Imagine the day our sun generates significant amounts of electricity for our planet. It may not be far off. The International Energy Agency just predicted that solar power could make up 25 percent of global electricity production by the year 2050.
This could spare the earth’s resources while significantly improving the environment. “This decade is crucial for effective policies to enable the development of solar electricity,” said IEA executive Director Nobuo Tanakae. That’s because the increased use of solar power on both residential and commercial buildings could bring it to an equal playing field with conventional electricity within 10 years.
So, if this possibility in sight, what will it take to make this happen? International policy and economic partnerships could enable solar power to grow at the kinds of rates that will turn this into reality.
In many ways, this is about the will to do it. Are we ready to take the word “alternative ” out of the solar energy process? Like other historical turning points, such as space discovery, our human understanding of the technology is in a good enough place to keep it moving forward. It’s about the resolve to make it so.
Now, we need to think as a planet about our planet by turning our attention to increased solar development with enough focus to make it happen. That will take a transnational focus for the world’s cultures, governments and businesses. We can enhance a two-fold global value process, one of both hearts and minds. We can heighten attention around our ethical beliefs and actions within this movement. And, we can rally around the value of increased, incentivized commerce needed to make the bottom lines work. By turning our resources here and committing to its success we truly can carry solar’s momentum forward. We can meet an end goal that is not only doable – but ultimately necessary for our world.
“Imagine the day our sun generates significant amounts of electricity for our planet.”
That day is today. If we think about the most ancient sources of fuel- wood and hay- both of these material are derived from the photosynthetic process. Today, our electricity is generated mostly from coal, oil and Uranium/Platonism. The best hypothesis regarding the origin of coal and oil is that it is compressed organic mater- basically, that very old trees and vegetation (that were grown with sunlight) were captured and compressed into what we have today as coal and oil. As far as nuclear material- this stuff was not directly produced by our sun, but like other heavy metals, was most likely formed by fusion reaction inside a star- as Carl Sagan is quoted- ‘we are all made of star stuff’.
So, we really only have one source of energy input onto the planet- it’s the sun. The question is, how do we best use the only source of energy we have. You are right that the question of how we get better at using the sun is more a political one then a technological one. We have the technology. Can we make it better- more efficient and less expensive- sure, but being on that level playing field with traditional electricity generation will be critical. Oil, Coal and Nukes are all subsidized industries- the energy market is not even close to being a ‘free market’ but most energy generation in the US is owned by private companies. Private companies are going to look at the generation from a ‘for profit’ prospective- our government policies ought to be built around encouraging private investors that a ‘clean’ energy has a better return then a ‘dirty’ energy.
As an American, thinking about an ‘international policy’ towards solar is a bit funny. If the USA when to the G8 and said ‘hey guys we have this great idea- we want to develop more solar energy’ we would be laughed at- not because the idea is bad but because we are so radically behind Japan, Europe and China when it comes to the generation of solar electricity and solar technology. What we can do is look at what the rest of the world has done right and what the rest of the world has done wrong and learn from this in crafting our own federal policy.