SOLAR NEEDS A REASON TO BELIEVE

Take away: Solar energy has technological barriers to get across before it can meet large scale needs. Many authorities believe it can overcome limitations if adequate effort and funding is put into it. That is not currently happening.

Solar Power Captures Imagination, Not Money
Andrew C. Revkin and Mathew L. Wald, July 16, 2007 (NY Times)

WHO
Solar energy providers and consumers, the Department of Energy (DOE); Nathan Lewis, professor, California Institute of Technology; Vinod Khosla, Silicon Valley entrepreneur; Raymond L. Orbach, under secretary of energy/ science, DOE;
The solar cell is getting more efficient all the time. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Despite popular enthusiasm for solar energy, the technology has not yet achieved the level of performance that makes it scalable to the needs of utilities for large-scale power generation and is unlikely to soon achieve such a level at the current activity of research.

WHEN
- Solar presently provides less than 0.1% of U.S. electricity. By 2030, DOE expects solar to only be capable of generating 2-3% of U.S. electricity.
- current fiscal year: $159 million from DOE on solar R & D. $303 million, on nuclear R & D. $427 million on coal R & D + $167 million on other fossil fuel R & D. Also currently more favored: biofuels and clean coal.
- DOE proposed R & D for 2008 – 2012: $1.1 billion for solar.

WHERE
- Germany, Japan and some U.S. states are leading the way in installations and technology breakthroughs.
- American Southwest, Spain and Australia are developing Concentrating Solar Power (CSP).

WHY
- 27% of Americans recently polled picked solar as the most likely source of electrical power in 15 years, the highest single choice.
- Solar energy most commonly produces electricity via photovoltaic cells absorbing sunlight and transferring the energy to an electrical system or grid.
- One hour of the sun that falls on earth is more than enough energy for all humans for a year. Yet sun’s intermittency, among other excuses, causes a deficiency of venture capital or government research investment on how to store or efficiently translate all that solar energy into electricity.
- Other energies have lobbying groups funded by deep pockets. They develop strong influence with political powers.
- CSP, in which huge fields of parabolic mirrors capture sun and concentrate on heating a liquid which makes steam to run a generator is being researched. This type of solar thermal system may enlarge solar energy’s scale and solve its storage dilemma.
A Concentrating Solar Power system: oil is heated in the tube and flows to a generator.

QUOTES
- Lewis: “This is not an arena where private energy companies are likely to make the breakthrough…The scale on which things actually have to happen on energy is not fully either appreciated or transmitted to the public…You have to find a really cheap way to capture that light, for the price of carpet or paint, and also convert it efficiently into something humans can use for energy.”
- Khosla: “Most of the environmental stuff out there now is toys compared to the scale we need to really solve the planet’s problems…”
- Orbach: “No one source of energy that we know of is going to solve it…This is about a portfolio.”
- Rhone Resch, president, Solar Energy Industries Association: “Coal and nuclear count their lobbying budgets in the tens of millions…We count ours in the tens of thousands.”
- Prashant V. Kamat, solar cell expert, University of Notre Dame: “There is plenty of intellectual firepower in the U.S…. But there is limited encouragement to take up the challenge.”