Word: solarized
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...large part, the book is popular because fervid environmentalists can find in it justification for their thesis that nuclear power and coal are dirty, dangerous and unreliable, while solar energy and conservation are good and can provide the necessary energy. Yet the authors take pains to distance themselves from the small but vocal faction of extremists who hope that energy shortages will hold back technology, slow industrial growth, break up large industry and fragment society into smaller groups of people, tending their own gardens and building their own windmills. As the Harvard experts stress in Chapter...
...nation's four basic fuels-petroleum, natural gas, coal and nuclear-are either depleting or face strong public opposition, and new energy sources must be phased in before the old are totally exhausted. The surprising aspect of Energy Future is its optimistic assessment of the potential of solar energy and conservation to carry the load as those "new sources...
...chapter on solar energy, written by Modesto A. Maidique, a business school assistant professor, is unabashedly bullish: "Given reasonable incentives, we believe that solar could provide between a fifth and a quarter of the nation's energy requirements by the turn of the century." The Harvard researchers have adopted the Department of Energy's extremely broad definition of solar to include not only power from the sun's rays but also hydropower and energy derived from the burning of "biomass," which includes wood, plants and other organic matter. The chapter's supposition is that rising costs...
Those assumptions are highly questionable. At present, broadly defined solar provides less than 6% of the nation's energy needs; some other studies anticipate that solar could supply no more than 10% by the year...
Yergin also points out that buildings and residences, which now use 38% of the nation's energy, could be made much more fuel-efficient. The need is for intelligent construction codes and relatively simple improvements in insulation. All told, the Harvard team believes that solar and conservation can cover 22% of the nation's energy needs by the late 1980s -and up to 40% by century's end. These are enormously high estimates...