The power of the sun

Peak oil once again reared its head, this time at a lecture given by Nobel Laureate Walter Kohn in Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science.

Oil, which makes up around 35 percent of global energy use, and the other fossil fuels will soon be exhausted, as we ‘devour the laborious work of millions of bacteria over millions of years’. As world population will have increased by an estimated 30 to 40 per cent by mid-century, energy consumption will rise. What then? Energy prices will in two decades see a steep hike and unless something is done, life will get difficult, warned the professor.

So, as the vultures in Jungle Book asked, ‘what are we gonna do?’

Well, the professor believes solar and wind power are the most promising candidates. Although, at the present time they constitute only ~ 2 per cent of the global energy consumption, “their production has recently been rising by a spectacular 30 to 40% per year, or a factor 15 per decade and 225 in 20 years. This arithmetic suggests that the entire deficit stemming from the impending exhaustion of oil and gas might be compensated in about 10 to 20 years by continuing aggressive commitment to solar and wind energy.”

By 2021, he sees a world largely dominated by solar and wind energy. The trend aside, he believes the technology leaps will bring it all closer.

Solar power has been getting cheaper for years. Panel prices declined 31 percent from 1998 to 2008 because of lower manufacturing and installation costs and state and local subsidies, according to a study released Wednesday by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

But it did take a ramp up in US federal incentives to bring the cost within many people’s reach. Thousands of homeowners are finding they can pay off a rooftop solar system in just a few years and then start pocketing the energy savings. More than half the states in the U.S. and Washington D.C. offer enough incentives to cut the costs by 40 percent or more.

How many nations are willing to do that? And can afford to?

Meanwhile solar powered mobile phones are catching like fire in Africa and helping people unconnected to the grid make informed decisions.

And if land requirement was a big factor against big solar, things are changing now. The 4,500 acre solar thermal installation in California is being planned to enhance farming! From protecting tomatoes from rain (tomatoes do better if only their roots are fed), through shading cooler weather crops like salad and arugula as the climate heats up, to providing support for trellises and other crop infrastructure, symbiotic ways of harnessing food and energy are coming true.

So, do you think Prof Kohn is right?