A Blip on the Sun Screen

I was trying to catch up on my reading this week, working my way through a pile of recent National Geographic magazines when one article just jumped out ahead of all the others. In the September 2009 issue, which I had previously missed, "Plugging into the Sun" was one of the lead articles. As the magazine is without peer, it scoured the globe and in getting all examples of that it could, from the Southwestern deserts, to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, to solar fields in Spain, to rooftops in Germany. And lots of interesting info for the general reader about parabolic troughs, PV, feed-in tariffs and renewable energy mandates.

There was even an interesting, and in a way, amusing quote about the sun, "Every hour, it floods the earth with a deluge of thermal energy equal to 21 billion tons of coal." Amusing, because that appeared in another publication in 1953. And if true then, it was true in the 1970s when solar briefly ascended during the energy crisis, and it's true today. The question is if there is more staying power this time, which the industry insists it has as prices continue to decline. But there have been blips, especially in recent months.

It was readily apparent that the legwork for National Geographic was done mostly in the fall of 2008, before the worldwide impacts of the financial crisis, and most important to this story, policies shifted in Europe, and module prices crashed due to oversupply. Consider, also, that in recent months the environmental objections faced in the Southwest have moved from a probable annoyance to an outright project-killer in many instances, including for companies that are mentioned in the article. Venture capital dropped precipitously in 2009, according to preliminary estimates by the Cleantech Group, by some 64 percent. It is still the largest single sector, securing $2.1 billion last year.

At the same time, solar conferences are setting attendance records, so the interest has never been higher. State mandates, including those with solar carve-outs, are coming due. A national renewable standard, while temporarily dormant, is still percolating in Washington. Investments, while down, are still measured in the billions. And wind can't possibly fulfill all those requirements for renewable energy at the state levels in a timely manner, no matter how hard it tries.

So the question now is if the recent woes are just a blip on the screen or will become larger impediments to widespread adoption. After all, the sun isn't going anywhere.

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