Solar Powered Speed Boat

What'll they think of next? Wind-powered boats?

Of all the green technologies I'm excited about, solar power easily tops the list. Only a few short years ago, if you heard "solar-powered", you had visions of big gaudy panels the size of billiard tables plastered to the roof of a house, or you thought of the experimental cars working their way across Australia... weird wheeled contraptions that looked like shiny elongated armadillos.

However, solar power is really an infant technology. Every day, scientists are learning how to turn more (40%) and more (80%) of the sunlight that hits a photovoltaic cell into electricity. Prices of course will fall as they always tend to do, and I believe that the simplicity, adaptability, and sheer economic benefit of solar power will make it the primary source of electricity in the future.

Most importantly, as is always the most critical aspect with any new technology: Product innovators, company owners, and capitalists are finding ways to make solar power good-looking and appealing to consumers. Here we have this 30-foot solar-powered speed boat — which could theoretically travel around the world at a constant 30 knots without a drop of fuel — as a way to show consumers that solar power can be everything you need it to be. (Article)