About 10 years ago a new company appeared, with great promise for a clean-energy future. With the awkward name XsunX, their goal was to produce what they called

About 10 years ago a new company appeared, with great promise for a clean-energy future. With the awkward name XsunX, their goal was to produce what they called "power glass" ... a type of glass that contained barely-visible solar cells and wiring. Tie it appropriately into a building's electrical system, and viola! a window becomes a power generation source. The notion was that since the modern aesthetic is glass skin for large buildings, then why not let that new skyscraper in London, NYC, Houston, etc generate some of its own power from the acres (yes, acres) of glass covering its exterior? The solar cells would be less efficient for a variety of reasons, and most windows wouldn't face direct sunlight all day, but these inefficiencies would be countered by volume: the entire building would be covered in solar cells. Fantastic idea! And ... it fizzled. The XsunX website still exists, but you have to find really old press-release PDFs buried within to find any mention of Power Glass. Use the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, though, and you'll see their website years ago focused almost entirely on Power Glass and its promise. I really wish this idea could take off ...