Even without additional funding from Congress via the recently passes energy bill, the future of solar power is looking bright. As reported the other day in the New York Times, Google-backed solar-panel start-up Nanosolar has started cranking out a new breed of panels that can be manufactured "at a price at which solar energy becomes less expensive than coal." The NYT quotes Nansolar's founder and CEO Martin Ros The NYT quotes Nansolar’s founder and CEO Martin Roscheisen saying, “With a $1-per-watt panel, it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems.”That $2-per-watt figure comes from the Energy Department, the cost of building a new coal plant. Nansolar’s Roscheisen celebrated the milestone in his blog, touting the advantages of Nanosolar’s panels over those of competing companies as: “the world’s first printed thin-film solar cell in a commercial panel product; the world’s first thin-film solar cell with a low-cost back-contact capability; the world’s lowest-cost solar panel — which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as $.99/watt; [and] the world’s highest-current thin-film solar panel — delivering five times the current of any other thin-film panel on the market today and thus simplifying system deployment.”Want to get your hands on one of Nansolar’s first commercially available panels? The company is selling them on eBay, of course. As I write this, the highest bid is $11,000. The one of eBay is actually the second panel Nanosolar rolled out. The first will remain at Nanosolar for exhibit, and the third was donated to the Tech Museum in San Jose. Technology Industry