Solar Power

There is one very good reason solar power hasn't taken off -- cheap fossil fuel. In North America, we've been cursed with the low costs and ready supply of fossil fuels -- in the form of coal, gasoline, diesel, etc. In Europe and Japan, the story is slightly different [PDF] -- fossil fuels are more expensive. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that means that solar power technology is more advanced and enjoys a bigger market (although that's only relative) than in North America. Solar power is viable, not necessarily as a full replacement for fossil fuels, but as a compliment -- and perhaps a way of lowering our dependence on the polluting fuel. The two basic concepts for harnessing the Sun are: 1) Solar-thermal [PDF] -- using mirrors to concentrate sunlight from a large area into a smaller one, heating up a fluid that can in turn boil water, producing steam, that can turn a conventional generator; and, 2) Photovoltaics [PDF] -- using a semiconductor to capture photons from the Sun, giving off electrons and producing electricity. Read a summary of the state of the competing technologies in North America, and what the future holds for solar power in BusinessWeek.