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As the exorbitant financial, social and environmental costs of America's addiction to fossil fuels becomes more and more obvious, solar power systems are looking better and better all the time. But many voices in government, the media and the business world continue to insist that solar electricity is a pipe dream. At best it might provide a few extra kilowatts here and there, but it will never replace coal and oil. Aside from considering the source (after all, Exxon-Mobil made the largest profits last year in the history of capitalism, yet not only paid no taxes, but actually received a refund from the IRS), how accurate are these claims? Can enough solar electricity ever be generated to replace fossil-fuel-generated power and make us truly energy independent? The Industrial World Leaves America Behind The rest of the world believes it, and in fact most average Americans believe it. But while Congress bows under the pressure of corporate lobbyists, Europe and China are forging ahead with the development of solar power systems and other forms of renewable energy. Solar power may not be able to completely replace fossil fuels in the foreseeable future - at least not without supplementary forms of alternative energy – but it will be a large part of the solution, and that part is getting bigger every day. The Challenges One of the problems is that American energy policy has resulted in artificially low consumer prices for oil; the price that people pay at the pump (whether its gasoline or heating oil) represents a fraction of the true cost. And while power plants are still paying bargain-basement prices for coal, the real costs for this dirtiest of all fuels are huge (ask the families of those miners who died for Massey Energy profits last spring – as well as those who suffer from respiratory illnesses and mercury poisoning). The bottom line is that until now, solar panels have been so expensive that they are not competitive with oil. However, two fairly recent innovations are promising to change that part of the equation. One of these is known as CIGS – Copper, Indium, Gallium and Selenium. This is a material that can be used to replace the silicon that is normally used to absorb sunlight, which is then converted into solar electricity. According to Martin Roscheisen, who first developed CIGS, this material will lower the cost of building solar power systems by as much as 90%. Another up-and-coming technology is a "spray-on" solar cell, which may be used to power a range of electrical devices, and eventually may be more efficient than conventional photovoltaics by as much as 500%. The bad news is that right now, solar energy research is getting only a fraction of the subsidies that Big Oil does. New green energy initiatives are beginning to change this, but there is still a long road ahead for solar energy and other alternatives to coal and gas.
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