Is the future of solar power happening anytime soon?

July 17th, 2007 Alex

Gut Erlasee Solar Park located in Arnstein, Germany. The plant uses solar energy to generate about 14,000 megawatt hours annually. Germany accounts for 60% of the world market for solar energy.  

Although solar energy is a very current hot topic, it may just be a topic as opposed to an actual mainstream implementation. The Trade Association for the Nuclear Power Industry recently surveyed 1000 Americans asking what energy source they thought would be used the most for generating electricity in 15 years and 27% responded with solar energy. Last year, however, solar energy has provided less than 0.01% of the country’y energy supply and with the current scale in research, that number will probably take awhile to make a significant difference. The Energy Department says that 25 years from now, solar power may only account for 2-3% of our country’s electricity.

I definitely disagree with that statement and would predict that in 25 years, we will have 10% of our electricity being produced by solar energy, hopefully more. Recently, there have been a huge increase in interest as well as sales of solar panels from countries around the world. It could be a fad that could end up being a big waste of money if the technology does not take off, but I would think that something huge can also come out of all of this. I hope to see solar farms being built around the world to feed energy to our power grids. Oil is a finite source of fuel and some oil drilling locations can possibly run out of fuel in as little as 10 years. With the politics and power that the companies of the other sources of energy(nuclear, coal, natural, oil) have in our world, it will not be likely that solar energy can easily replace any of those but I can definitely see it making a difference.

An interesting fact is that coal-burning power plants are being built around the world at about one a week. The US Energy Department plans to spend $159 million on solar research and development in the current fiscal year. For nuclear energy research and development, it will spend $303 million while coal energy will get $427 million. We are currently seeing a lot of headlines in the news with Hybrid technology, solar energy, and a lot of media attention towards global warming. The next 10 years will be a crucial factor in increasing the development of solar energy. Al Gore has spent more than 10 years spreading the education and awareness of global warming and the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” has made a huge impact in getting people aware and involved. Having a President whose family made millions from oil will obviously not do much to increase research and development in a competing source of energy. Al Gore’s presence has made an impact on Congress and there are other politicans that are now more aware of the issues and concerns including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who made a goal of creating one million solar roofs by 2018 and is actively making an effort to push for solar power.  Our next President will hopefully make an effort in increasing the research and technology that is necessary to make solar power more accessible in preventing global warming.

sources: 
News.com
Techrepublic

Entry Filed under: Environment,Green Tech,Solar Energy