Solar energy needs another 10 years of research and development to compete with oil

Even with the oil price of $ 100 a barrel, it took more than 10 years for research and development to reduce solar energy costs to a level that could be competitive with oil, said Professor Harry Gray, professor. chemistry, founding director of Beckman Institute at California Institute of Technology.

He is the principal investigator at the Chemical Bonding Center Phase 1 funded by the NSF National Science Foundation (CBC) and a key researcher at the Caltech Sustainable Energy Research Center (CCSER).

Dr. Gray said the only major challenge was to reduce the cost of diverting from coal, natural gas and other non-renewable sources of economic significance. Dr. Gray estimates the average cost of vontaic optical energy from 35 to 50 cents a kilowatt hour. In comparison, other sources are much cheaper, with coal and natural gas about 5 to 6 cents a kilowatt hour.

Due to other benefits such as clean and renewable, solar energy does not need to match the cost of traditional energy sources. The breakthrough for solar energy could come when scientists reduce the cost of photovoltaic energy to about 10 cents a kilowatt hour. 'Once costs drop to that level, many customers will start buying, and will make the price per kilowatt even more. I believe it will take at least another 10 years for photovoltaic energy to compete with more traditional forms of energy. "

(Photo: techfreep.com)

This study aims to transform the industrialized world from a world powered by fossil fuels into a world powered by sunlight. CBC's research focuses on converting sunlight into chemical fuels while research at CCSER focuses on generating electricity from sunlight and developing fuel cells.

In his speech at the American Chemical Society ACS symposium, Dr. Gray cited the huge potential of solar energy, noting that there will be more energy from sunlight. use on earth in an hour compared to all the energy consumed on the planet for a year

'The sun can provide all the electricity and fuel we need to power the earth,' said Dr. Gray at the 235th ACS meeting. 'The effort to achieve solar energy is to use sunlight directly and efficiently to' split 'water into basic components - hydrogen and oxygen - and then use hydrogen. make clean fuel. '

The main challenges include the development of cheap solar cells that can operate without damage and reduce the amount of toxic materials used to make these cells. But production of low-cost optical energy is just a step in the right direction. Chemists also need to focus on creating clean fuels at a cost that can compete with saturated oil and coal.

Dr. Gray stressed: 'The pressure on chemists is to produce hydrogen from something more than natural gas and coal. We have to start creating it from sunlight and water. '

Dr. Gray notes that the NSF CBC program currently includes the Caltech Institute and MIT but in the second phase will expand and include some other institutes.