It has always been intuitive that sunlight could provide an unlimited source of power, but it was only discoveries in the 1940s from the Bell Laboratories that this became a serious prospect (i.e., development of the solar cell that could convert sunlight directly into electricity).
It is worth noting that demand for solar innovation in subsequent years has come from multiple sources, but it has never been quite enough to fulfill hopes of unlimited energy that is too cheap to meter (despite intermittent efforts that stimulated demand, see table at end, policy has vacillated).
What is interesting about solar is the innovation gets boiled down to one remarkable graph, the NREL research cell efficiency chart.
Solar looks (and is) very different than another means of generating electricity, nuclear energy (for a start, it is not a weapon, outside of the fictional world of super-villains with solar ray guns). Here are some comparisons:
- Both based on high-tech discoveries made in mid-twentieth century in the US, and fundamental physics (albeit PV presumably has shared lineage with semi-conductors & the physics of silicon, rather than with nuclear physics).
- Dependent on low-cost extraction of mineral feed-stocks – under atrocious conditions. Solar reference: Church and Crawdord, 2018, Green Conflict Minerals; in regard to nuclear, the importance of uranium extracted by an Anglo-Belgium firm, Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, in the Congo (with political consequences).
- State actions crucial; portrayal, culturally, of both solar and nuclear devices as key to the high tech future; modern and progressive (a certain number of myths and realities, of course).
- The solar story, perhaps like nuclear, seems often to privilege individual agency from ‘legendary’ figures, e.g., the Chinese-born scientist, Shi Zhengrong, also known as ‘The Sun King’.
- Possibly a slight mystique about both nuclear and solar PV devices in the way they tame natural forces (neutrons and photons). There is little mystique by contrast around wind and gas turbines – mechanical devices.
- ‘Subsidization’ of solar by low-cost, unlicensed recycling processes for electronic components. I think the scale of this is currently very small for solar (most of the electronic components hale from computers, not solar panels). But there is certainly discussion about it. Any parallels, perhaps, in the widespread abuse of indigenous peoples and land rights in nuclear testing programs, historically-speaking?
Looking at discussions today, solar is without doubt a complex cultural and political entity that creates some interesting combinations. These play out e.g. in debates over whether the future is giant solar farms, or roof-top solar panels (the former in which the corporation is paramount; the latter in which individual householders have greater agency).
Sources of demand for solar photovoltaic innovation
| Era | Source(s) of demand |
|---|---|
| 1950s-1960s | Requirement for electricity on satellites; customers are US Air Force and NASA |
| 1960s-1980s | A harbor buoy, calculators, satellites, etc. (Japan) |
| 1970s | US government policy responses to oil crisis, e.g., creation of NREL (1977); Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) & Energy Tax Acts (1978). Possibly Japanese government responses, e.g., Project Sunshine (1974) |
| 1977 | California state legislation under the PURPA granting tax breaks for installing solar panels. |
| 1980s | Oil companies – solar powered navigation and power sources for oil facilities in Gulf of Mexico (70% of all solar modules sold in USA) |
| 1980s | West Coast marijuana growers with lots of money |
| 1990s | Japanese government policy to promote rooftop solar, e.g., Ten Thousand Roofs Program (1994) and Law on Special Measures to Promote Use of New Energies (1997) |
Three Chinese inventions that had a big impact
| Innovation | Significance | Innovation story |
|---|---|---|
| Low-cost manufacturing of silicon solar panels and LEDs | Production in Chinese factories facilitated low-carbon energy systems around the world. | A mix of green subsidies in Europe, favourable Chinese government policy, and the efforts of individual scientists and business people, raised hopes of decarbonization.* |
| The antimalarial medicine qinghaosu | Studies of ancient herbal medicines by Tu Youyou, et al., uncovered an antimalarial drug with positive effects on public health. | Scepticism among health officials, low profitability, and probably other factors, slowed acceptance of the medicine for many years until medical necessity (biological resistance to alternative drugs) intervened. |
| Hybrid rice biotechnology | New hybrid rice varieties + plant breeding methods improved food security.† | As with all agricultural biotechnology, questions later arose in some places about who owned the technology and how it was used given the involvement of agribusiness. Despite significant diffusion in China, the technology has not been adopted as much as was hoped in India. |
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