Solar is the Solution
(Page 2 of 6)
December 2007/January 2008
By Steve Heckeroth
Natural gas is the second most abundant fossil fuel, but its total potential energy is equivalent to only about 1 1/2 days of sunshine striking the Earth.
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Nuclear power plants fueled by radioactive isotopes of uranium produce 20 percent of the electricity used in the United States. When radioactive materials were sequestered and dispersed deep under the Earth’s surface, they presented very little threat to life. But we’ve made those materials far more dangerous by mining and concentrating them, and the byproducts left over after a nuclear reaction are even more dangerous than the original isotopes. Nuclear power plants create hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive waste that will continue to be a threat to life for longer than humans will walk the Earth.
Even if the problem of radioactive waste could be solved, the recoverable world reserve of fissionable uranium is equivalent to less than 1 1/2 days of the energy striking the Earth from the nuclear reaction of the sun.
Oil-fired power plants have all but disappeared in the United States, but oil (mostly diesel fuel and gasoline) powers nearly all our transportation. More than 60 percent of the oil consumed in the United States is now imported. Demand for petroleum will soon exceed world production capacity and at that point the price of fuel will start to rise dramatically. We should be asking ourselves how we will cope with gas prices as they rise from $2.50 to $5 to $10 per gallon and keep rising. It’s hard to imagine the hardship that will be faced by countries that remain addicted to oil, and even harder to imagine the suffering in countries that have oil, but do not have the strength to protect their resources or themselves.
Now consider that the entire recoverable world oil reserve is equivalent to the solar energy that strikes the Earth in one day.
Biofuels and Hydrogen
Before we explore the solar-electric future let’s discuss biofuels and hydrogen as other possible alternatives. Although both have received a lot of good press, I believe neither are viable solutions for our future energy needs.
Waste oil and biomass can make good transition fuels but unless human population growth slows, we will need all existing agricultural land to grow food. There are already many examples of food crop land that is being used to create ethanol to power SUVs and other flex-fuel vehicles. The cost of tortillas has quadrupled in Mexico in the last year because of rising demand for corn to make ethanol. If we let demand for biofuels increase, the impact on the world’s poor will be much more severe.
According to some studies, it takes 1,000 gallons of water and more than a gallon equivalent of fossil fuel to produce 1 gallon of corn ethanol. Finally, consider that biofuels just aren’t very efficient. When you do the math, the overall efficiency of biomass used as transportation fuel, from sun to wheel, is about 0.01 percent to 0.05 percent. In contrast, the overall efficiency of using solar panels to charge electric vehicles from sun to wheel is 3 percent to 20 percent. This means that solar-charged electric vehicles are from 60 to 2,000 times more efficient than vehicles burning ethanol or biodiesel. Which solution makes more sense?
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