A man inspects the solar panels in the solar installation. The cost of solar energy is hundreds of times cheaper than in the 1970s, when scientists doubted whether the technology could be used as an actual energy source.
PODCAST: This kind of renewable energy used to be fringe and futuristic. Now it has become a cheap and efficient energy with shining light. Nevertheless, it remains controversial-for many different reasons.
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This kind of renewable energy used to be fringe and futuristic, but now it has become a cheap and effective energy that shines. Nevertheless, it remains controversial-for many different reasons.
Welcome to known podcasts. What are the limitations of known knowledge? With the passage of time, how will our thinking on major scientific and technological issues evolve? Taking an audio tour in the “Knowledge Magazine” in the “Annual Review”, we explored various problems such as the existence of black holes and how to construct an artificial heart-full of surprises along the way.
How can we understand the future of invention? If a new technology is really new, how can researchers begin to study how it will adapt to the world in the next few years or decades? After all, “Prediction is very difficult, especially for the future.” That sentence comes from Niels Boll. Maybe. No one can confirm.
We know what the technology looks like today, and the situation of solar power generation looks very bright. Solar energy is now the fastest growing renewable energy source. In 2018 alone, nearly 100 GW of solar capacity was installed worldwide. If all of these panels work at maximum capacity at the same time, then it will be more than enough to meet all average electricity needs in Canada. But solar energy has not been soaring all the time. After a few decades, solar energy is still futuristic. So, before we know the future of solar energy, what will the future of solar energy be like? Then the answer is controversial.
not completely. If you have read the first issue of the “Annual Review of Energy” in 1976, you will find an imaginative paper entitled “Solar Energy”. Its summary begins with the following sentence:
As we all know, the inexhaustible energy of the sun has been absorbed on the earth, enough to make an important contribution to the future energy demand of the world.
So far, so familiar. The large amount of energy the earth receives from the sun can still be used as an introduction to today’s solar energy. But then…
…Whether we can now economically collect solar energy and convert it into a form useful to our needs is still uncertain and controversial.
“Uncertain and controversial.” Is the future of this technology really questionable? Yes. Although researchers have used photovoltaic technology to convert light into electricity for 20 years, the applications of these methods are still relatively new. In the 1950s and 1960s, solar energy found its homes on many American and Soviet satellites, while the traditional power supply was very inconvenient. However, despite the progress made in the 1970s, the technology is still considered unrealistic for traditional applications.
Check out “Reset”-an ongoing series that explores how the world navigates the coronavirus pandemic, its consequences, and the way forward.
Kelly Sims Gallagher (Kelly Sims Gallagher): “Indeed, solar power was at that time. You know, it was considered a very advanced remote technology.”
This is Kelly Sims Gallagher (Kelly Sims Gallagher), he has been engaged in energy technology innovation system research for about 20 years, and is now located at the Fletcher School of Tufts University in Massachusetts. Solar energy still seemed “out of reach” in the late 1970s for a reason: the cost was still high: if solar panels were running at full power, it would cost $20 per watt. (Approximately US$90,2021). Therefore, if you want to buy enough solar panels to power a single 60-watt light bulb, you have to shell out today’s $5,000. It is indeed controversial. This is Felix Creutzig of the Mercator Institute of Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin, who studies the role of solar energy in mitigating climate change.
Felix Creutzig: “Forty years ago, it was very expensive. So you really know whether this is a real market-scale technology. So absolutely, it was 40 years ago, it was a controversial technology.”
However, what can be learned from this 1976 paper is much more expensive than solar energy in the past. First, the driving force behind the development of solar energy is different from today.
Although this old paper mentions the “cleanness” of solar energy relative to fossil fuels, it does not have the meaning of climate change as it is now. Although global warming has been studied in the 1970s, it does not seem to have attracted the attention of these researchers because you will not find it here.
