Solar's Day In The Sun

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_42/b4054053.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

Solar's Day In The Sun

The big hurdle has been finding a technology that can match the low cost of fossil fuel. John O'Donnell thinks he has that licked

John O'Donnell started thinking about saving the world 30 years ago. In his first job, in the late 1970s, he worked to harness fusion--the nuclear reaction that powers the sun--at Princeton University's famed Plasma Physics Lab. "The sense was, if it was successful it would change the world," O'Donnell recalls.

It wasn't successful. O'Donnell moved on. Over the years, he started companies that made supercomputers and semiconductors. He lived out of suitcases, raised scores of millions for his companies, and had three kids. But when his Campbell (Calif.) chipmaker was

sold and its operations moved to Shanghai last year, the recently divorced O'Donnell jumped off the roller coaster. "I told myself: 'I have a year to figure out if there is something I could do that would be of use," he says.

He's convinced he has found that something. The idea is to slow global warming and cure the planet's energy woes, not with plasma or windmills or "clean" coal smoke, but with mirrors. Miles and miles of mirrors, to be exact, focusing the rays of the sun onto pipes to heat water to run hulking steam turbines. This so-called solar thermal approach would mean no emissions that cause global warming. No worries about radioactive waste. No need for coal power, which faces increasingly hostile scrutiny. Not even much need for oil, if plug-in hybrid cars like the Chevrolet Volt start to replace gasoline burners. "I want people to have it in their heads that there is a solution--and it doesn't even mean raising their electric bills," he says.

...

Basic physics shows enough sunlight falls on the deserts of the Southwest to provide all of American's electricity many times over--given enough mirrors. But O'Donnell is already thinking about the next step--going global. He figures Europe could get all of its electricity from Big Solar plants in Morocco. He even has a sneaky China plan. "Frankly, the original goal for the company was to get an arms race started, where we move ahead in the U.S. and then China decides to get in on the act," he says. "If they copy us, that's fine! Fine!"

That kind of comment has his colleagues rolling their eyes. "John sounds a bit like a crazy scientist," says Lane. "His brain is so sharp and his IQ is so high, he just doesn't know what is coming out of his mouth. But all the stuff he was talking about a year ago, we now are all saying. We need him to keep pushing it forward."

[gateley]

1. More and more - I'm so encouraged. Thanks for the post. Recommend

[MelissaB]

2. Here's more:

Even his fans sometimes find O'Donnell's passionate pronouncements extreme. "His enthusiasm and maniacal commitment to this is borderline wacko," says admirer Roger Clark, air and energy director at the conservation group Grand Canyon Trust and a supporter of solar thermal power. Yet O'Donnell has already moved faster than even he dreamed possible. A self-described "crazy-ass" plan he and his Australian colleagues concocted to double the world's output of solar power right out of the gate won backing from two of Silicon Valley's most prominent venture capitalists, Ray Lane of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA ) Lane and Khosla, in turn, have been unusually active selling the approach to governors and utilities.

The company they've invested $47 million in, Ausra Inc., has a pilot operation, dubbed Godzilla for its blast of steam, up and running in Australia. In late September, Ausra, Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG ), and Florida Power & Light (FPL ) announced commitments for 1,000 megawatts of solar power--as much as a nuclear plant. The details are still in negotiation. But the current plan is to start with a 10-MW demonstration plant in Florida, then expand to 300 MW. With PG&E, Ausra expects to kick off with a 175-MW plant. These facilities could be ready to flip the switch as early as 2010. The main lure: Ausra believes it has solved the biggest problem solar power has faced previously--its high cost. "What I find attractive about Ausra is that it's taking approaches used in the past and driving the price down, making it cheap," says PG&E CEO Peter A. Darbee. "It's lower risk and environmentally friendly. I'm very enthusiastic about the technology."

By the time these plants are built, O'Donnell hopes to have five times that much capacity under way. "Not only is this the best renewable technology, it is one that could really scale up, both here and in developing countries like India and China," says Khosla.