Power Of The Sun — The Genesis of Solar Technology
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 05. 9.06
They seem to be all the rage recently. Nobel Laureates, that is. Here is yet another film made, not about Nobel Prize winners, but by two of them. Alan Heeger and Walter Kohn team up with ex-Monty Python star, John Cleese to explain how solar energy could save humankind from its energy woes. Alan and Walter provide the technical rigour, while John brings his own inimitable style to the narration. Between them they go back 100 years, to when Albert Einstein began playing around with photons, and then up to 1950, as the first solar panel was created. And onwards to forecast where the technology might take us into the future. For a measly $10 USD the two movie DVD can be obtained from the online bookstore of the University of California, Santa Barbara. One is designed for school students, and a longer version, all on the same DVD, for a broader, more general audience. Cheap enough to spread the word, so more can see the light. ::Power Of The Sun.
I'll try to watch this. Solar power's already doing much of the work on Chinese for rooftops for hot water, so it's not just a future technology.
If I remember correctly, the sun blasts the earth with about 1000 wats per square meter on average. (Most of the areas of high intensity are over the ocean though.)
That's a heck of a lot of energy! If we could tap even a significant fraction of that, we'd do pretty well. One thing for sure: all the life on earth is fostered off of the power of the sun (with the exception deep sea volcanic sulfur vent nematodes).