More Business Columnists

• Stacy Sacco: Savor 'Cheese' book's lessons on tackling change
• Randy Burge: Locally grown foods grow in popularity
• Stacy Sacco: Want to develop a situation card?

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

The sun's power and its effect on humankind has been a subject of myth and substance, from Icarus to Jules Verne to NASA.

Generating electricity from sunlight, or photovoltaics as the practice is called, is one way to achieve this miracle.

According to a recent cover story about solar-generated electricity in Scientific American, the sun beams more energy to Earth in 40 minutes than is consumed by all of civilization in a year. Think about that for a moment.

The story reports that the United States' electric power needs could be met by converting a mere 2.5 percent of the solar energy in the Southwest.

Getting part way to this full solar capacity, the authors lay out a dynamic all-hands-on-deck plan that would generate 69 percent of the U.S. supply of electricity and 35 percent of all energy needs by 2050 through photovoltaic systems.

This plan requires significant investment to be made by government and industry to create the innovations necessary to bring the performance and value to competitive levels. Achieving these lofty goals is not a sure thing, but an absolute pursuit.

This new photovoltaic world will be much more self-sufficient and climate neutral. Electricity will be available anywhere there is sunlight.

However, Americans need to wake up to the new market light behind today's photovoltaic revolution.

In fact, the United States needs to play serious catch-up with other countries that are outdistancing us in terms of alternative energy legislation, technology development, manufacturing capacity and other dynamic measures. These factors will pay huge energy and economic dividends to those countries that master photovoltaic industrial development.

WorldWatch.org and SolarBuzz.com report that the compound annual growth rate for the photovoltaic industry is more than 43 percent - a huge burst of energy, so to speak. The United States risks being left out of the industry the country helped create.

Ironically, one of the brightest stars on the photovoltaic scene is an American company, First Solar, based in Phoenix. First Solar, though, does not sell any products in the United States. Yet. The company's remarkable growth and success is driven by German investments and work force, and receptive global, non-U.S. markets.

The company has a market valuation higher than General Motors or Consolidated Edison. First Solar, in part backed by a branch of the Wal-Mart fortune, innovated a new way to make photovoltaic cells without the heavy demand of limited silicon resources.

The cost per watt performance of photovoltaic technologies over the past several decades has limited the widespread adoption for home, commercial or electric-grid scale photovoltaic uses.

Photovoltaic has a long way to go to capture much of the electrical energy market, given that it provides only 0.04 percent of the total global primary energy supply.

Recently, though, the economics of the photovoltaic system have taken dramatic turns toward affordability. New applications are being developed in photovoltaic roofing tiles, overcoming the aesthetics issue commonly raised.

The United States was once the global leader in the design and manufacturing of photovoltaic cells, modules and systems, typically measured in megawatts or gigawatts. Since 2000, the industry leadership of the United States has fallen behind the pace of global growth.

In the past five years, however, companies in Germany, China and Taiwan have joined the ranks, and these countries have replaced several of the traditional leaders, including the United States, in top spots.

China went from a very small megawatt producer nationally in 2000 to the third leading producer of photovoltaic modules in 2006. Chinese companies have created thousands of jobs and attracted billions of dollars in new investments and customer orders in a very short time. A number of these companies have near-instantly reached $100 million in sales or greater.

New Mexico is home to at least two photovoltaic cell- and module-making companies, Advent Solar and Emcore.

The time is coming quickly when new lights will shine. And when they light up, they are likely to be Chinese or German unless the United States wakes up.