Meet the Scientists
wastes already sitting above ground at commercial sites, and we have nuclear defense
waste as well. We have to come to grips with how to dispose of that and that means that
the next generation of nuclear plants could be far, far safer. I would prefer not to do
that. I would prefer to do it with energy efficiency and wind and solar, but I don’t think
we can rule it out of the mix because it has such a small carbon footprint, emitting
almost no carbon dioxide.”
Wind power is just beginning to blow its way onto the list of major power sources, supplying about 0.3 percent of the nation’s electricity. Globally, it has amazing potential to reduce
use of fossil fuels. One 2006 study, for instance, concluded that wind turbines could supply
34 percent of the world’s electricity by 2050. If implemented on a large scale, wind power
would prevent 113 billion tons of global warming gases from entering the atmosphere by
2050, the study found. Here is Dr. Schnoor:
Raymond Lee Orbach, Ph.D.
“Wind is economically competitive right now. And it’s growing at more than 30 percent
per year. Sort of like the growth of cell phones in the 1990s. So wind is on its way with a
little government help. There is a government subsidy of about a little more than a cent
per kilowatt hour helping wind along. But it’s competitive certainly with new coal right
now, and we’re building an awfully lot of wind turbines.”
The Solar Challenge
Another permanent solution to global warming lies in wide use of solar energy in photovoltaic cells — solar cells — and other technology. Dr. Harry B. Gray, of the Caltech Center
for Sustainable Energy Research, makes it clear that solar energy has vast potential. He also
spoke at that ACS 235th National Meeting in New Orleans.
“There’s enough energy reaching the Earth’s surface from the sun every hour or so, maybe
it’s a couple of hours, but a reasonable number of hours, say in a day, to power the
planet for an entire year.”
With the sun such a vast potential resource, why does solar energy provide less than 0.1
percent of the country’s electricity? The problem is solar energy’s high cost compared to
other sources of energy. Here is Harry Gray:
Jerald L. Schnoor, Ph.D.
“Right now, it’s about four to five times as expensive per kilowatt hour for solar electric.
I priced it. Right now, it’s about 25 cents a kilowatt hour versus about five, or six, seven
cents, something like that for conventional sources.
I think if we get it down to 10 cents a kilowatt hour, there’ll be a large-scale buy-in, and
there are great advantages of course to using solar electric. Once you make the initial
investment, you can run lots of things then at lower cost than you are just … paying
the power station for electric every day. Once you make the initial investment, your …
monthly costs are much less. So, I think at 10 cents per kilowatt hour, people will buy in.
I think that will happen over the next five years.”
Dr. Schnoor points out that while solar now lags, government policy — for instance, subsidies for early adopters of solar — can have a major impact while scientists continue the
search for more efficient photovoltaic devices.
“But subsidies are in place in California, Japan, Europe, for solar roofs. For example, why
should we have shingles on the roofs of our houses? Why shouldn’t we capture that sun’s
energy and turn it into electricity or even turn it into hydrogen to run the appliances in
our homes. We’ll soon have a million homes doing it in California, with subsidies.”
Dr. Gray says that scientists face two major challenges in bringing down the costs of solar
energy:
