Word: solarity
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...real growth market lies in the developing world. Solar systems offer villages the opportunity to leapfrog developed nations and move directly to 21st century power generation. Mason Willrich, vice chairman of the U.S. Department of Energy's Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development, observes that developing nations gain a double benefit from renewable power because they can manufacture the components of their energy supply system, thus expanding their industrial base. Building solar- and wind- energy equipment and installations creates jobs and reduces oil imports...
...moment, power from solar-thermal systems costs less than that produced by photovoltaic cells, which convert sunlight straight into electricity. Advocates of PV cells point out, though, that the gap is narrowing and that PV cells have other advantages. Solar-thermal systems require direct sunlight, while PV cells work in cloudy weather. Even at 25 cents to 50 cents per KW-H, PV cells are economical for small amounts of energy in remote places. Homeowners find solar power less expensive than connecting to a utility if a house lies farther than a mile from the nearest power line. Even...
...photovoltaic electricity 80% -- to levels competitive with conventional power production. Paul Basore, who oversees research on . photovoltaics at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, predicts that within 20 years, homeowners and small businesses everywhere but in the gloomiest climates will find it most economical to generate their own solar power...
Daniel Yergin, president of Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Massachusetts and author of The Prize, is more cautious about forecasting the coming solar era; he has watched market pressures obliterate past predictions about the future of energy. He also notes that oil and coal companies are not standing idle but are vigorously trying to lower costs and provide cleaner- burning fuels. "The critical question," Yergin contends, "is whether any innovation meets the test of the marketplace." Older and perhaps wiser than they were in the 1970s, the apostles of renewable energy claim they are now poised to meet that test...
...Hubble Space Telescope has performed some spectacular feats of science since a crew of astronauts heroically corrected the instrument's blurred vision last December. The orbiting observatory has snapped dramatic pictures & of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashing into Jupiter, discovered hundreds of what seem to be solar systems in the making, and provided proof that giant black holes lurk in the cores of galaxies. But all this was just a warm-up for the Hubble's most eagerly awaited mission: to gauge the age of the universe. The question of how old the heavens are is not only fascinating...