Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Bob Johnstone (Melbourne, Australia) is the author of Brilliant!: Shuji Nakamura and the Revolution in Lighting Technology; We Were Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs and the Forging of the Electronic Age; and Never Mind the Laptops: Kids, Computers, and the Transformation of Learning. He has also contributed numerous articles on technology to Forbes, Nature, New Scientist, MIT Technology Review, Wired, and the Far Eastern Economic Review.

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Switching to Solar

Prometheus Books

Contents

INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................11NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY.............................................................................................................................1911. A Most Exciting Adventure...................................................................................................................2312. To Hell with the Generals...................................................................................................................3513. Cells and Gasoline..........................................................................................................................4714. Camel with the Fridge on Top................................................................................................................5715. Skunk the Government........................................................................................................................6516. End of "Solar Socialism"....................................................................................................................7717. Like a Snowball Down a Mountainside.........................................................................................................8718. Alpha Male..................................................................................................................................9719. Glorious SMUD...............................................................................................................................10510. Beware the Camel's Nose.....................................................................................................................11511. Land of the Rising Solar....................................................................................................................12312. Leaving the Army to Fight...................................................................................................................13513. A Persuasive Demonstration..................................................................................................................14714. Solar Proliferator..........................................................................................................................15515. Escape from STAWAG..........................................................................................................................16716. Electricity Rebels..........................................................................................................................17717. An Ecological Masterpiece...................................................................................................................18318. Making of Solar Valley......................................................................................................................19719. Catching Rays in Fog Town...................................................................................................................21120. Solar's Not for Sissies.....................................................................................................................22121. A Tale of Two Cities........................................................................................................................23522. FIT USA?....................................................................................................................................24523. Exit Hippies, Enter Stanford MBAs...........................................................................................................25924. Good Soldiers...............................................................................................................................27525. Mirrors without Smoke.......................................................................................................................28326. Ballad of a Thin Film.......................................................................................................................29327. Efficiency, Efficiency, Efficiency..........................................................................................................30528. Accidental Emperor..........................................................................................................................31729. Nano Solar..................................................................................................................................325EPILOGUE: NO SWITCHING BACK.....................................................................................................................331APPENDIX: Magic Crystals: A Nonscientist's Guide to How Solar Cells Work........................................................................335ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................................................................................................................337SOURCES.........................................................................................................................................339INDEX...........................................................................................................................................371

Chapter One

Larry Kazmerski did not hesitate: he had to prevent the president of the United States from killing himself.

Jimmy Carter had designated May 3, 1978, as Sun Day, "to inform the general public, industry, and labor about solar technologies and to demonstrate the sun's potential in meeting America's energy needs." Now here he was, the chief executive himself, on the appointed day—a Wednesday, as it happened—visiting the brand-new US national Solar Energy Research Institute. The site chosen for SERI was a rocky mesa at the base of South Table Mountain just outside Golden, Colorado, home of Coors Beer and the last resting place of William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody. Predictably, the sun was refusing to cooperate. In fact, as Kazmerski, then a young researcher who was the as-yet-unbuilt laboratory's first specialist in photovoltaic solar cells, recalled, "The day President Carter arrived, the weather changed, the sleet and snow were coming down—it was just miserable out there."

Carter had made it clear that he wanted to actually see things. Problem was, the lab was so new there was hardly anything to show him. Somehow at short notice the staff had rustled up a few bits and pieces. On his tour of the hastily assembled equipment, the raincoat-clad chief executive paused to inspect a solar array, borrowed at short notice from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Back then, these things weren't sealed so well, and here's our president reaching out to wipe away some of the snow off this array," Kazmerski told me. "I grabbed his hand because I thought, My God—we might have the first president here electrocuted from photovoltaics!"

Not that Carter, a US Navy-trained nuclear engineer, was ignorant about solar energy or its potential. Like many people, the president had obviously been captivated by this space-age technology, which promised to help deliver the nation from its dependence on imported oil. "Nobody can embargo sunlight," Carter declared pointedly in his speech to the sodden...