Originally published July 26 2005
Solar power takes another step forward with developing "sunflower" technology
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Bill Gross, famous for his multitude of dot-com business launches, is unfazed by the dot-bomb, reports Wired News columnist Spencer Reiss, and is now promoting the latest alternative energy technology from his Idealabs company: A super-efficient, sun-chasing solar power converter called the Sunflower.
This package of precision engineering is called the Sunflower, which is what one of its early prototypes vaguely resembled, four years and 40-odd iterations ago.
They'll endure showers of fake hailstones fired from air guns, snowdrifts simulated with water-saturated foam-rubber blankets, and 25 years' worth of punishing ultraviolet radiation.
A crew of solar-energy fanatics operating out of a converted Korean restaurant in Old Town Pasadena, California, will cheer.
The name will be familiar to veteran dot-bomb watchers - Mr. Idealab!, the Caltech geek turned manic entrepreneur who fostered NetZero, FreePC, and CitySearch.
On a rainy Southern California morning, the venture that has Gross struggling to stay put in his Herman Miller chair is the one that planted the Sunflower in the Arizona desert.
It's as much a personal cause as a business; for the first time in Idealab's tumultuous nine-year history, the Incubator himself has stepped in as CEO.
He has taken a plywood-door desk right out in the bullpen with a cheerful crew of heat-transfer engineers, Jet Propulsion Lab veterans, CAD-CAM programmers, even a vending machine specialist hired for his expertise at building things reliable and maintenance-free.
The infomercial is pure energy - the kilowatt kind - and the pitch includes something for everyone.
For conspicuous consumers: "America's secret," he says, "is that each of us uses an average of 17 virtual horses' worth of electric power every day."
For the no-blood-for-oil crowd: "The rest of the world needs cheap, reliable power too, if we're going to end the wars over energy and bring on a new age of global peace and toleration."
For investors: "Reinventing energy is a multitrillion-dollar opportunity.
The other was a fascination with solar power.
Bill Gross caught the sun bug as an undersize math and science whiz in Van Nuys, California.
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