Feb 15, 2008 11:11 pm US/Central
Project Energy: Future Of Solar Power Looks Bright
(WCCO)
Homegrown energy isn't just good for our environment; it can actually be a moneymaker for our families.
In Minnesota people who come up with a way to power their homes from sources like the sun can sell the extra juice back to utility companies.
That's not financially practical for many of us right now, but a national lab in Colorado is researching ways to make solar energy more affordable.
Eventually, it could be as simple as clicking "print" on our home computers.
Believe it or not, there's power in the coldest gray skies of the Minnesota winter.
"Actually most days we do make more power than we use," said solar power user, Chris Born.
There's so much power coming from the solar panels on Born's garage, he sells the extra back to Xcel energy.
"Even though today is fairly cloudy and we're not making a lot of power, I'm sure I'm selling right now because the dog and the cat are not using a lot of electricity in the house," laughed Chris Born, who's also a cabinet maker.
The power of the sun is free for the taking, but right now, very expensive to capture and convert.
At the National Renewable Energy Labs in the foot hills of Colorado, scientists are working on breakthroughs that will change that.
"Our goal is to make getting energy from the sun for their houses as easy and cheap as possible," said David Ginley from the National Renewable Energy Lab.
Ginley wants to make solar affordable by using a basic household item -- ink jet printers.
The trick is using special inks containing metal that convert the sun's energy into electricity and printing those inks onto everyday plastic film.
"And in the ultimate kind of cells we use polymers just like the plastic ware in your house, but we make it so it absorbs light and we can spread it out very thinly," said Ginley.
It's so thin, a solar panel is 80 microns, or about the width of a human hair.
In another part of the lab, Brent Nelson wants to see solar get its day in the sun.
"Every 15 hours as much sunlight hits the earth as all the crude oil left in the ground. Every 24 hours as much sunlight hits the earth as all the natural gas left in the ground," said Brent Nelson from the National Renewable Energy Lab. "You've got to capture it.You've got to convert it to something useful."
After the oil shocks of the 1970s, a lot of people tried to get into the solar power game, but a lot of junk got on the market.
At the national labs, every type of solar application is being tested -- tested and installed by certified solar technicians so people can trust what's on the market now.
Within the next decade it's expected to be a whole new market.
"In the best of all possible worlds, you'd go down to Best Buy and you'd buy solar cell cartridge 1, 2, 3 and 4. You'd take it home, put it in your ink jet printer, print it on your special little plastic sheet and then start attaching them to your roof," said Ginley.
That's something Born would be happy to do. His next project is to power up an old electric mini-van using the sun.
"It's just kind of that whole mindset of trying to do things in a better way ... trying to make a difference, trying to show my children that one family can be responsible for themselves and try and make a smaller footprint on the earth," said Born.
The solar array on Born's house cost about $50,000, but he got state and federal rebates of about $14,000.
Just this week, the governor made a call for low-interest loans to make it more affordable to switch to renewable energy like the sun.
The state's solar rebate program is so popular that it's out of money right now, but the commerce department said if you build now, you'll get on a list for money this summer.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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