SILICON IS THE NEW BLACK

Wear your love for green tech on your sleeve. John Rogers, an engineer at the University of Illinois, made prototypes of transparent, flexible photovoltaic cells that can wrap around
windows and walls and even be sewn onto T-shirts. Rogers sliced rigid silicon into cells half the width of a hair—one tenth the thickness of conventional cells—that are then stamped onto
rubber and can be applied to nearly any surface. He sold the
tech to the start-up SemPrius, which aims to produce the
cells for $1 per watt (coal plants cost about $2.10 a watt)
within a year.