Climate and energy are inextricably linked. Nowadays it’s difficult to consider one of these without including the other.

Climate affects energy because energy usage varies according to climate. Hot summers, for example, create increased need for air conditioning; cold winters require more heating. Seasonal variations in demand are driven by climate as well. For example, the greatest energy demand in Arizona is during the hot summers. In Oregon, on the other hand, our summers are much more comfortable and many homes (such as mine) have no air conditioning, but demand is greater during the winter cold season.

Energy use affects climate because of side effects of energy production. Many energy facilities, such as power plants, produce air pollutants, which can affect climate. They also emit greenhouse gases, which are believed by many to have significant influence on global climate.

So it is that breakthroughs in energy production are far-reaching in their effects, and I got very excited this week when I read about a development in Israel involving solar energy.

For many years, engineers have attempted to find ways to produce solar-powered electricity which is competitive with other methods. The most common solar-electric technique involves use of “photovoltaic cells,” which convert sunlight directly into electricity. Unfortunately, these cells remain very expensive, despite many decades of research and testing. Until the costs of solar electricity at least approach those of conventional methods, it is difficult to envision large-scale adoption.

Now the exciting part: an Israeli scientist has developed a methodology that may make solar power viable and competitive. According to Prof. David Feiman , director of the National Center for Solar Energy near Sde Boker, Israel, “After 30 years of research on solar energy, my life’s work of experiments in how to produce electricity from the sun, I can say this year that I know how to manufacture solar energy that will compete with conventional energy.”

Feiman’s technique uses an inexpensive parabola-shaped glass plate to focus (and concentrate) energy, and its production per unit area is 1,500 times higher than typical solar collectors today.

The National Center for Solar Energy is now collaborating with an Israeli start-up company, Zenith Solar, to create a home system of solar cells based on this technology within about a year. And the Center has licensed its technology to Sollel, another Israeli company, which has signed a contract with the U.S. company Pacific Gas & Electric to build the largest solar power station in the world, in the Mojave desert in California, which will have about 7,000 such panels. It is due to go into service in about four years, providing 553 megawatts of electricity.

Feiman was born in Great Britain but has lived at Midreshet Sde Boker since 1976, when he began researching solar energy. A world expert in the field, he says the economic model he has built will allow a significant part of Israel’s energy to go solar within the decade.

If a similar effect occurs in the U.S., it would fulfill many longstanding dreams and be of great significance to future American energy policy and usage.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/890970.html

George Taylor is the state climatologist for Oregon and manages the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University. Contact him at

taylor@coas.oregonstate.edu.