ReedYoung's Journal: Researcher Makes Solar Energy Breakthrough

Recent news of food shortages motivated me to start browsing the web for more efficient sources of ethanol than corn, and keeping my eyes open for any promise at all from other alternative energy sources in general. I'm excited by the best news I've ever heard about large-scale harnessing of energy for human use! I haven't found the technical details of the solar cell that can withstand such intensity, but I did learn that the cost of production is reduced dramatically compared to previous solar collectors by the use of a concave array of mirrors to focus light to an intensity up to 10,000 times the noonday sun onto a very small, very efficient solar panel. Despite the lack of technical specifics, I think this particular news item is interesting because of the claim that they can produce solar energy competitive with, or even less expensive than current power plants! In just a few minutes on Google after identifying David Faiman as the chief researcher, I found a wide variety of sources publishing this story. I'm including a local account and one dating back to 2003, which got me wondering why this isn't already in widespread use. I quickly remembered the influence of Archer Daniels Midland and its chairman Dwayne Andreas in the United States in maintaining the fiction that corn is a viable source of ethanol.

I think it's pretty obvious that all subsidies and other government favors for corn ethanol must be outlawed. What I did not realize is just how overblown the entire "petroleum shortage" is. There is absolutely no excuse to burn dinosaurs for more than a minuscule fraction of our energy, when it's this easy to convert sunlight to electricity.