Gale on Energy Alternatives

Physician Gale may be an expert in cancer treatment, but as a layman on alternative energy, he should get his facts straight. Photovoltaics has been used reliably since the late 1950s for space power, and since the 1970s it has become a viable, pollution-free, quiet alternative energy source that uses only sunlight as fuel. Present and future technologies do not cause a loss in lives nor do they produce toxic wastes. Such solid waste as sodium silicate that results from the chemical etching of silicon is as inert as beach sand and does not represent “toxic waste that is comparable or greater in magnitude as nuclear energy.”

In California the largest photovoltaic electric power generating plants in the world have been operating reliably since 1982. Many utilities are seriously considering PV for future power. And recently, at Sandia National Laboratories, an advanced solar cell was measured at 31% efficiency, close to the efficiency of fossil-fuel power plants. When one considers the social costs for electric power generation that do not show up in the utility bill, such as the billions that will be required to fix our ailing nuclear fuel processing plants, I believe that photovoltaics may well be price-competitive with conventional power today and could hardly be termed “inadequate.”

HOWARD SOMBERG

Global Photovoltaic Specialists

Woodland Hills