As the researchers pointed out today, the paper points out that there are many ways to use solar energy. For example, energy can be captured by a system that converts energy into heat or electricity, such as…
Now, personally, when I think of ocean thermal energy or wind turbines, I don’t necessarily think of “solar energy”. But the research correctly pointed out:
The natural collection of solar energy occurs on the surface of the earth’s land and ocean, which creates wind and weather.
Today, we may not describe these energy sources as “solar energy.” However, it is certain that they did originate from that huge luminous disk in the sky.
So, how is this paper that started by reminding us of the controversy in solar energy? Well, in a surprisingly optimistic tone:
We predict that in a period of time after 2000, solar energy will become one of the most conventional energy sources used in many regions of the world.
The statement may have caused great controversy at the time, but it did not last that long. Only three years later, in 1979, President Jimmy Carter installed 32 solar panels on the roof of the White House. Carter also made a prediction for 2000, saying:
In 2000, the solar water heater behind me (which is in use today) will still provide cheap and efficient energy here.
His government set a goal to account for 20% of American energy by solar power generation by the beginning of this century.
These developments laid the foundation for one of the authors of the 1976 Review to return to the topic of 1981. This review, titled “Solar Technology-Five Years Update”, shows that solar energy has become a great joy for people.
If the United States chooses its energy system by a referendum, then there is no doubt that solar will win easily. The American public even believes that 20 years from now, solar energy will meet most of the energy needs of the United States fast enough. This view is closely related to the development of solar energy technology, and few people even believe it is credible.
In this case, the experts are absolutely right, because the United States is making slow progress in getting rid of its fossil fuel infrastructure. Nearly 40 years later, solar energy still can only meet about 1% of the energy demand of the United States. But this does not mean that the author is full of pessimism.
Nevertheless, the importance of the ultimate contribution of solar energy is still beyond doubt. In the past five years, the development of these technologies should be a long-term long-term commitment, which is a fast start.
So what happened next? Well, long-term commitments are actually more short-term. Five years later, in 1986, Reagan destroyed what he thought was fruitless research on renewable energy. And the solar panels on the roof of the White House are not destined to provide heat for the new century. By 1986, these also disappeared.
Over the next decade, the commitment to the development and deployment of solar energy continued to emerge around the world. In 1996 (20 years after the first paper was published), we discovered new comments about solar energy. The annual energy review has now become the annual review of energy and environment. The title of this review is “Promoting the commercialization of solar power systems.” It’s just that the title shows that the issue of solar potential has changed. Progress has indeed been made:
Between 1976 and 1992, the price of photovoltaic modules dropped tenfold because the cumulative output increased 1,000 times.
Innovation has also improved the efficiency of solar panels and reduced their production costs. But solar energy is still a long way from bargaining.
Calculated at a module price of US$4.00 to US$4.50 per watt, the system cost is about twice that of the latter, and photovoltaic systems are still relatively expensive for grid-connected applications.
Considering these numbers, in 1996, the future of solar energy was still not smooth sailing. Although it was predicted in the commentary two decades ago that solar energy may be one of the conventional energy sources in the world, the ambition of this article is even greater. For example, for a region like the Mediterranean…
At the time, it was difficult to see how solar could compete with other energy sources without substantial subsidies. Nevertheless, the document also recommends that subsidies for fossil fuels should be eliminated, a move that is still being called for by many environmental organizations. The author thinks this will…
Today, the motivation for removing fossil fuel subsidies is completely opposite. We know that we have enough fossil fuels to sustain it for decades to come. This is again Kelly we heard earlier:
Kelly Sims Gallagher (Kelly Sims Gallagher): “That was the peak oil era and the idea that we were going to run out of oil. That was before the shale gas revolution.”
Now, we understand that fossil fuels are so abundant that if we burn all fossil fuels, vast areas of the earth will become too hot, and even human metabolism cannot cope with it. In 1996, the second Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was recently published, which provided evidence that mankind is changing the global climate. But even at this point, global warming is not the main motivation for reviewing solar energy. In fact, the only climate change mentioned in this 1996 study is to point out that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change requires large-scale international cooperation. At that time, people seemed very optimistic about this kind of cooperation.
