Powering the world with sunlight†
“The sun provides more energy to the earth in an hour than the world consumes in a year. Compare that single hour to the one million years required for the earth to accumulate the same amount of energy in the form of fossil fuels. As the global population continues to expand and with life expectancies increasing worldwide, scientists estimate that total energy consumption of the world will more than double by 2050 if society continues to use energy at its current rate. Fossil fuels are not a sustainable resource, and we must break our dependence on them. Solar power is among the most promising alternatives. The challenge is: how can solar power be harnessed on the scale that is needed?”These words open the new White Paper entitled “Powering The World With Sunlight”, which we showcase in this Editorial. The White Paper presents key scientific recommendations as to how the global energy problem can be addressed, and makes invaluable reading for all scientists, scientific policy and decision makers. It can be freely accessed on the RSC website.†
The crucial issue of finding more sustainable energy solutions requires both extensive cooperation and innovative thinking. With this in mind 30 leading international researchers (along with representatives from major national science funding agencies) convened in Kloster Seeon, Germany, in July 2009 under the auspices of the first Chemical Sciences and Society Symposium (CS3). The White Paper results from this meeting.
The scientists, representing the Chinese Chemical Society, Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, Chemical Society of Japan, Royal Society of Chemistry, and American Chemical Society, discussed how solar energy can meet the world's pressing energy challenge. The symposium focused on identifying the most urgent scientific problems and priorities in the capture, conversion and storage of solar energy, remaining conscious of the scales needed for global implementation.
Key scientific recommendations are made, covering the conversion of solar energy into chemical fuel (i.e., water-splitting and CO2 fixation), the conversion of biomass into biofuel, the conversion of solar energy into electricity (i.e., PV, or solar cells), and the storage of solar energy.
More generally, two over-riding themes emerged that are vitally important to all in this area. Firstly, scientists should be mindful that meeting the global energy challenge necessitates developing “not just efficient but also affordable solar energy technologies”. Too often the focus is on efficiency: much more effort needs to be given to “develop new catalysts and materials from low-cost, earth-abundant elements that can be used to build affordable, sustainable solar energy”.
Secondly, governments, funders of research and the whole scientific community all need to be aware of the extreme difficulty in “backing a winner”, or predicting how new scientific and technological breakthroughs might open up new research avenues, advances, possibilities and solutions. The development and widespread implementation of solar energy technologies will be a long-term effort, and there is no single best technological solution to be pursued. Instead, the “winner” to be backed is surely investing in fundamental scientific research, coupled with continually engaging a new generation of young scientists to bring fresh ideas and new perspectives.
In the important words of the White Paper, “…having a strong basic research program…is indispensable to realizing the potential of solar energy”.
Richard Pike, Chief Executive, Royal Society of Chemistry
Philip Earis, Managing Editor, Energy & Environmental Science
Footnote |
| † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: “Powering The World With Sunlight” White Paper. See DOI: 10.1039/b924940k |
| This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2010 |