Monday, November 12, 2007

Solar Energy On the Rising Edge


Sun Rises on Solar Energy
According to Credit Suisse, The heat is on solar energy these days as concern about global warming and rising oil prices prompts more countries to launch programs to promote solar power. In doing so, they are helping this relatively young industry to boost innovation and achieve growth rates of which other sectors can only dream.
Although it is estimated that enough solar energy reaches the surface of the earth in less than two hours, to satisfy the entire energy needs of the world’s population for a full year. But so far we have only managed to use about 0.1% of that energy by converting through solar cells. Therefore The potential for generation of energy, growing business enveloping the phenomenon is vast. Taking in the adoption by major political powers to be energy independent.

The US is also getting serious about the sun. At the state level, California leads the pack, having just made 3 billion US dollars available to support solar installations.

The most progressive nation in Asia is South Korea, which promotes the construction of solar energy plants with low-interest loans and guarantees a payment of 0.58 euros per kWh for 15 years.

Meanwhile in Japan, which currently accounts for 17 percent of solar energy installations worldwide, solar power hardly attracts further subsidies. Against a backdrop of generally high electricity prices, however, demand remains steady, especially as solar plants can be integrated cost-effectively into new-build homes.

Also the new direction of technology and research aids us in reaching our goals according to Credit Suisse article published today. The Nobel Prize-winning invention of conductive polymers paved the way for organic solar cells that can be produced from cheap, flexible plastic and wound around structures or even painted on. Their low resistance to ultraviolet (UV) light and rel-atively low efficiency have so far proved to be drawbacks, although US scientists recently achieved an efficiency of 5.2 percent. What’s more, in the future ultra-thin nanotechnology based structures from new types of materials should make it possible to produce windows which can generate electricity.
Artificial photosynthesis is another exciting development. Here, light is used first to ionize organic molecules before the electrical charge that this generates is passed to a cathode or anode.

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