Free Republic

As more solar farms arise in the sunny corners of the U.S., it’s inevitable that solar developers will have to play ball with environmentalists. First Solar and SunPower announced an agreement with the environmental groups to add thousands of acres near their projects for wildlife protection. As more solar farms arise in the sunny corners of the U.S., it’s inevitable that solar developers will have to play ball with environmental groups. First Solar and SunPower announced an agreement on Tuesday with the Sierra Club and others to add thousands of acres near their proposed projects for wildlife protection. The agreement...

For use in windows, solar cells need to absorb enough light to produce sufficient energy, but let enough pass through to be transparent. Organic photovoltaic materials can absorb infrared light and pass visible light, but they have very low efficiencies. Inorganic semiconductors, such as amorphous silicon, absorb strongly in the visible part of the spectrum, so the films have to be very thin to be transparent, thus decreasing the amount of photons they capture. They also tend to give windows a brownish or reddish tint, which architects dislike. The Oxford team, led by physicist Henry J. Snaith, made their solar...