The biggest story of the year may not be in politics. It may be the solar energy breakthrough written about here the other day, made by a California company, Nanosolar. Nanosolar has revolutionized solar power by beating the cost of other power sources and has successfully mass-produced their product. They’ve gone past the highly publicized, but impractical solar panels of the past generations to market a sheeting which can be rolled onto the surface of roofs, the tops of trucks, or pretty much any surface exposed to the sun to generate electricity.
Popular Science lists Nanosolar’s product as the Innovation of the Year. With the solar sheets, a homeowner can essentially break free of the power grid with his or her own electricity for an investment of $5,000. The implications of this development and the success the company is having in producing the sheets for the mass market are startling.
Imagine the surprise the energy business is getting as the solar sheets start to literally roll out onto the roofs of businesses and institutions all over the country and the world. Huge investments in coal and nuclear power begin to look foolish. The simple economics of 30-cents-per-watt power makes other, more dangerous sources of power generation look costly. To add to this, the need to move power around the grid is vastly reduced, as most buildings become energy-independent during sunlight hours.
As the storage solutions roll out to match this product, the changes in the energy business will become more breathtaking. Not only can homeowners and businesses break free of the power grid, but also the fight for power sources will be changed dramatically. If solar-generated power becomes ubiquitous, how far behind can the ability to run electric cars without oil as anything but a backup generator of emergency power be?
Well, as we noted here the other day, these implications for the energy industry mean that there will be a massive political fight against the new technology. No doubt, the boardrooms of power companies and perhaps, oil companies are full of presentations about the sad implications of the new solar breakthrough for their industries. No question but that their lobbyists and consultants are looking for ways to push back the tide that’s sure to wash over their stock prices.
But looking ahead, imagine that sea of vehicles running down our highways on extremely cheap electric power, needing perhaps to burn gasoline once in a while until they can re-charge. The possibilities for societal, political, and environmental changes is nearly unlimited. With the development of electric-powered transportation, who needs to fight wars for oil, who needs to drill in the Artic wildlife preserves, or to curry favor with Neanderthals in robes who control underground oil reserves, but also believe in the subjugation of women and “infidels?” What are the possibilities for turning around global warming?
I realize that there’s a lot of ground to cover between the current breakthrough and the brilliant future I’m envisioning, but probably there were many nay-sayers who figured the first assembly lines and automobiles wouldn’t amount to anything either. I’ll bet the horse and buggy industry figured they were safe, too.
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