Well, 21 years have passed since the millennium. With the United Kingdom leaving the European Union and the turbulent relationship between the United States and the Paris Climate Agreement, the Western world seems to have moved away from the concept of global cooperation. But the solar story is much more positive. In the past decade, the use of solar energy has soared, breaking the growth forecast of the International Energy Agency time and time again. Governments around the world have formulated policies to encourage solar energy, and Chinese manufacturers have begun to explore new methods for mass production of panels at low cost.
And the cost has become surprisingly low. Today, the price of some solar panels is only 30 cents per watt, which is about 300 times cheaper than the “controversial” solar panels in 1976. In fact, solar energy is too cheap, and the International Energy Agency recently announced that it is the cheapest electricity in history. As a result, it is rapidly deploying globally. According to the 2019 review entitled “Faster than You Think: Renewable Energy and Developing Countries”,…
Felix Creutzig: “I think this is a great story. Now, it is a technology that can generate electricity on an industrial scale, which is an amazing thing.”
Kelly Sims Gallagher (Kelly Sims Gallagher): “Many people are very pessimistic about wind and solar energy, they are wrong. Therefore, I think we must have confidence in ourselves to make considerable progress in technology .”
What about solar energy next? In order to achieve the world’s recognized climate goals, greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced to zero net value as quickly as possible on a global scale. Ideally after the middle of this century. There is no doubt that solar energy can play a role in this transition, but it is not clear how much its role will be.
So what is the future of solar energy? So, whether solar energy can truly get rid of the shadow of fossil fuels will depend on whether the government continues to promote innovation by encouraging solar energy. Without knowing what the world will do, the answer is still controversial.
Felix Creutzig (Felix Creutzig): “By 2050, photovoltaic power generation will provide 5% or 10% of primary energy, or 40% or 50%, is still controversial. There is a lot of difference between these figures Big gap. The best way is to do this. We can’t predict it, but we can change the trajectory ourselves.”
No matter where you get the podcast, make sure to subscribe to Knowable. Because in the next episode, we review our understanding of memory.
“At that time, there were many, many problems, many theories, and there was not much testing of these theories.”
Don’t miss that episode, it will be released tomorrow. If you like exploring the dazzling solar journey, be sure to leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. It can help more people hear our work. If you have any feedback on this program, please write to us via [Email Protection].
The podcast is produced by Knowledge Magazine of the Annual Review, a news event dedicated to making scientific knowledge accessible to all. Through wise storytelling and sound science, Knowable aims to build understanding and fascination with the world around it. Well-known magazines are free, and always will be. For more information, please visit Knowablemagazine.org
In this episode, you heard letters from Felix Creutzig and Kelly Sims Gallagher. There are also citations for four papers: Frederick H. Morse and Melvin K. Simmons, 1976. Simmons, 1981; Raymond Dracker and Pascal De Laquil III, 1996; and Channing Arndt et al., 2019. I am Adam Levy, and this is well known.
Adam Levy is an atmospheric physicist who realized that they prefer to talk about science rather than study science. They spent more than three years hosting the Nature Podcast and researching the breadth of science around climate change. Twitter: @ClimateAdam
This 1976 article reviewed various methods of using solar energy and assessed the current status of existing methods. It also discusses the economic feasibility of the technologies involved and provides a perspective on the prospects for solar energy in this era.
In 1981, the rapid development of the first half decade gradually weakened. It outlines the great potential of solar technology and points out the high public interest, but retains its predictions, points out market and policy barriers that hinder the widespread adoption of solar energy.
This 1996 retrospective report covered the commercial status of photovoltaic and solar thermal technology, and found extensive technological advances, as well as economic obstacles and public policies that continue to prevent solar energy from becoming mainstream.
