A few weeks ago when the Black Marble pictures came out I noticed this. I tried to zoom in on Google maps and see what it was but came up empty, so I left it. The answer us kind of disturbing.

A Mysterious Patch Of Light Shows Up In The North Dakota Dark : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR.

Wysips solar-cell display reaches 90% transparency milestone, we go eyes-on.

So this is cool. It appears that they are making a overlay film for your cellphone that converts light (I’m guessing not visible light) to electricity. 90% transparent right now looks quite nice. I’m thinking what if we put these in windows instead of cellphones. Put it between the two layers of glass in a double pane window. Conceivably these could provide all the electricity a house needs for night time lighting. That would go a long ways towards cleaning up our air and electrical grid.

“Unrelated” side note: I was at 24 Hour Fitness earlier today when they kicked us out of the gym due to the transformer across the street blowing up and knocking out power to the building. More reasons for solar power setups.

I recently heard of someone buying an electric car and fueling it off a home solar setup. That got me thinking, is that cost effective? Both ideas by themselves are great, but pricey. So how’s it work out?

Gas car:
$4/gallon gas, 26 mpg car, 15,000 miles per year (divide by 12 months) = $192.31 per month in gasoline.

Electric car:
sunlight is free

Home solar setup:
Approximent cost of $15,000, 8 year loan at 5% interest is: $189.90 per month.

Now through my incredible powers of MATH I deduce that you save $2.41 cents a month driving an electric car! Alright, not huge savings but the point is, it is actually cheaper to buy an electric car and home solar setup combined than drive a gas car.

The assumption here is that the gas and electric cars cost and perform the same, which isn’t necessarily the case for everyone right now; it is the case for some though. Imagine if the oil company federal subsidies and tax breaks were taken away and given to programs to improve electric cars to make them the equal of a gas car. In a very short time gas would go up until it became non-cost effective for most people while electric cars would become cost effective, homes would become solar powered across the nation over time, so in all likelihood you’d buy a house in the future with a solar setup, thus making your monthly savings $192.31 instead of $2.41, and the air would be cleaner. I’m seeing short term, mid term and long term benefits here.