Fast Company

Spain's solar industry may be about to fall apart, but the same can't be said for the U.S. solar market, which is expected to balloon from $9.8 billion today to $78.1 billion by 2015. During the same time period, solar investments will jump from $22.4 billion to $61.1 billion, according to a new report from Environmental Leader Insights.

Solar power took a big step toward becoming the alternative energy of choice with this week's news that energy from sunlight might be cheaper than nuclear power. The analysis, which comes from a Duke University report entitled Solar and Nuclear Costs: The Historic Crossover, claims that, "Electricity from new solar installations is now cheaper than electricity from proposed new nuclear plants" in North Carolina.

When we test drove the Brammo Enertia and the Zero S last year, we learned three valuable lessons about electric motorcycles: 1. They don't go very fast (50 - 60 mph was top speed) 2. They can't travel very far on one charge (35 - 50 miles was the distance) and 3. They're terribly expensive!

They're still somewhat expensive, but at least they're getting faster and proving their ethonomical muscle at the same time.

We've got to hand it to New Jersey--the oft-maligned Garden State is slowly but surely securing its place as a renewable energy leader. Last year the state's board of public utilities approved a $200 million contract between Petra Solar and Public Service Electric and Gas for the installation of over 200,000 utility pole-mounted (and grid-connected) solar panels. Now Morris County is funding a mammoth 3.2 megawatt solar project with what it calls the "Morris Model"--a combination of financing from utility company Tioga Energy and up to $30 million in county-guaranteed bonds.

The soft glow of a burning-hot wire in an incandescent light bulb, and the bluish tinge from the screaming electrical plasma storm in a fluorescent tube may soon become largely things of the past. LED lighting has arrived to beat them both.

Philips has just unveiled what it's calling the "world's first LED replacement for [the] most common household bulb," taking aim at the aging, inefficient 60W gizmo that's been lighting our homes since forever. This is the future of lighting, people.

In July, the U.S. Postal Service announced its plan to buy 1,900 fuel-efficient vehicles, including 900 hybrids and 1,000 alternative fuel vehicles. Impressive enough, but now USPS is investing its resources in building an all-electric delivery truck that could save the government millions in fuel costs.

When the power grid fails, the cheapest and most reliable backup is often solar power. So it's no surprise that solar is playing a starring role in Haiti earthquake relief efforts, from solar-powered audio bibles to solar-powered phones.

Think you'd be a good car designer? Trexa wants to give you a shot with an open-source platform.

Yesterday, Inhabitat broke news of Trexa, an open platform that would allow partners to create their own custom electric vehicles. And blogs went crazy: the first EV development platform! Open source hardware! Build your own car! Change it if you need to!

Let's take a step back. This might be a compelling solution--but it's a solution looking for a problem.

Solar energy got hot in the 1980s. The economic sting of the oil embargo was still fresh and the air was thick with tax credits, so Innovation Nation put on its thinking cap and began harvesting the resources that were literally falling from the sky: the 1,366 watts of solar energy that constantly rain down on every sunny square meter of earth. Smelling opportunity in those free-flowing photons, huge companies jumped into the sun business.