Saturday, April 30, 2011

Solar energy tech gets new boost

As we are still scared to death because of the Fukushima accident, its unexpected implications (it seems impossible to contain) and the way the problem is being brushed under the carpet by worthless political managers... it is even more important than before to turn our attention to alternative and renewable electricity sources, such as solar power. 

In the last few years alone I have been tracking somewhat casually more and more advances in solar power, which has been incorporating new advances that increase efficiency. Mind you that it's not just a matter of so-called efficiency, because pollution and other hidden costs are seldom factored when it comes to favored energy sources like nuclear, coal or oil, but if solar power increases its efficiency even more, the excuses of the short-sighted will become even weaker. 

In this regard, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has presented yet another new technological improvement that increases solar power generation by 80%. By improving the conversion rate of light to electricity, Jun Xu and colleagues have dismantled yet another obstacle for the total replacement of obsolete toxic and finite ways of generating electricity such as nuclear power by clean and infinite ones like solar power. 

With these technologies and political determination we can easily replace the oil and uranium dinosaurs by a decentralized network of solar, wind and other renewable power generation. It is only a matter of political will.

However not all is about generating energy, it is also about wasting less.

Political will: Germany generates 5.7 times more solar power than Spain

Not to mention that oil is every day more and more expensive (it's not just a matter of health, safety and common sense: it's the economy in its pure monetary sense!):

Naked Capitalism has today a whole series of oil price humor

2 comments:

  1. nice.I agreed that solar is very important.As of now, solar power and solar related devices are expensive. But it may be reduced if most of the people start using it.Let us see the future of solar power.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ^^ Looks a scam: no way to transfer energy from space is even discussed, plus solar recollection on Earth is not that inefficient anyhow, so hardly would justify the ecologically harmful energy waste of sending more spacecrafts out there (how many? millions?)

    Please!

    ReplyDelete

Please, be reasonably respectful when making comments. I do not tolerate in particular sexism, racism nor homophobia. The author reserves the right to delete any abusive comment.

Comment moderation before publishing is... ON