In 2019, we will examine how falling costs and rising environmental policies have changed the energy landscape. Many areas in developing countries can directly use cheap and efficient advanced energy technologies, including solar and wind energy.
Thank you for your interest in reposting! The HTML has been pre-formatted to comply with our guidelines, including: note the credit of the author and Knowable Magazine; retain all hyperlinks; include the canonical link to the original article in the article metadata. The text (including the title) of the article is not allowed to be edited without the prior permission of the staff of “Knowledge Magazine”. Photos and illustrations are not included in this license. Please see our complete guide for more information.
PODCAST: This kind of renewable energy used to be fringe and futuristic. Now it has become a cheap and efficient energy with shining light. Nevertheless, it remains controversial-for many different reasons.
This kind of renewable energy used to be fringe and futuristic, but now it has become a cheap and effective energy that shines. Nevertheless, it remains controversial-for many different reasons.
Welcome to known podcasts. What are the limitations of known knowledge? With the passage of time, how will our thinking on major scientific and technological issues evolve? Taking an audio tour in the “Knowledge Magazine” in the “Annual Review”, we explored various problems such as the existence of black holes and how to construct an artificial heart-full of surprises along the way.
How can we understand the future of invention? If a new technology is really new, how can researchers begin to study how it will adapt to the world in the next few years or decades? After all, “Prediction is very difficult, especially for the future.” That sentence comes from Niels Boll. Maybe. No one can confirm.
We know what the technology looks like today, and the situation of solar power generation looks very bright. Solar energy is now the fastest growing renewable energy source. In 2018 alone, nearly 100 GW of solar capacity was installed worldwide. If all of these panels work at maximum capacity at the same time, then it will be more than enough to meet all average electricity needs in Canada. But solar energy has not been soaring all the time. After a few decades, solar energy is still futuristic. So, before we know the future of solar energy, what will the future of solar energy be like? Then the answer is controversial.
not completely. If you have read the first issue of the “Annual Review of Energy” in 1976, you will find an imaginative paper entitled “Solar Energy”. Its summary begins with the following sentence:
As we all know, the inexhaustible energy of the sun has been absorbed on the earth, enough to make an important contribution to the future energy demand of the world.
So far, so familiar. The large amount of energy the earth receives from the sun can still be used as an introduction to today’s solar energy. But then…
…Whether we can now economically collect solar energy and convert it into a form useful to our needs is still uncertain and controversial.
“Uncertain and controversial.” Is the future of this technology really questionable? Yes. Although researchers have used photovoltaic technology to convert light into electricity for 20 years, the applications of these methods are still relatively new. In the 1950s and 1960s, solar energy found its homes on many American and Soviet satellites, while the traditional power supply was very inconvenient. However, despite the progress made in the 1970s, the technology is still considered unrealistic for traditional applications.
Kelly Sims Gallagher (Kelly Sims Gallagher): “Indeed, solar power was at that time. You know, it was considered a very advanced remote technology.”
This is Kelly Sims Gallagher (Kelly Sims Gallagher), he has been engaged in energy technology innovation system research for about 20 years, and is now located at the Fletcher School of Tufts University in Massachusetts. Solar energy still seemed “out of reach” in the late 1970s for a reason: the cost was still high: if solar panels were running at full power, it would cost $20 per watt. (Approximately US$90,2021). Therefore, if you want to buy enough solar panels to power a single 60-watt light bulb, you have to shell out today’s $5,000. It is indeed controversial. This is Felix Creutzig of the Mercator Institute of Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin, who studies the role of solar energy in mitigating climate change.
Felix Creutzig: “Forty years ago, it was very expensive. So you really know whether this is a real market-scale technology. So absolutely, it was 40 years ago, it was a controversial technology.”
However, what can be learned from this 1976 paper is much more expensive than solar energy in the past. First, the driving force behind the development of solar energy is different from today.
