Solar Power Wins Enthusiasts but Not Money
By ANDREW C. REVKIN and MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: July 16, 2007
....for all the enthusiasm about harvesting sunlight, some of the most ardent experts and investors say that moving this energy source from niche to mainstream — last year it provided less than 0.01 percent of the country’s electricity supply — is unlikely without significant technological breakthroughs. And given the current scale of research in private and government laboratories, that is not expected to happen anytime soon.
Even a quarter century from now, says the Energy Department official in charge of renewable energy, solar power might account for, at best, 2 or 3 percent of the grid electricity in the United States.
In the meantime, coal-burning power plants, the main source of smokestack emissions linked to global warming, are being built around the world at a rate of more than one a week....
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Scientists long ago calculated that an hour’s worth of the sunlight bathing the planet held far more energy than humans worldwide could use in a year, and the first practical devices for converting light to electricity were designed more than half a century ago.
Yet research on solar power and methods for storing intermittent energy has long received less spending, both in the United States and in other industrialized countries, than energy options with more political support....
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In the battle for money from Washington, solar lobbyists say they are outgunned by their counterparts representing coal, corn and the atom....Government spending on energy research has long been shaped by political constituencies....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/business/16solar.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all