We are entering a new solar age. For the last few hundred years humans
have been using up fossil fuels that took around 400 million years to form
and store underground. We must now put huge effort – technological and
political – into energy systems that use the Sun ’ s energy more directly. It
is one of the most inspiring challenges facing today ’ s engineers and scientists
and a worthwhile career path for the next generation. Photovoltaics
(PV), the subject of this book, is one of the exciting new technologies that
is already helping us towards a solar future.
Most politicians and policymakers agree that a massive redirection of
energy policy is essential if Planet Earth is to survive the 21st century in
reasonable shape. This is not simply a matter of fuel reserves. It has become
clear that, even if those reserves were unlimited, we could not continue to
burn them with impunity. The resulting carbon dioxide emissions and
increased global warming would almost certainly lead to a major environmental
crisis. So the danger is now seen as a double - edged sword: on the
one side, fossil fuel depletion; on the other, the increasing inability of the
natural world to absorb emissions caused by burning what fuel remains.
Back in the 1970s there was very little public discussion about energy
sources. In the industrialised world we had become used to the idea that
electricity is generated in large centralised power stations, often out of
sight as well as mind, and distributed to factories, offi ces, and homes by a
grid system with far - reaching tentacles. Few people had any idea how the