Company makes cheaper solar wafers, wins $150M loan from DOE

Here and Now (NPR) just did a story on how the military is using solar power, right now, to provide electricity for remote bases and soldiers on the field. The military's adoption of solar power is providing the scale that solar companies need to improve manufacturing needs and drive additional R&D.

The initial motivation is that it reduces the stress on their energy (read: oil) supply chain, but they've found that adopting solar is also cutting down on the number of batteries each soldier has to carry to power the gadgets that have become part of modern warfare.

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/06/06/military-solar-power (the meat of the story is actually in the audio, the text is just a brief summary)

I want to root for companies like this in the way that other people like to root for sports teams.

Now, I just hope that they too won't move their production base to China after taking the DOE grant like Evergreen Solar had done after taking the $43million grant from MA. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/business/energy-environmen...

I for one, am in favor of the DOE accelerating innovative companies in breakout industries.