Here Comes the Sun

The United States has a choice. It can continue relying upon an increasingly scarce source of energy, one that is rapidly creating massive climate instability, or it can invest now in the biggest energy hedge ever conceived. By investing now, Americans can essentially fix the price of energy for generations and become free from the Middle East oil stranglehold.

The U.S. desert Southwest sits on – or perhaps more accurately, under – a massive and never-ending energy resource, free for the taking. It’s time to create a partnership between the federal government, the desert Southwestern states and private industry to build the largest solar energy power system in the history of the world.

Such an undertaking will require a massive investment, but will pay enormous benefits. It would create the ultimate energy hedge, fixing the cost of energy for decades and providing affordable energy at a stable price for the nation. It would employ tens of thousands of workers. Nevada alone has enough public land suitable for photovoltaic and solar thermal generation to provide all the electrical needs for the entire country. All we need is the will to do it.

In 1976, when we established a solar energy technology training program at what is now the College of Southern Nevada, solar technology was primitive and expensive. The best we could do cost effectively was heat hot water and swimming pools, technology dating back to at least first century Rome. Now the cost of solar electrical production has come down to a factor of about 10, while increasing mass production promises that would do for photovoltaic and thermal generating systems what it did for laptop computers. So what are we waiting for?

Industry analysts say photovoltaic energy production is near parity with other sources, even without any government subsidy. Solar thermal electric generation such as Ausra’s innovative Fresnel reflective concentrator technology may further drive down the cost of solar electric production.

Of course, the sun doesn't shine all the time, so storage of energy is a critical factor to the viability of solar energy production. However, storage of solar-produced energy for night usage is becoming increasingly economical. A recent breakthrough in an inexpensive chemical catalyst by MIT researchers, for example, now permits electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen at or near 100 percent efficiency.

The stored hydrogen can run generators or power fuel cells. In addition to providing a means for storing day-time generation for night-time usage, hydrogen production promises to open the use of solar energy for transportation by driving vehicles powered by hydrogen. Battery and super capacitor technology for electric vehicles similarly continues to improve in energy density and cost.

By contrast, nuclear generation, touted as a greenhouse gas killer, is nowhere near cost-effective when government subsidies are counted in the cost.

The Price Anderson Act alone, under which taxpayers would pay almost all the damages resulting from a nuclear accident, represents an estimated subsidy of $366 million to $3.5 billion annually, or upwards of $3.5 trillion every decade. And the hard cost of long-term storage and disposal of nuclear waste, even if no additional plants are built, is projected by the U.S. Department of Energy at just under $1 trillion in 2007 dollars. Given the questionable suitability of Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a disposal site, that cost is likely to increase dramatically.

Our nation needs to launch a bold initiative to turn our massive Southwest deserts into energy collectors. We need to plant the seed, reinvest profits to continuously expand the solar arrays and eventually power the entire nation, all without emitting any carbon dioxide.

Moreover, if the Southwestern states put their full faith and credit behind a “Southwest Solar North Slope” development project, they could be reaping huge financial benefits forever, unlike Alaska’s finite and fast-depleting oil resource.

The numbers are clear. The desert states can produce all the electricity the country needs without generating any pollution. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that it would take about the same land area now used for national defense to generate 10 to 20 percent of all our electrical needs (about 50 to 100 peak terawatts) from solar photovoltaics by 2065. As the array grows, power generation would increasingly subsidize its further expansion. Moreover, as the capacity expands, we can use the incremental growth of power to electrolyze hydrogen and oxygen from water and thus fuel a gradually modified fleet of cars, trucks, trains and aircraft. That will take perhaps upward of 10 percent of our gross domestic product over a finite period of time. By comparison, the U.S. spent about 4 percent of its GDP on military expenditures in 2005. Once the infrastructure is in place, it will continue to produce all our energy needs for the indefinite future.

Of course, there will be huge technical and economic challenges. Some esoteric materials now used to manufacture photovoltaic panels may be in limited supply. This may weigh in favor of solar thermal generating systems. Mining of copper and aluminum will have to be expanded dramatically. The footprint of an array will have ecological impacts that will need to be mitigated. But as a society, we must weigh the relative importance of preserving our pristine deserts exactly as they are against the dramatic improvement in atmospheric stability, national security and economic development. Climate change ought to trump preserving the Nevada nuclear test site.

If we get caught up in petty squabbling and turf wars, it won't happen. Therefore, governors, legislators, congressmen, senators, political candidates and industry leaders, hear my words: We can do this now or we can wait a decade or two and complain that we should have done this when it first became clear that we could. But by then, it may be too late. This is no longer a pipe dream.

One need only visit the 64-megawatt solar thermal generating plant outside Boulder City, Nev., or the 14-megawatt photovoltaic array at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas to see what can be done today. To some extent, the federal government needs only to get out of the way and open federal land for solar development.

A New Apollo Program

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy pronounced that we would put men on the moon in a decade. At the time, we had not even put a person into orbit. But we spent $25 billion (about $174 billion in 2007 dollars) to not only put men on the moon, we employed 400,000 Americans and fired off the biggest burst of creative scientific innovation and development in the history of the planet. It is time for that kind of national will once again. The desert Southwest is uniquely situated to be the center of that universe.

By creating incentives for investment, removing barriers to solar development and providing subsidies to truly level the playing field with fossil fuel and nuclear generation, federal and state governments can launch the biggest burst of economic development since World War II, transforming our energy infrastructure into a self-sufficient system free of foreign sources, free of greenhouse gases and at a stable price for generations.

This inarguably bold alternate energy juggernaut will create investment opportunities on par with the dawn of solid-state electronics. All the pieces of the puzzle are now in place. It is a matter of collectively deciding that it is indeed the time.

*Footnotes