Solar energy 'could fuel the world'
Solar energy 'could fuel the world'
2008-04-07Newsfeed
Solar energy could provide all the world's power but it may take at least 10 years of intensive research to make costs competitive with petroleum, an expert has warned.
Solar energy could provide all the world's power but it may take at least 10 years of intensive research to make costs competitive with petroleum, an expert has warned.
Professor Harry Gray of the California Institute of Technology is seeking ways of transforming the industrialised world from one powered by fossil fuels to one powered by sunlight.
He told the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in New Orleans: "Solar can potentially provide all the electricity and fuel we need to power the planet.
"The Holy Grail of solar research is to use sunlight efficiently and directly to 'split' water into its elemental constituents - hydrogen and oxygen - and then use the hydrogen as a clean fuel."
The professor cited the vast potential of solar energy, noting that more energy from sunlight strikes the Earth in one hour than all of the energy consumed on the planet in one year.
He said the single biggest challenge was reducing costs so that a large-scale shift away from coal, natural gas and other non-renewable sources of electricity made economic sense.
Copyright © The Press Association 2008
