Where I live, in Utah, the sun is often intense, which makes our state a great fit for solar power. In this edition, we will look at the past and future of solar power, contrasting solar power's rapid development with how global warming (the same solar heat but trapped in the atmosphere) is melting ice sheets and glaciers.
While preparing this edition, I was amazed by how solar technology has been developed by scientists, inventors, and industrialists from various countries, including France, Russia, the USA, and China. If history is any indication, any nation can join the solar revolution.
Rasoul Sorkhabi
Editor, Core Elements
The Dawn of the Solar Age
Bombermoon/Shutterstock.com
In 1954, scientists at AT&T’s Bell Labs invented the silicon solar cell. A recent issue of The Economist celebrates this 70th anniversary by looking at the phenomenal growth of solar power.
Other solar milestones:
In 1839, Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect. He observed that an electrical current could be generated when a metal plate and electrolyte were linked by sunlight.
In 1888 Aleksandr Stoletov invented the first photovoltaic cell.
The 1970s energy crisis gave a new impetus to the solar energy industry. Elliot Berman, with financial support from Exxon, designed a much cheaper solar cell, reducing the price from $100 per watt to $20 per watt.
Solar engineering 101:
A photovoltaic cell is a square piece of silicon 182 millimeters on each side and about one fifth of a millimeter thick, with thin wires on the front side and an electric contact on the back.
When sunlight shines on it, an electric potential (voltage) is produced across the silicon—hence, “photovoltaic (PV).”
Solar modules (panels) are sheets of glass that sandwich 60 to 70 solar cells together.
Resources needed for solar power are simple: silicon-rich sand, sunshine, and human will.
In 2024, about 70 billion solar cells have been manufactured. Most of them are made in China.
In 2023, Chinese firms manufactured 93 percent of the world’s polysilicon for solar cells.
Recent and rapid developments:
In 2023, solar panels covered nearly 10,000 square kilometers and produced about 1,600 terawatt-hours of electricity—that is about 6 percent of the world’s electricity and just over 1 percent of the world’s primary-energy use.
This 1 percent may seem to be trivial, but consider:
In 2004, it took one year to install one gigawatt of solar power capacity. In 2010, it took one month; in 2016, it took one week; and in 2023, it took a single day.
This rapid growth rate is promising for solar power, because greater supply drives down cost, which increases demand, which forces companies to ramp up production.
The positive feedback between these factors could be a driving force for growth of solar power on a global scale.
The bottom line: The Economist’s concludes that the growth of solar power will be based largely on such economic propositions, not “some environmentalist fever dream.”
Go deeper: The Economist’s special feature on the solar age was published during the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. For similar coverage of solar power history, read this article in Smithsonian Magazine.
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The July–August issue of The Atlantic is a special issue on climate change. I selected one article to share here: It is about glacial melting, fascinating geographies, and new developments in studying glaciers.
Cryosphere: Earth’s frozen waters—the cryosphere—are situated in
Antarctica (86%), Greenland (13%), and mountain valley glaciers (1%).
Mountain valley glaciers are controlled by the perpetual snow line, which varies based on latitude and altitude (For example, it’s 19,340 feet on Kilimanjaro in Africa).
East Antarctica broke up from Gondwana 180 Ma and moved south. After the continent positioned itself in the South Pole and was surrounded by an ocean, glaciation began at about 34 Ma and grew to a continuous ice cover by 20 Ma.
West Antarctica joined the cryosphere much later at 7 Ma.
Greenland had glaciers for the past 18 million years but only at 2.6 Ma, when the Quaternary Ice Age in the Northern Hemisphere began, did a single ice sheet cover most of the island.
A satellite for glaciers:
Ross Anderson, an Atlantic editor, was invited by University of Washington glaciologist Ian Joughin to join his team’s Greenland expedition. Joughin lead the NISAR’s cryosphere team.
NISAR, short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, is a satellite project between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization that will launch in 2025.
NISAR will use an advanced radar system to collect data on shrinking glaciers and other global vital signs.
Anderson and Joughin’s team visited Greenland in March to drill holes and implant poles topped by a solar-powered GPS receiver for NISAR.
Why it matters: Glaciologists have long reported that mountain valley glaciers and some polar ice caps are melting and shrinking with adverse impacts such as flooding, sea-level rise, and seawater salinity.
NISAR will be the first satellite to monitor these phenomena.
Go deeper: Read the full article online and watch this YouTube clip on NISAR.
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