Chris Goodall

The Switch to Solar Power

Solar panels in India
Solar panels in India
Chris Goodall
Chris Goodall

The Switch

“The Switch” argues Bill Gates and his fellow travellers are mistaken “It won’t take 15 years but the breakthrough that Gates anticipated has already occurred” according to the author Chris Goodall, a British clean-energy expert and investor. Existing technology have brought the world to the solar-power and electricity storage revolution that will over shadow today’s fossil-fuel based energy.

Bill Gates the technology billionaire donates most of his fortune to make the world a better place. Stanford University’s Mark Z Jacobson, said last year, the existing know-how provides the means to power by water, wind and solar technologies, most of the 200 countries to be 80 per cent   by 2030 and 100 per cent self sufficient by 2050.

However, the wind and solar farms currently only producing less than 5 per cent of world’s electricity. “It would be strange if it did not take over the world energy system, so what happens at night to solar when there is no sun and the British wind machines said to be capable of producing power at costs equal to the cheapest fossil fuel generation.

Electric carmakers such as BMW, Tesla , Volvo and Nissan have already got the car battery costs downto about $200 per Kilowatt hour in 2016.

Goodall’s view heralds unstoppable switch away from fossil fuels towards new green power. The Switch tracks the transition away from coal, oil and gas to aworld which the limitless energy of the sun provides much of the energy which over 10 billion people of this planet needs.

Goodall snoops into the future in ten years’ time, a world powered by solar photovoltaics (PV) not by fossil fuels, as solar panels are being made that will last longer than evr hoped, investors are seeing the benefits of the long-term rewards provided by investing in solar. He examines in his book both the solar future and how we will get there, and the ways in which we will provide stored power when sun isn’t shining. The future is bright with switch which provides a positive solution to the climate change crisis.

Chris who lives in Oxford is the consultant and adviser to investors and companies across the fields of low-carbon energy and the circular economy.

 

The Switch : How Solar, Storage and New Tech Means Cheap Power for All by Chris Goodall Profile Books £9.99 288 pages