Solar power looks poised for a breakout over the next few years.

Over on Futurepundit, Randall Parker has provided an excellant roundup of recent news in this post. Apparently, while all our backs were turned, the fellas in the lab have figured out a whole new paradigm for collector structure.

Instead of relying on rigid, expensive, crystalline photovoltaic cells, these new solar collectors are applied onto flexible rolls of plastic, which makes them far less expensive and fragile. Or so we all hope.

This will not liberate us from the oil ticks clutches tomorrow, more's the pity. But it will be helpful at, the very least.

What I find so encouraging about this, is that a whole slew of companies seem to be following (very) roughly similar lines of development. Besides Iowa Thinfilm, we have Nanosys, Nanosolar, and Konarka.

Plastics, Ben. Plastics.

May the best product win.