Sofa King Smart

As oil and gas prices soar in light of diminishing natural supplies and with the world reeling from increased pollution, I am constantly excited to hear of the many folks out there in the scientific community who are trying to innovate new alternatives to our ever-increasing reliance on natural resources.

Even though I follow the progress of several of the eco-friendly renewable energy horizons, including hydrogen fuell cells, windpower, ocean current energy turbines, and hybrid technologies, I’m even more excited when I hear about that these inventors and innovators are focusing on capturing the most abundant, powerful resource available to us: solar energy.

Well, while watching an eco-tech documentary the other night on the Discovery Channel, I was introduced to a scientist from the University of California Santa Barbara named Alan Heeger.
To paraphrase the video segment, it seems Heeger is a proponent of solar energy, too. So much so that he has his entire roof covered with traditional solar panels. His problem with these –along with most people’s — is that the traditional solar panel is too expensive, not very efficient, and, physically, too rigid for mass consumption.
So, along with several other scientists, Heeger developed a solar-conducting plastic cell that can be made into inks (each color of ink represents a certain spectrum of light) that can be applied in layers to many different surfaces and are much more efficient than current solar cell technology.
Heeger’s company (which he co-founded), Konarka Technologies, is currently producing prototype solar cells that are produced in ribbon-like plastic sheets. These sheets are printed with the solar inks and can conform to the shape of whatever they are attached to.
Heeger also expects these inks to be applied directly to building shingles, tiles, etc.
Price-wise, these cells will eventually cost only about 5% of the cost of a traditional solar cell per watt.

Needless to say, as a supporter of this kind of technology, I am VERY excited to hear of Heeger’s accomplishments, and expect him to garner another Nobel prize once this is more widespread (Heeger “shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2000 for his role in the revolutionary discovery that plastics can have the properties of metals and semiconductors.” –from a UCSB press release) .

Tags: alan heeger, eco friendly, ecotech, geothermal energy, hydrogen fuel cells, nobel prize for chemistry, polymers, renewable energy, renewable resources, solar panels, solar power