[LINK] $100 laptop could sell to public

[Glen Turner]

Tom Worthington wrote:

> Solar panels are not cheap

I'm not so sure about that. Large solar panels are expensive. But
I'm increasingly impressed by the small ones -- the sort of thing
that runs your garden lights or changes your phone.  I think
solar is now at the stage where its superceeded technology is
itself efficient enough to be useful.

Related, the amount of power crammed into those little
rechargable AA cells is much more than the old NiCds.
So it's perfectly possible to run the shed lights or
an exhaust fan from a small cell glued to the roof
or built into the fan.  I paid $700 to have the shed
cabled to the house, $70 is more than enough today
to light the thing with solar.

So I think solar is set for a whole range of single-application
uses; rather than a big expensive panel feeding big expensive
batteries.