(From Science Daily) On a 104-degree Friday in July when sunlight bathed The University of Arizona campus, doctoral student Dio Placencia sat before a noisy vacuum chamber in the Chemical Sciences Building trying to advance the renewable energy revolution.

As a member of UA professor Neal R. Armstrong’s research group, Placencia conducts research aimed at creating a thin, flexible organic solar cell that could power a tent or keep a car charged between trips to work and back home again.

He’s passionate about renewable energy and says it’s a waste that so little solar has been incorporated into society. “I have a little flat panel that I walk around with,” Placencia said. “I usually put that on my backpack, and I charge my cell phone when I’m walking to school.”

The sun is clean and free. “Here it is,” he said. “Why not use it?”

Across the University, professors, researchers, students and others involved in policy planning and economic analysis are working to make that question moot. In a region noted for abundant sunlight, they are chipping away at problems like how to employ solar at the utility-generating plant level, how to harness it to charge the newly indispensable products of the day – cell phones, MP3 players, laptops – what to do at night and when clouds halt the energy giveaway from the sky.

Read more here: Solar Power from Your Windows, Awnings, Even Clothing?