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Last week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) sounded the alarm bells that unless the necessary investments are made, we’ll be facing a disastrous oil supply crunch in 2013with extremely negative implications for the global economy. Evidently, the only way we can maintain our energy-intensive lifestyle is to shift to renewable energies. Christophe de Margerie, CEO of European oil company Total, recently said that global oil production will never ever exceed 89 million barrels a day. The IEA projects that global oil consumption will be way above 90 million barrels a day by 2012 (the IEA projects 95.8 million barrels a day by 2012 as they expect global oil demand to expand 2.2% a year) , though accurate predictions are hard to make due to great uncertainty about when major economies recover. While we’ll have to tap all sources of energy we know to meet future energy demand, solar energy is definitely the most promising way to generate electricity.

“If the unpopulated areas of the Sahara were covered with solar panels, 630 terrawatts of energy would be generated. The Earth’s current energy consumption is below 14 terrawatts at any given moment. This shows that the Sahara region could become the global power hub in the future. This is the only way to supply enough energy to meet the soaring demand for energy at an affordable price without polluting the environment. And electricity can be easily transformed into other forms of energy and has the widest range of applications. Besides, the infrastructure is already existent in most parts of the earth.” (from http://economatters.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/mediterranean-union-will-feature-flagship-initiatives-such-as-solar-energy-development-in-sunny-north-africa/)

The Arizona-based Solar module manufacturer First Solar announced a breakthrough in manufacturing costs last week. The company has broken the $1 per watt barrier in manufacturing costs. It has produced modules which cost 98 cents per watt in the last quarter of 2008. That’s close to the point where solar power is competitive with fossil fuels. Especially in sunny areas, solar is now a good alternative to other ways of generating electricity which makes sense economically and benefits the environment. Ken Zweibel - director of the Institute for the Analysis of Solar Energy at the George Washington University - said: “This represents a major milestone for the solar industry. In order to address climate change in a meaningful way, we need energy technologies that are affordable, scalable and have a low environmental impact on a life-cycle basis.”
First Solar expects the cost per watt to come down further in coming years while solar modules will become even more efficient. The enormous progress going on in the solar power industry can be seen by comparing today’s 98 cents per watt with the manufacturing costs four years ago: $3 per watt. First Solar aims at reducing manufacturing costs to 65 or 70 cents per watt until 2012. With energy being one of Obama’s top three priorities, the age of sustainable and affordable energy can begin.

New Solar Power Breakthrough: First Solar crosses $1 per watt barrier

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 7:32 AM and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.