It's kind of like the government giving billions a year to Intel for R&D, so that now we can buy processor chips cheap.

Right now, the cost of manufactoring the standard solar cells/panels, makes the end cost about $3 - $5+/watt. So a standard little 40Watt that's not even a very good trickle charger can cost more than $200. Bring the cost down to 25 cents/watt - and I think it would be cost effective enough for the average guy to use around the house.

The rigid solar panels are about 15% efficient, (which isn't too bad considering solar is "free.") the old style flexibles like Shell sold are about 7-8% - Shell is investing in Konarka.. The new style claims to be about 10%.

When I remodeled my house years ago I made the south facing roof 9.5/12 pitch to be the optimum angle for collecting solar in my area. I'm ready to lay out a few rolls of the stuff. I just wish technology would hurry up!