"A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." Photo: CC/Nick Thompson
The verdict is in, and the sun wins: PhysOrg.com reports that biofuels and other sources of alternative energy are being derided by scientists at a meeting in Chicago. Solar panels, made with nanomaterials, are the clear favorite.
Could we be seeing a consensus forming for not-yet-efficient-enough solar, at the expense of other breakthrough technologies? The federal government is already heavily funding nanotech research. Perhaps the feds are looking for a payoff.
“The sun is absolutely a singular solution to our future energy needs,” speaker Nathan Lewis, who researches synthetic photosynthesis at the California Institute of Technology, told an audience at the meeting. “Nothing else comes close. More energy from the sun hits Earth in one hour than all the energy consumed on our planet in an entire year.”
