Quick Comments on Solar Energy and Algal Biofuels

A reader asked for my comments on this piece on Jinko Solar and this one on algae.  Here’s my position on this:

1) Jinko is extremely well-positioned to expand further its already-existing mega-presence in solar.  I ran into them at Intersolar a couple of weeks ago (they were pretty hard to miss), and I’m extremely impressed with what they’re doing.

2) By contrast, I’m not betting on algae.

As I freely confess, I’m not an expert on the subject, but a) to my knowledge, building scalable plants to grow and process algae has proved to be an insurmountable challenge thus far, b) even though algae contains 30 – 50 times more energy per kilogram than any terrestrial plant, no living organism evolved to store large quantities of energy it doesn’t need for its metabolic processes, and c) even if I’m wrong about a) and b), the progress of solar and wind is happening at an incredible rate–more than fast enough to make the subject of algae moot.

This rapid pace of advancement, in fact, is the subject of my new book with working title “Bullish on Clean Energy.”