Great article, except if you live in New Jersey! LOL!

Aiden, in Grade 7, wins a Young Naturalist Award for The Secret of the Fibonacci Sequence in Trees .

"I designed and built my own test model, copying the Fibonacci pattern of an oak tree. I studied my results with the compass tool and figured out the branch angles. The pattern was about 137 degrees and the Fibonacci sequence was 2/5. Then I built a model using this pattern from PVC tubing. In place of leaves, I used PV solar panels hooked up in series that produced up to 1/2 volt, so the peak output of the model was 5 volts. The entire design copied the pattern of an oak tree as closely as possible."

"I compared my results on graphs, and they were interesting! The Fibonacci tree design performed better than the flat-panel model. The tree design made 20% more electricity and collected 2 1/2 more hours of sunlight during the day. But the most interesting results were in December, when the Sun was at its lowest point in the sky. The tree design made 50% more electricity, and the collection time of sunlight was up to 50% longer!"

One very interesting and promising project is DESERTEC. They made great progress in devising low-loss, long-distance electricity transport. The biggest remaining obstacle is really the political stability in North Africa.
http://www.desertec.org/

I think the American people want their jobs back. In case you haven't noticed, a large portion of U.S. citizens are out of work, losing their homes, and not able to support their families. Our country (the U.S.) is in debt way over our heads. We are trying to get debt under control. Tax revenues aren't coming in because these out-of-work people are paying very little in taxes, if any. They are draining our coffers dry through their earned unemployment benefits and other taxes.

When we put the screws to American companies jobs go oversees. That's a fact of life. (It's also called having a business model).

Until organizations, such as the Natural Resources Defense Fund and similar organizations, start going for win-win situations with business, of course Congress is going to fight back. Congressmen are supposed to represent their constituents, and evidently, they are now doing what most of their constituents are telling them to do.

Regarding our air quality, I don't see how anyone can say it's now unhealthy. The difference between air quality now and in the 50s and 60s is like the difference between night and day. I grew up in Pittsburgh with its steel mills and resulting pollution in the 1950s and 1960s. Some days "things" were precipitating out of the sky, it was so bad. I remember that when I was in high school, I participated in a battle of the marching bands at a stadium in West Virginia which was directly behind a steel mill. The pollution was so heavy, that the opposite side of the field was not visible. And you know what? My grandmother lived a healthy life into her 90s. My grandfather, who worked in the mills, only lived into his 80s (his smoking got to him). My mother passed away at 96. My sister and I have no effects from that pollution either, and are in our 50s and 60s. My father was the only one who passed away early (in his early 50s -- from a heart attack -- heart disease runs in the male side of my family).

Now that I've said that, I think I support CEP2 for the same reason as you -- if we can develop cheap and efficient organic solar cells, maybe we can make solar energy competitive with mainstream sources of energy -- a win-win for everyone. And that's what all these WCG projects are all about -- win-wins for everyone. Yes?

Published in Nature Online Letter high efficient silicon nanocrystals:

Step-like enhancement of luminescence quantum yield of silicon nanocrystals.

1.Supplementary information (2,768 KB) (pdf)