There is 10,000 times more sunlight than we need to meet 100 percent of our energy needs, he says, and the technology needed for collecting and storing it is about to emerge as the field of solar energy is going to advance exponentially in accordance with Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns. That law yields a doubling of price performance in information technologies every year.
Kurzweil, author of "The Singularity Is Near" and "The Age of Intelligent Machines," worked on the solar energy solution with Google Co-Founder Larry Page as part of a panel of experts convened by the National Association of Engineers to address the 14 "grand challenges of the 21st century," including making solar energy more economical. The panel's findings were announced here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Solar to compete in five years
Solar and wind power currently supply about 1 percent of the world's energy needs, Kurzweil said, but advances in technology are about to expand with the introduction of nano-engineered materials for solar panels, making them far more efficient, lighter and easier to install. Google has invested substantially in companies pioneering these approaches.
Regardless of any one technology, members of the panel are "confident that we are not that far away from a tipping point where energy from solar will be [economically] competitive with fossil fuels," Kurzweil said, adding that it could happen within five years.
We can only hope.
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