Solar Energy in a Nutshell

Yes, it will happen in my lifetime ... and there's no stopping it. Plain and Simple.

Solar Energy (Photovoltaics, or PV for short) will be the dominate form of energy on Earth in the next couple of decades. Governments don’t need to subsidize PV, and Al and Greta don’t need to shame us with False Narratives:

Rather, the real Story is that there is no stopping PV. Here’s some Data for your consideration:

• For about the last 5 years, longer neglecting Wind Power, PV has been the leading form of newly-installed electrical power generation worldwide (i.e., more PV installed than either Coal, Natural Gas, Wind, Hydro, Nuclear, Oil, etc.); and

• PV production and installation has been doubling about every 2 years for about the last 30 years, and this trend continues; and

• One Nuclear Power Plant Equivalent, NPPE, of PV is installed about every two weeks. If this trend continues, which I expect, within the next decade the world will be installing about 1 NPPE of PV per day. At what rate are we installing Nuclear Power Plants¹ to “combat the ‘Climate Crisis’”²?

Back when I used to give talks on Solar Energy, Stan Ovshinsky told me to take out all of the IPCC CO2 Anthropogenic Global Warming crap from my talks (I thought this would help promote Solar, true or not). His reasoning: PV will win not because it is “Good” or “Green” or because of social pressure or government mandates; rather we (PV) will win because PV will be the lowest-cost endless-source of energy on the planet, Plain and Simple (“We shall beat them at their own game”, he said). And Stan was right, and that day has arrived. And there are certainly no resource limitations: after Oxygen, Silicon is next most abundant element in the Earth’s crust.

What made this happen ? It wasn’t any “new technology”; it was rather something quite simple: mass production. A few decades ago the U.S. produced over 90% of the World’s PV; now we are in the single digits and falling fast while the Chinese are producing about 60% of the World’s PV and close to 90% of the World’s Solar Thermal panels. Of course expect to continue learning in the “News” about the West preaching to the Chinese about the “Climate Crisis” (as well as Human Rights, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, etc.).

Did the “Chinese steal our technology”? Well, Yes and No. Back in the 80’s you could buy BP (British Petroleum) PV panels. These aluminum-framed modules used silicon wafers sandwiched between glass and encapsulated with EVA. Here in the West, with the help of Industry Leaders, the Department of Energy, and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), we “proved” that this technology was too expensive and that new thin film technology was necessary to make PV cost-effective; more research was always needed before we could deploy. On the Other-Other hand, the Chinese “proved” that this almost half-century-old silicon-wafer-technology, encapsulated with EVA between glass with aluminum frames, and of course continuous improvements, is indeed cost-effective if mass produced. Pretty simple, huh? Instead of trying to prove that you can’t do it, spend your effort proving that you can do it ! I should do that; but on the other-other hand, while it might be better to light one candle than to curse the Darkness, it sure is more fun to curse the Darkness !

We don’t need the CO2 (harmless plant food) “Climate Crisis” False Narrative to promote PV; rather, PV is here today and there is no stopping it. Plain and Simple. Think of PV as a HUGE Steam Roller coming your way and do you really want to get in the way of it ?

Of course you can expect to see the U.S. continuing to wage war over oil. Like seriously, as cool as PV is³, you can’t power an aircraft carrier or super-sonic F35 with PV ! Oil is still very important to lubricate the war machine …

Curse that bloody Darkness !

1. Even if we installed 1 Nuclear Power Plant per day for the next 50 years, we’d run out of Uranium in about 10 years.

2. Climate Crisis, formerly Climate Change, formerly Global Warming, formerly Anthropogenic Global Warming. As a very intelligent friend said to me, “Is it even linguistically possible to be against a Climate Crisis ?”

3. I live very comfortably off-grid with PV [Chinese ductless DC inverter heat pumps ON in cooling mode and with the doors open so that I don’t “waste energy”] half the year here in Southern Indiana.