{"id":7444,"date":"2014-01-19T13:32:27","date_gmt":"2014-01-19T18:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=7444"},"modified":"2014-01-19T13:34:41","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T18:34:41","slug":"the-third-solar-age-michael-noll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/the-third-solar-age-michael-noll.html","title":{"rendered":"The Third Solar Age –Michael Noll"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\nLTE in the VDT<\/a> today. -jsq\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nFor millennia humans gazed into the sky and marveled at birds\r\nsailing through the air. While some imagined a day when we would be\r\nable to fly, others said it could not be done. Likewise the idea of\r\ninfinite, clean energy might seem unattainable to some, but the\r\nprogress we have seen in recent years is astonishing.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSince the discovery of fire we have used wood for a source of\r\nenergy. Because timber is a product of photosynthesis and thereby\r\nthe sun’s solar radiation, the era of wood for energy might be\r\nconsidered our first solar age.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIt took until the 18th<\/sup><\/small>\r\ncentury before the use of fossil fuels became\r\nnoteworthy due to the Industrial Revolution. This was our second\r\nsolar age, relying on ancient pockets of sunlight (coal, oil,\r\nnatural gas) which formed 300 million years ago.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nNow we are entering a third solar age, and this time we are directly\r\nharvesting the sun’s energy. The amount of solar radiation we\r\nreceive on our planet in just one hour could cover global energy\r\nneeds for a full year.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe stories of human flight and renewable energy are actually\r\nintertwined: they said it could not be done, but in 1783 a hot air\r\nballoon took flight in France; they said it could not be done, but\r\nin 1903 the Wright brothers made their first flight in North\r\nCarolina; they said it could not be done, but the first manned\r\nmission to the moon succeeded in 1969 when Neil Armstrong climbed\r\ndown a ladder and stated “that’s one small step for man, one giant\r\nleap for mankind”; they said it could not be done, but in 2013 the\r\nfirst solar-powered plane flew across the US.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nJust as we are able to fly, the development of clean sources of\r\nenergy will be the lunar landing of our generation. It might take\r\nsome of us longer to understand what Thomas Edison said in 1931\r\n(“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source\r\nof power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out\r\nbefore we tackle that.”) but eventually there will be no\r\ndenying that solar (plus wind, hydro, geothermal, etc.) works, and\r\nthat our independence from dirty fossil fuels is just around the\r\ncorner.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n2013 has been a stellar year for both solar<\/a> and \r\nwind<\/a>\r\nas worldwide\r\ninstallations skyrocketed, increasing renewable energy production,\r\noffering hundreds of thousands of jobs, and keeping environments\r\nsafe. The newest solar plants are able to provide energy 24\/7 with\r\nthe help of salt batteries; advances in solar nanotechnology\r\ncontinue to break efficiency records; new batteries are improving\r\nour ability to store energy; solar electricity hit grid parity with\r\ncoal (as it did with nuclear in 2010).\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nIn the spirit of the Wright brothers, Thomas Edison and Neil\r\nArmstrong,\r\n\r\nlet’s embrace the Third Solar Age<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nDr. Michael G. Noll, President\r\n
\r\nWiregrass Activists for Clean Energy\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LTE in the VDT today. -jsq For millennia humans gazed into the sky and marveled at birds sailing through the air. While some imagined a day when we would be able to fly, others said it could not be done. Likewise the idea of infinite, clean energy might seem unattainable to some, but the progress […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,24,36],"tags":[8701,8702,12,7,703,7397,8713,8714,4775,6,8716,7260],"class_list":["post-7444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-wind","tag-georgia","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-michael-noll","tag-neil-armstrong","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-thomas-alva-edison","tag-valdosta","tag-wind","tag-wright-brothers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1W4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7444"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7447,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7444\/revisions\/7447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}