A Nobel Prize for Renewable Energy

By Mahesh P. Bhave, Ph.D
April 12, 2011 

What better way to raise awareness of the issues surrounding depleting oil and global warming, and the role our oil- and coal-driven economy plays in both than to create the buzz of a Nobel Prize?

 

Kerala, India -- President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was conferred in anticipation of the future good he would do more than for deeds he had already accomplished. Can there not be a Nobel Prize in physics and chemistry prospectively announced for scientists who achieve a breakthrough in solar energy or storage technologies in the next five years? A Nobel is an incentive all by itself, even if such breakthroughs would bring with them their own commercial rewards.

What better way to raise awareness of the issues surrounding depleting oil and global warming, and the role our oil- and coal-driven economy plays in both than to create the buzz of a Nobel Prize? I cannot think of a more urgent, global need than weaning away from the hydro-carbon economy and yet even Al Gore, a U.S. Vice President, made only a small dent in public awareness.
Not since the Manhattan project (that gave the world the atom bomb) has there been a moment of glory waiting for physicists, chemists, inventors, and engineers. If the solar conversion efficiency jumped by say 30%, and reliable, inexpensive electricity storage solutions were found by nurturing the Bells, Curies, Edisons, and Einsteins, there would cause for worldwide celebrations.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
These lines from T.S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men point to the angst experienced by devotees of renewable energy. Why not now; and if not now, when will the industry come to life and take off?