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Dow Chemical Rolling Out Solar Shingles Next Year

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the one-more-thing-to-break dept.

Several users wrote to tell us that Dow Chemical plans on selling solar shingles as early as next year. The solar version can be integrated with normal asphalt shingling and will be introduced in 2010, with a wider roll-out scheduled for 2011. "The shingle will use thin-film cells of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), a photovoltaic material that typically is more efficient at turning sunlight into electricity than traditional polysilicon cells. Dow is using CIGS cells that operate at higher than 10 percent efficiency, below the efficiencies for the top polysilicon cells -- but would cost 10 to 15 percent less on a per-watt basis."

5 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Did you know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I don't think so. Places like niggermania.com are mostly high school kids and young adults who want a place to vent politically incorrectly because they encountered one too many bad stereotypes of blacks in real life. Sure, there are one or two hardcore oldheads whose wives actually left them for black men, but most of the niggermania scene aren't genuinely racist.

    The real racists are on stormfront.org, where people in pointy white hats dance around burning crosses and write poems and testimonials to their whiteness. Those are the folks who were born racist and they'll die racist. All of the kind, educated, coherent negroes on the planet are not likely to change that.

    But what does this have to do with the article? Solar cells are black, and negroes are black. I rest my case.

  2. Re:Did you know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    But what does this have to do with the article? Solar cells are black, and negroes are black. I rest my case.

    So what you mean is... black people are solar powered?

  3. Re:Did you know? by Dishevel · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    People are solar powered.

    --
    Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  4. Rolling our shingles? by michaelmalak · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Rolling our shingles?

    Is that related to RickRolling?

    P.S. a present-day time traveler going back to 1988 might be surprised to read this New York Times article that extols:

    The hottest young English pop star of the moment is Rick Astley, a 21-year-old singer from a suburb of Manchester, whose debut single, ''Never Gonna Give You Up'' (RCA), has sold a million copies in Britain and reached No. 1 ranking in almost every other European country. The song is now rapidly climbing the United States pop charts and is the country's best-selling 12-inch single.

    The record's most striking quality is Mr. Astley's voice - a rich, throbbing baritone that suggests Tom Jones crossed with Luther Vandross. It is definitely not the kind of voice one expects to hear on a contemporary dance record. Since ''Never Gonna Give You Up,'' Mr. Astley has gone on to score two more major English hits, ''Whenever You Need Somebody'' (the title song of his debut album) and a revival of ''When I Fall in Love,'' which re-creates note for note the classic Gordon Jenkins arrangement for Nat (King) Cole's 1957 recording.

    Mr. Astley is the latest discovery of the successful producing and songwriting team of Stock-Aitken-Waterman, which also produces the group Bananarama. The team has popularized a streamlined homogenized pop-disco sound with an unruffled high-gloss surface that stands in marked contrast to the more angular, rhythmically inventive dance-funk of Prince and his disciples.

    ''I'm influenced by a lot of black American artists,'' Mr. Astley said in a recent telephone interview. ''Luther Vandross is one of my favorites, and I like James Ingram and Jeffrey Osborne.''

    At least for now, Mr. Astley is content to have his voice packaged by Stock-Aiken-Waterman.

    ''I like dance music,'' he said. ''I'm happy doing what I'm doing and want to get more deeply into it.'' Glass and Ginsberg

    Astley's videos were a big thing at the time, coming just two years into MTV's decline that was precipitated by Viacom's purchase of it and MTV still had some of its original appeal of showing a) videos that were b) popular.

  5. Re:Did you know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Imagine if "fidy cent" ran for president. Think he'd get any votes?

    Is it necessarily racist to not vote for him because of his "cultural values"?

    I think I just agreed with this troll. Wow.