New thin-film solar-power technology could come in handy in a field that I personally have a lot of personal investment in: keeping beer cold. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are working on Active Building Envelope technology, a new science that shrinks solar panels to micrometer-thin sizes, allowing them to be stuck on walls, roofs, or, yes, beer bottles. Less exciting but perhaps more practical uses for the tech could potentially be replacing climate-control systems, such as air conditioning, with thin solar strips on all the windows in an office building. If efficient enough, the thin-film technology could prove revolutionary and move our energy consumption more towards renewable solar power; if not so efficient, it could at least keep my Brooklyn Lager cold for an extra 20 minutes on a summer day. Either way, sounds pretty sweet to me.
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