Maybe you haven't noticed, but world oil production is peaking and renewable energy sources are heating up along with the planet. Any improvement in solar (and wind) power is a big deal. So let's hear it for the latest advances in solar power technology.

A team of Korean researchers has found a way to reduce the cost of generating 1 watt of solar power from a couple of bucks to 10 cents. It's only 6.5% efficient, which isn't great, but the price just might turn pricey solar-generating technology from a plaything of the rich into a mass-market consumer product for the rest of us. A shout-out to Lee Kwang-hee and crew at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology!

Meanwhile, our fellow Americans have developed a thinner solar cell that's cheaper to make and produces 20% more current. The key is exfoliation, a process that reduces the amount of expensive semiconductor material that goes into a solar cell. A substrate is injected with helium and heated until the expanding gas shaves off a layer less than a micron thick. Then the skinnier substrate is bonded to cheap silicon to produce a wafer-bonded cell that's lighter, less reliant on costly materials, and can be constructed in more layers — which makes the cell more efficient. So we all have reason to be grateful to James Zahler of Aonex Technologies and collaborators from the California Institute of Technology and EMCORE PhotoVoltaics. Someday, this technology may help us keep the lights on. — Al Boline

Chosun.com via Engadget; New Scientist, via Shoutwire