SOLAR BREEDERS AND SOLAR BLEEDERS

Solar energy is a good thing with thousands of ingenious and advantageous applications; but the reasonable ones do not include large-scale production of electricity. Solar energy is far too dilute to be economical for generating power by the megawatt; beyond that, it is not now self-sustaining and is not likely to become self-sustaining in the foreseeable future.

The electricity required for the manufacture of components for hydro, fossil and nuclear plants can be generated in sufficient quantity and with sufficient reliability by those same types of plants: they are self-sustaining. This is not true of solar electricity. Photoelectric cells, for example, presently show great promise for cheaper mass production, but they need silicon. As Prof. Kikuchi of the U. of Mich. has recently pointed out, the purification process of solar-grade silicon requires electric furnaces running on abundant, steady, reliable electric power, which photovoltaic cells cannot reasonably supply.(1)

What a surprise, then, to find Solarex Corporation with much fanfare announcing "the world's first solar breeder:" its plant in Rockville, Md., has unhooked from the local utility and produces solar photovoltaic cells from its 200 kW array, with lead-acid battery storage.(2)

Explanation: The plant assembles solar cells from silicon, which is produced elsewhere. The 25,000 sq.ft array provides enough power for the assembly, air-conditioning, light, flushing the toilets, etc., but it breeds publicity, not energy.

We wish Solarex good luck and find the publicity gimmick no more offensive than the "friendly skies" of United. (The Journal of Atmospheric Research wouldn't fall for the latter, but the soft-source addicted editor of the [electrical engineering] IEEE Spectrum sure enough fell for this "breeder.")

What we do find offensive are the grotesquely inefficient solar plants with gigantic area, piddling power and astronomical cost to the taxpayer, which are palmed off as "alternative" energy sources [AtE June 82]; perhaps even more offensive is the way the money for rich men's toys at $10,000 per kilowatt (one bread toaster's consumption) is extracted from the less affluent.

"Between federal and state tax credits [California, Colorado, Kansas, and others]," says the Nov/Dec 82 issue of FATE(3), "a homeowner can install solar cells for only 30% of the cost ... The homeowner has only to justify $3,000 for a kilowatt. People who can afford that kind of outlay for capital improvements are soaking the rest of us who pay taxes for the other $7,000. And they are also using money that could have gone to utility aid programs that help people who can't afford their utility bills."