Solar for all? Not in my lifetime [Spectral Lines]

On a sunny afternoon in California, I drive past the shuttered factories of Solyndra Corp., the bankrupt maker of solar panels. A billboardsize "For Sale" sign sits prominently on the frontage road of Interstate 880, a main artery into Silicon Valley. Solyndra’s empty factories are grim reminders of how- even in America’s innovation heartland-life on the solar frontier can be nasty, brutish, and short.