I’m here at the Aspen Environment Forum where big thinkers from all around the world have gathered to discuss climate change. It’s warm and sunny; curious considering it’s still ski season. Weather like this, of course, brings about the obvious remarks on global warming. And those casual comments can be easily discarded. But when the scientists put on their mad caps and the pinwheels begin to spin as their brains heat up, it’s hard to ignore their findings.
Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT, told us last night that it takes 12 terawatts to power all man’s uses on the planet annually. And that number will grow…to 14, 16 terawatts during this lifetime. There’s only one solution, he says, that will create enough energy to fulfill that power demand: solar. Don’t be fooled, he says, into believing otherwise. Run the numbers, as he did, as you see that he’s right. Wind, hydro, nuclear — all the alternatives just don’t add up. That is in any rational sense.
Nocera says the whole scientific community is banding around the solar solution. He personally is looking for a photovoltaic solution, which he explained would essentially make a dead source alive by empowering it with the ability to photosynthesize. “It would be a reverse fuel cell,” he says.
All this powered by solar to replace our reliance on fossil fuel production because it’s no longer a sustainable form of energy — nevermind the environmental consequences. To that end, David Sandalow, director of the environment and energy project at the Brookings Institution commented that every one will be driving plug-in hybrids in the future.If their power source could be solar, we’d wipe fully one-third of fossil fuel energy use away in the US alone. Considering the US uses 25% of the world’s energy supply, that’s one terawatt down…11 to go.
They’re still thinking…
