Scientist: Wind, solar energy is future
BOSTON, Aug 24, 2010 -- UPI
A Nobel Prize-winning U.S. scientist says the world could soon enter an
era where renewable wind and solar power will be the globe's main
sources of energy.
Walter Kohn, who shared the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, told a
meeting of the American Chemical Society that total oil and natural gas
production, which today provides about 60 percent of global energy
consumption, is expected to peak about 10 to 30 years from now, followed
by a rapid decline, an ACS release said Tuesday.
But ongoing research and development of alternative energy could lead to
a new era in human history in which two renewable sources -- solar and
wind -- will become Earth's dominant contributors of energy, Kohn said.
Global photovoltaic energy production increased by a factor of about
90 and wind energy by a factor of about 10 over the last 10 years, Kohn
said, and he expects vigorous growth of these two effectively
inexhaustible energies to continue.
Kohn, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, cited students
on his campus who spent their own funds to convert an athletic building
to total solar power.
"When it comes to providing leadership by young people in the area of
energy conservation and energy efficiency and global warming -- they are
fantastic," he said. "It is a major social commitment for our times."
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