Speaking of solar, Jeff Davis, my fellow assistant managing editor at Business 2.0, has an interesting post on Waterlog about a Sydney company, Solar Sailor, that has won a contract to build solar-powered ferries that will start criss-crossing San Francisco Bay in 2008. As Jeff writes:
The ferries will run on as much on sun and wind power as they do diesel fueland will emit half the pollutants of a similar sized conventional ferry. The triple-hulled vessel will have a 45-foot high retractable wing covered in solar panels that can generate 20 kilowatts of electricity to help take the load off the two diesel engines. The wing also generates some 170 hp on its own as a sail. When conditions get hairy and the wind hits 30+ knots (that’s when many sailboats start to de-mast), the wings fold up, all beetle-like.
Way cool. The parallels between the semiconductor industry and the burgeoning solar industry are many, and this strikes me as emblematic of another similarity: just as microprocessors eventually became powerful and cheap enough to put into a host of everyday objects – cars, cell phones, teddy bears – solar cells are too beginning to appear in products beyond suburban rooftops.
But for now let’s just leave it at Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!
Green Wombat 
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