The Coming Energy Crisis and Solar Sources

Abstract

The nature of the present (pseudo) and coming (real) energy crises have been indicated. Recent evidence suggests that pollutive dangers from nuclear fission plants are far greater than had been thought. The resuscitation on a large scale of coal as an energy source would give pollutive dangers, including climatic changes due to excess carbon dioxide.Solar energy systems, earlier impossibly expensive, are now predicted to have the same capital cost-range as have nuclear reactors. Cheap, high-purity silicon coatings which adsorb at <10–4 cm but do not emit at >10–4 cm, thin-film photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, and photosynthesis, are areas of immediate solar energy research interest.Roof-top energy collection may be a permanent part of the future, but will not avoid the necessity of large ‘solar farms’ to collect energy for industry and transportation. Storage should be in the form of hydrogen: there are advantages in developing cheap hydrogen as a general and clean fuel, for transportation and other purposes.