They’re also printing their own “currency.”
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports:
Ruston Seaman is proud to show off the early version of the solar panels built for his renewable energy mission: two banged-up, discolored shower doors held together by crusty caulking.
“Even if it’s chipped a little bit, it still makes electricity,” said Mr. Seaman.
John Prusa, the brains behind these solar panels, fastened the doors together so that the power-capturing cells stay off the glass, harnessing sunlight that can be used to generate electricity or heat water.
But no matter how much a set of jerry rigged solar panels might lower the electric bill, discolored shower doors and caulking from Walmart present a problem when it comes to persuading people to put them on their homes: They’re ugly…
“…But no matter how much a set of jerry rigged solar panels might lower the electric bill, discolored shower doors and caulking from Walmart present a problem when it comes to persuading people to put them on their homes: They’re ugly…”
It’s not the solar panels that are ugly*; it’s the way they end up being installed that are horrid. They’re treated as an afterthought, kinda’ like deciding that you want an refrigerator instead of a wooden icebox and then leaving it on the front stoop because you couldn’t be bothered to remodel the kitchen.
If done right, they can either be rendered invisible or made quite handsome. That’s what architects and industrial designers are for.
Just a thought.
VicB3
*Well, OK, *these* homemade panels sound damned hideous looking. The term “ugly as homemade sin” probably applies.
“My gut says Alcoa has aluminum stock,”
My gut says that Alcoa recycles surplus aluminum stock into aluminum products that people want. I’ve heard of aluminum recycling a few times.