I'm not exactly an energy policy wonk. So this semester I am sitting in on a very cool MIT course, the Physics of Energy, to try to strengthen my background in this area. I can't transform all the equations they show on the board, but in terms of policy outlook, the class certainly seems to reinforce what I've already heard from a lot of other places. And so in honor of the Energy forum Discover is now sponsoring (eyes right, see sidebar), I thought I'd weigh in on the big picture version of what I'm learning. Clearly, fossil fuels have got to be phased out, as quickly as possible. In terms of filling the gap, you then contemplate wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, nuclear, and so on--and the source with by far the greatest potential, and the fewest downsides, seems to be solar. There is a place for all of the others, of course. But nothing can ultimately compare to harnessing the central energy source into the planet for our own purposes. As I learned in the Physics of Energy, every 47 minutes, the sun delivers enough energy to power all of our societies for a year--if it could be harnessed, anyways. To power the entire United States, meanwhile, one would theoretically need a solar array whose surface area is just a small fraction of the total size of Nevada--assuming the solar panels were 100 percent efficient, anyway. They aren't even close to that; but the point is, the potential here is massive. The problem to get higher efficiency and lower cost for solar energy is technological in nature; but the potential upside is incredible--which seems to suggest that California did the right thing with a recent bill to promote solar. Or am I missing something?
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