ABSTRACT
According to astrophysical studies, the solar system, along with the Earth and the other familiar planets, will last for about another four and a half billion years. Throughout that inconceivable span of time, the sun will continue to give of its energies to people, plants and animals. Not only that, but the sun supplies energy in quantities sufficient to satisfy even the most opulent energy demands of an expanding human, plant and animal sphere. Every year, the sun delivers 15,000 times more energy than is consumed by the entire human population, to say nothing of the solar energy locked up in the short or medium term in the land surface, bodies of water and plant material. It is therefore utterly grotesque when people continue to assert – supposedly with scientific backing – that humankind's energy needs cannot be met from solar energy alone. It is still only a brave few who dare to suggest that renewable energy can supply all our energy needs, as the scenarios in A Solar Manifesto describe. 1 Many fear that if they address the possibility of completely dispensing with the conventional energy system, they will be ridiculed as scientific illiterates or naive idealists.