Although this old paper mentions the “cleanness” of solar energy relative to fossil fuels, it does not have the meaning of climate change as it is now. Although global warming has been studied in the 1970s, it does not seem to have attracted the attention of these researchers because you will not find it here.
As the researchers pointed out today, the paper points out that there are many ways to use solar energy. For example, energy can be captured by a system that converts energy into heat or electricity, such as…
Now, personally, when I think of ocean thermal energy or wind turbines, I don’t necessarily think of “solar energy”. But the research correctly pointed out:
The natural collection of solar energy occurs on the surface of the earth’s land and ocean, which creates wind and weather.
Today, we may not describe these energy sources as “solar energy.” However, it is certain that they did originate from that huge luminous disk in the sky.
So, how is this paper that started by reminding us of the controversy in solar energy? Well, in a surprisingly optimistic tone:
We predict that in a period of time after 2000, solar energy will become one of the most conventional energy sources used in many regions of the world.
The statement may have caused great controversy at the time, but it did not last that long. Only three years later, in 1979, President Jimmy Carter installed 32 solar panels on the roof of the White House. Carter also made a prediction for 2000, saying:
In 2000, the solar water heater behind me (which is in use today) will still provide cheap and efficient energy here.
His government set a goal to account for 20% of American energy by solar power generation by the beginning of this century.
These developments laid the foundation for one of the authors of the 1976 Review to return to the topic of 1981. This review, titled “Solar Technology-Five Years Update”, shows that solar energy has become a great joy for people.
If the United States chooses its energy system by a referendum, then there is no doubt that solar will win easily. The American public even believes that 20 years from now, solar energy will meet most of the energy needs of the United States fast enough. This view is closely related to the development of solar energy technology, and few people even believe it is credible.
In this case, the experts are absolutely right, because the United States is making slow progress in getting rid of its fossil fuel infrastructure. Nearly 40 years later, solar energy still can only meet about 1% of the energy demand of the United States. But this does not mean that the author is full of pessimism.
Nevertheless, the importance of the ultimate contribution of solar energy is still beyond doubt. In the past five years, the development of these technologies should be a long-term long-term commitment, which is a fast start.
So what happened next? Well, long-term commitments are actually more short-term. Five years later, in 1986, Reagan destroyed what he thought was fruitless research on renewable energy. And the solar panels on the roof of the White House are not destined to provide heat for the new century. By 1986, these also disappeared.
Over the next decade, the commitment to the development and deployment of solar energy continued to emerge around the world. In 1996 (20 years after the first paper was published), we discovered new comments about solar energy. The annual energy review has now become the annual review of energy and environment. The title of this review is “Promoting the commercialization of solar power systems.” It’s just that the title shows that the issue of solar potential has changed. Progress has indeed been made:
Between 1976 and 1992, the price of photovoltaic modules dropped tenfold because the cumulative output increased 1,000 times.
Innovation has also improved the efficiency of solar panels and reduced their production costs. But solar energy is still a long way from bargaining.
Calculated at a module price of US$4.00 to US$4.50 per watt, the system cost is about twice that of the latter, and photovoltaic systems are still relatively expensive for grid-connected applications.
Considering these numbers, in 1996, the future of solar energy was still not smooth sailing. Although it was predicted in the commentary two decades ago that solar energy may be one of the conventional energy sources in the world, the ambition of this article is even greater. For example, for a region like the Mediterranean…
At the time, it was difficult to see how solar could compete with other energy sources without substantial subsidies. Nevertheless, the document also recommends that subsidies for fossil fuels should be eliminated, a move that is still being called for by many environmental organizations. The author thinks this will…
Today, the motivation for removing fossil fuel subsidies is completely opposite. We know that we have enough fossil fuels to sustain it for decades to come. This is again Kelly we heard earlier:
Kelly Sims Gallagher (Kelly Sims Gallagher): “That was the peak oil era and the idea that we were going to run out of oil. That was before the shale gas revolution.”
