Thin is in!

You ask about the adequacy of natural resources for a solar future. It's a good question.

Sunshine is diffuse; we can be very glad for that. Otherwise we would burn to a crisp, of course. The further advantage is that it is universal. Even the Swedes have sunshine ... or I wouldn't be here. Somehow my ancestors managed to thrive in a climate where there was little or no sunshine for months at a time in the winter. (They used solar energy exclusively. We can be at least as smart as our ancestors, don't you think?!)

So how do we handle diffuse energy sources? We use thin energy receptors. It's that simple. I was prompted to post this today when I saw a news article that explains it well:

• How Low Can Solar Cells Go? Perovskite Researchers Say Down, Down

Speaking of thin, I suggest you watch this long video which explains in a very compelling manner how ideas are formulated out of thin air and then propagated as if they were real:

• War on Sensemaking

Solar electricity is so magical that people have a hard time getting their heads wrapped around it. Skeptics with an agenda can have a field day with it because so few people have an idea how it works. (Did you know that Einstein got his Nobel prize, not for relativity (e=mc^2) but for the photoelectric effect, what we now call photovoltaics?!