Solar Energy: It's Simply a Matter of Time

The shorter the time from capture to use of solar energy, the better. This is true both environmentally and politically.

Solar energy comes in many forms. The energy in fossil fuels is from sunlight captured millions of years ago. The energy in biomass fuels came from the sun much more recently. So to with hydro-electric power, wind, wave, and ocean thermal power. The shortest capture to use time of any form of solar energy is with visible sunlight, followed by solar electric panels (photovoltaics) , and all the various solar thermal heating, detoxification, desalinization, and electric power technologies, which take from minutes to days from capture to use. There are a variety of photo-chemical and biochemical technologies with comparatively short capture to use times.

The time from first sun-strike to the moment of use is the measure of 'directness', or how 'direct' the solar energy application is.

In general, the more direct the better, the more direct the more efficient, and the more direct the less of a deleterious environmental impact. Think about it.

Politically, it is also simply a matter of time before the general political consensus in this country and the world comes to know that the only way human civilization can possibly sustain itself is to live within the energy budget flowing to us from the sun, available to us in the ocean tides, and in the naturally occuring thermal energy flows from the core of the earth. Nuclear fission and nuclear fusion have no place in a sustainable world.

It is only a matter of time for solar energy to become conventional energy in the collective mind of human civilization.