Photovoltaics and the Power of the Sun-What a moonshot would mean.

You may have heard of the impending crisis that is global warming and you may have heard about renewable energies. During my time as a photochemist, I've seen too many talks that break down the following.

1. By 2050 we'll need ~23 TW of power to run the planet at it's current growth. This is for all countries combined.

and...

1. The sun illuminates the Earth with a total of 120,000 TW/ year, which is absolutely more than we should ever need.

I have a vision knowing this. Like the great space race of the 1960's. A country, it doesn't matter which one, but a country needs to fund a "moon-shot like" program that is capable of taking the world to 100% solar renewables in 10 years. I am completely confident that it is possible. The strides that chemists, physicists, and engineers make on this problem daily and yearly is staggering, but it could be readily achievable in a few years.

Figure 1: The efficiencies of various solar cells reported by National Renewable Energy Laboratories

As noted in the chart above, scientists have reached 46.8% efficiencies and possibly even higher by the time you read this. However, things are all rosy. Many of these devices are unattainable on a large manufacturing scale. Rare earth Nobel metals such as platinum, ruthenium, gold, and iridium are very limited. Another aspect these charts don't report is the longevity of the solar cells, which may only last for a few minutes before failing.

Figure 2: Relative abundance of elements

I believe the best approach to solving these shortcomings is a world investment into organic/ and first-row transition metal chemistry with an emphasis on charge transfer and charge recombination. These elements are far more abundant. Rock-forming elements like iron have their own challenges which I may address at a later date, but there are other useful things iron can do for us. But the real shining star in solar cell research is titanium dioxide- you know that stuff you put on your nose to prevent it from burning.

As I start my independent research and teaching career, there are somethings that I'm a bit biased about. But in reality, we should all be a bit biased in creating long-term long-lasting energy solutions. I hope you learned something from reading this. I hope this inspires you to take care of your environment and think about how amazing the sun and science really is. I hope that global politics can realize my dream sooner than later because there is no planet B.

If there is something in solar research, photochemistry or elementally interesting that you would like me to talk about please post a reply.

Thanks!