TRUE CRIME: After a Kidnapping, and a Smear Campaign, Solar Energy Emerges as Market Leader
Updated November 16, 2023
By Morgan Pierce
“We project that Solar PV will dominate the global energy mix by the middle of this century,” said climate and energy scientist Femke Nijsse of the University of Exeter. In a new report published in the journal Nature, Nijsse and her colleagues conclude that solar energy has reached an “irreversible tipping point” that will see it become the world’s main source of energy by 2050. The same can certainly be said for Ireland.
That’s quite a success story for an industry that has faced serious push-back from competitors over the years – some of it criminal.
Dr. Sugandha Srivastav, is a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in Environmental Economics at Oxford. Last month, Srivastav published a paper, “Lost potential: how the kidnapping of a solar energy pioneer impacted the cost of renewable energy and the climate crisis”, about the strange case of solar pioneer George Cove.
Born in Canada, Cove moved to the US in the early 1900s and filed numerous patents, including for a technology that harnessed solar power around which he created a new company, Sun Electric.
Then, as now, the challenges faced by solar energy advocates included: a) finding materials to effectively absorb the energy from sunlight in order to generate electricity and b) figuring out how to store the electricity generated.
Cove had succeeded in inventing a device that harnessed the photovoltaic effect, and was attracting both favourable press and powerful investors. Then, in October 1909, Cove’s work was abruptly “terminated” when he was kidnapped by two men. The kidnappers asked Cove to give up the rights to his solar patent and close down his business.
Who was behind the kidnapping? Srivastav points to companies like Edison Electric – founded by Thomas Edison – which at the time was using coal-fired electricity to expand the US power grid, and fossil fuel companies like Standard Oil.
“Ruthless practices to drive out competitors were commonplace during this period of history.” Srivastav concluded. “George Cove’s Sun Electric corporation never recovered from the kidnapping and the ‘fantastic sun ray machine’ was forgotten.”
“An earlier transition to renewables would have spared the world huge amounts of carbon emissions, and far fewer deaths from air pollution and other climate related disasters.” Srivstav told the newsletter Carbon Brief. “We cannot say for certain how solar PV’s trajectory would have panned out if George Cove was not kidnapped. But we can say with greater clarity that in 1909 a vision of a solar-powered world was lost, and it is only being revived now, over 100 years later.”
Today’s renewable energy entrepreneurs need no longer fear kidnapping, but their competitors in the fossil fuel industry remain ruthless, replacing threats with billions of dollars spent on lobbying and advertising that paints themselves as part of the solution to climate change.
Time, however, and a new generation of innovators just like George Cove, has caught up with the fossil fuel industry’s shenanigans.
The price of solar energy has fallen significantly in recent years. The cost of solar panels has dropped by nearly 90 per cent over the last decade, according to Felix Creutzig, Professor of Sustainable Economics at Berlin’s Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change. According to Creutzig, the falling costs “could mean that the world’s entire energy consumption in 2050 could be ‘completely and cost-effectively covered by solar technology and other renewables’”.
How has the revolution been made possible? Two words: Will. Way.
Earlier this year, for instance, researchers announced a major breakthrough. Using a new semiconductor material – called perovskite – rather than traditional silicon, manufacturers will soon be able to boost the efficiency of solar panels. The development, independent experts say, will mean an influx of high performance, lower cost photovoltaics into the solar energy market.
There have also been developments on the critical issue of storage. Batteries have come on in leaps and bounds in recent years. Most, however, have focused on “smoothing out” energy supply over a single day – making it possible for homeowners to store the energy their solar PV has generated during the day for usage at night.
In October, however, a company in Norway announced it had found a solution to resolving “the inter-seasonal storage of solar energy”. The company’s solid hydrogen batteries, they claim, will enable homeowners to save solar energy generated during summer months to be used to power their homes in winter.
These exciting developments will enable real change in the way homeowners power their homes. Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany found that, by 2050, up to 75 per cent of Europe’s 41 million single-family homes could be energy self-sufficient.
This is wonderful in and of itself. To magnify the impact, however, scientists have recommended that – rather than abandoning their grid connections – homeowners should stay connected. They would then reap the financial benefits of feeding their excess electricity back into the grid for others, and hasten the happy day that fossil fuels become “obsolete”.
Investing in solar panel systems can bring many benefits, including reduced energy bills, increased energy independence, and a reduced carbon footprint. If you are interested in installing a solar panel system, it is worth exploring the different grant options available and seeking professional advice from one of our solar energy advisors.
Feel free to contact us for more information, we’re here to help.