Things are starting to get exciting .....

[Jens]

New battery technology coming out in 2011, maybe ....

http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/12/24/new-panasonic-lithium-ion-battery-to-power-up-a-house-new-li-ion-battery-coming-from-panasonic-in-2011/

Add to that a new solar cell that uses one hundredth of the raw materials of traditional cells and are more efficient to boot and easily integrated in building materials and you start to get very excited .....

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/12/23/amazing-glitter-sized-photovoltaic-cells-look-like-golden-snowflakes/

Jens

[BruceM]

Bah Humbug!

The Panasonic lithium-ion battery for the whole house article is a total fluff piece, not an iota of meaningful technical content.  There have been a couple of these bogus new battery tech articles every year for the last 10 years.  Or is that 50 years.  I'll hold my breath for the super-capacitor storage units, as long as we're dreaming.  As I start to turn blue, I can almost see stars- no, that's LED area lighting!

The Sandia Labs snowflake PV material is more interesting,  but I note there is not even a mention of a potential deal with anyone to license or produce it, meaning it's not hardly ready to leave the lab, and more likely never will.

The Grinch.