There is progress on the photovoltaic manufacturing side here in the US.  Evergreen Solar of Framingham,  Massachusetts will be constructing a 150 million dollar facility in Westborough Mass.   But Evergreen’s stock price moves like a roller coaster and has for several years.  Evergreen  is the American company that is working with the Germans. Much of the Evergreen production in the US goes to Germany.   Evergreen uses a patented thin silicon forming technique called "string ribbon".   A ultra thin ribbon of silicon is pulled from a liquid melt upward where it is cooled in a special air atmosphere.  This avoids having to saw crystalline silica blocks to get thin sheets of silica.  The sawing technique is what all the other solar panel makers use.   But as pure silica crystal becomes more available, the string ribbon technology loses its value proportionally.   An announcement about surplus silica on the world market seems to be what shot Evergreen’s stock down today.     

Thanks for sharing that, Serendipity. I know solar can work here - Bill MacDermott demonstrated some very cool solar tech at my parents home and I saw it works under low sun conditions - and Bill has shared much else about solar here. People, and government, and other policy dirvers simply need to make it a priority, which none have done here (well, I think the Cleveland Fundation challenged us to do some solar, and "they" are putting a few solar tarps at Jaconbs field, so that is something). Keep enlightening us about how leaders elsewhere do solar and we will learn.

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I'm in Toronto and the weather is awesome today. We ate brunch - the best pancakes we've ever had - out on a warn sunny patio - I looked down the comfortable urban residential side street off Queen and noticed several of these historic dwellings had what appeat to be solar roofs.

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For those who may have missed it today--the City of Cleveland is taking baby solar steps.