USA

THE OPTIMISTS SAY taht with steady,incremental improvements-no huge breaktroughs are required-and with substantial government support,SOLAR POWER COULD BECOME AS ECONOMICAL AND EFFICIENT AS FOSSIL FUELS.The pessimists say they´ve heard all this before-30 years ago,during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.That too was a period of national crisis,triggered by the Arab oil embargo of 1973.Addressing the nation in his cardigan sweater,President Carter called for a new national energy policy with solar energy playing a large part.In 1979 the Islamic revolution in Iran sent oil prices soaring again.American drivers lined up for gasoline,their radios blaring songs like"Bomb Iran" by Vince Vance and the Valiants(sung to the tune of the Beach Boys'"Barbara Ann").Carter true to his world,put solar water heaters on the White House roof.During the next few years,two large fields of parabolic troughs,SEGGS I nad II(for Solar Electric Generating Station)were installed about 160 miles southwest of Las Vegas,near Daggett,California.They were followed by seven more plants nearby,at Kramer Junction and beside waterless Harper Lake.The plants are still operating-about a million mirrors in all on some 1,600 acres with a combined power of 354 megawatts.From afar they look like mirages.The Momentum didn't last.As the economy adjusted to the Iranian oil shock,fuel prices fell.With the sense of urgency reduced,along with the research dollars,solar remained a minor factor in the energy equation.The SEGS plants were still being built when President Ronald Reagan took the solar water heaters off the White House roof.The first solar revolution fizzled.Two decades later,a new solar revolution may be ready to begin.ANOTHER LEGACY OF THE CARTER ERA,the National Renewable Energy Laboratory(NREL)in Golden,Colorado-the government's primary research center for solar,wind,hydrogen,and other alternative fuels-is bracing for a resurgence.When I visited last fall,a new research campus and headquarters were under construction against the side of a mountain outside Golden.Five acres of photovoltaic panels on top of the mesa will need feed the labs and offices below.That may be just the beginning.Once treated by the government as something of a stepchild,NREL is benefiting from the extra money the Obama Administration is devoting to renewable energy."Right now solar is such a small fraction of U.S. electricity production that it's measured in tenths of a percent," said Robert Hawsey,an associate director of the lab."But thet's expected to grow.Ten to 20 percent of the nation's peak electericity demand could be provided by solar energy by 2030."Jätkub...Elagu konkurents!