Read the rest of this entry »

The exponential growth curve (green) shows the growth rate of Facebook (since 2004) applied to the global solar industry. The y-axis depicts the additional terawatts (TW) of solar energy generating capacity that would be added over the next 10 years (broken out into months on the x-axis).

Facebook recently passed 500 million users. If the growth rate of the world’s largest and fastest growing social network could be applied to solar, it would only take 4.7 years to power the entire world with solar energy.

While home solar is no social network, it’s picking up speed. We recently found that if you have a neighbor who installed solar panels you’re twice as likely to install them yourself. On a national scale, more solar power was installed in the United States last year than conventional power sources like coal, gas, and nuclear.

The BP oil spill is the largest accidental marine spill in the history of drilling for oil, and although the remaining slick poses ‘little additional risk,’ it will take years to fully evaluate the damage.

We decided to look at this disaster from a completely different angle: What if the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf had been solar panels instead of crude oil? Exactly how much power could you create on the surface area of the oil spill? Read the rest of this entry »