For decades now, solar power has stood as the great hope for those looking for alternative energy sources. Back in the early 1980s, some predicted that solar power would produce one million watts of energy annually within 10 years. Three decades later, homes and buildings that use solar energy are expensive to construct and still in the minority.
But Jon Luoma, an environmental journalist and author of several books, including Hidden Forest: Biography of an Ecosystem, says solar power is about to hit the mainstream – for real this time. As part of our "next green thing" series, we aked Jon to bring us up to date on solar's technological advances. He wrote about this topic for Yale Environment 360.
(Photo by Powerhouse Museum)
