Solar Energy the Main Issue

The big question is: can solar energy hold its own against other sources of energy?

While solar energy has been a niche market since the 70's it was largely on a domestic scale. Solar panels were used on houses that were not connected to the grid and by people with ecological concerns.

The space race during the cold war gave a huge boost to solar energy technology. As satelites were powered by solar panels, large amounts of money were invested by both the USA and Russia to make them efficient and durable.

Now a new development is occurring. This change has been partly driven by concern over global warming and partly by a wish to become independent of fuel sources controlled by a few countries such as oil and coal.

Solar Energy is becoming truly commercial. Solar power plants are competing to supply electricity at prices cheaper than coal and nuclear plants.

A few companies have announced that they have broken this major threshold. Nanosolar, a company using thin film photovoltaic technology, has announced that they can now 'print' solar panels.

This make them able to compete directly with more conventional power companies to supply power cheaper. To date they have raised 100 million to build a factory. They have among their investors Google and IBM.

Another very interesting avenue of solar energy is solar thermal energy.

This is different from solar hot water heaters, where hot water is simply heated for domestic use. It is also different from photovoltaic solar energy, where electricity is produced by a molecular reaction in silicon slivers 'cut' with tiny ammounts of boron.

Solar thermal uses reflected and focused sunlight to heat a tube filled with some form of liquid. This heated liquid then powers an engine.

The most efficent engine to date is a Stirling engine. The interesting thing is that a Stirling engine has been around for almost 200 years. It was originally developed in 1816 in Scotland. However, it was not suitable for cars or moving motors as it doesn't accelerate quickly.

The Stirling engine works well for solar thermal however. Most solar thermal power plants use a curved mirror or fresnel lens to concentrate sunlight.

The advantage solar thermal power plants have over nuclear or coal is that they are relatively quick to assemble. (Nuclear power plants take usually 10 years to build.)

This make them even more attractive when building to accomodate growing energy demands. Solar thermal power stations have been built in the deserts of the world - particularly in Australia, USA, Africa, Israel China and India.

In fact India and China are the fastest growing solar energy buyers. This adds a new and interesting flavor to the future of solar energy.

A giant hot tower in the Australian desert - who would've thought?

But that's exactly what Roger Davey of Enviromission is thinking. The Solar tower is planned to provide energy for 200,000 typical Australian households. This will in turn prevent over 900,000 tonnes of greenhouse producing gas.

This very ambitious scheme uses the 'stack effect' to generate electricity. Hot air from the Australian desert sun moves up the tower naturally. It turns turbines located within the tower, which generate electricity.

This project is still in the development stages, however it will certainly be the biggest of its kind ever built.

Is Solar Energy going to save the world?

Is it going to save your power bill?

Where do you think the future of solar energy is going?