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Lonnie Johnson did risk assessment for the Atlantis space shuttle. He helped get the B-2 stealth bomber off the ground. He gave us the Super Soaker. And now, with his latest invention, he might just make solar power viable.

His latest project, a unique heat engine called the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Converter or JTEC, could revolutionize the energy industry. And that's got some important people very excited.

The JTEC, which has no moving parts and produces no waste, could double that efficiency, making it competitive with coal. Paul Werbos, director of the National Science Foundation, says "It has a darn good chance of being the best thing on Earth."

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology here today presented early results of research projects funded by Italian oil company Eni, including paper-thin solar cells, which could be used as window covers, and a paper-based material to collect oil spilled in water.
MIT showed prototypes of paper solar cells able to generate enough current to light a small LED display. A commercial solar paper device could be available in five years, said chemical engineering professor Karen Gleason, whose lab is doing the work.

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Silicon Valley solar company Solexant has raised $41.5 million to pursue technology it says can slice the costs of solar power with a printing-like manufacturing process.\n\nThe company's technology, which was developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, takes raw semiconductor material and creates nanoparticles which, once dissolved in a solvent, creates an ink that can be printed.

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IBM announced it has built a solar cell -- where the key layer that absorbs most of the light for conversion into electricity, is made entirely of readily-available elements -- that set a new world record for efficiency and holds potential for enabling solar cell technology to produce more energy at a lower cost. Comprised of copper (Cu), tin (Sn), zinc (Zn), sulfur (S), and/or selenium (Se), the cell's power conversion demonstrates an efficiency of 9.6 percent -- 40 percent higher than the value previously attained for this set of materials.

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