Now, we understand that fossil fuels are so abundant that if we burn all fossil fuels, vast areas of the earth will become too hot, and even human metabolism cannot cope with it. In 1996, the second Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was recently published, which provided evidence that mankind is changing the global climate. But even at this point, global warming is not the main motivation for reviewing solar energy. In fact, the only climate change mentioned in this 1996 study is to point out that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change requires large-scale international cooperation. At that time, people seemed very optimistic about this kind of cooperation.
Well, 21 years have passed since the millennium. With the United Kingdom leaving the European Union and the turbulent relationship between the United States and the Paris Climate Agreement, the Western world seems to have moved away from the concept of global cooperation. But the solar story is much more positive. In the past decade, the use of solar energy has soared, breaking the growth forecast of the International Energy Agency time and time again. Governments around the world have formulated policies to encourage solar energy, and Chinese manufacturers have begun to explore new methods for mass production of panels at low cost.
And the cost has become surprisingly low. Today, the price of some solar panels is only 30 cents per watt, which is about 300 times cheaper than the “controversial” solar panels in 1976. In fact, solar energy is too cheap, and the International Energy Agency recently announced that it is the cheapest electricity in history. As a result, it is rapidly deploying globally. According to the 2019 review entitled “Faster than You Think: Renewable Energy and Developing Countries”,…
Felix Creutzig: “I think this is a great story. Now, it is a technology that can generate electricity on an industrial scale, which is an amazing thing.”
Kelly Sims Gallagher (Kelly Sims Gallagher): “Many people are very pessimistic about wind and solar energy, they are wrong. Therefore, I think we must have confidence in ourselves to make considerable progress in technology .”
What about solar energy next? In order to achieve the world’s recognized climate goals, greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced to zero net value as quickly as possible on a global scale. Ideally after the middle of this century. There is no doubt that solar energy can play a role in this transition, but it is not clear how much its role will be.
So what is the future of solar energy? So, whether solar energy can truly get rid of the shadow of fossil fuels will depend on whether the government continues to promote innovation by encouraging solar energy. Without knowing what the world will do, the answer is still controversial.
Felix Creutzig (Felix Creutzig): “By 2050, photovoltaic power generation will provide 5% or 10% of primary energy, or 40% or 50%, is still controversial. There is a lot of difference between these figures Big gap. The best way is to do this. We can’t predict it, but we can change the trajectory ourselves.”
No matter where you get the podcast, make sure to subscribe to Knowable. Because in the next episode, we review our understanding of memory.
“At that time, there were many, many problems, many theories, and there was not much testing of these theories.”
Don’t miss that episode, it will be released tomorrow. If you like exploring the dazzling solar journey, be sure to leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. It can help more people hear our work. If you have any feedback on the show, please send an email to podcast@knowablemagazine.org.
The podcast is produced by Knowledge Magazine of the Annual Review, a news event dedicated to making scientific knowledge accessible to all. Through wise storytelling and sound science, Knowable aims to build understanding and fascination with the world around it. Well-known magazines are free, and always will be. For more information, please visit Knowablemagazine.org
In this episode, you heard letters from Felix Creutzig and Kelly Sims Gallagher. There are also citations for four papers: Frederick H. Morse and Melvin K. Simmons, 1976. Simmons, 1981; Raymond Dracker and Pascal De Laquil III, 1996; and Channing Arndt et al., 2019. I am Adam Levy, and this is well known.
Check out “Reset”-an ongoing series that explores how the world navigates the coronavirus pandemic, its consequences, and the way forward.
Adam Levy is an atmospheric physicist who realized that they prefer to talk about science rather than study science. They spent more than three years hosting the Nature Podcast and researching the breadth of science around climate change. Twitter: @ClimateAdam
This article was originally published in “Journal of Knowledge”, the independent journalism work of “Journal of the Year.” Subscribe to the newsletter.
“Famous Magazine” comes from “Annual Review”, a non-profit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge to promote scientific progress and social well-being.