Although currently in France, Bernard Kippelen, the co-president of the Lafayette Institute at the Georgia Tech-Lorraine campus on the outskirts of the French city Metz, won’t be attending the 2015 Paris Climate Conference this week. But the perceived threats of climate change are never far from his mind.
Among his responsibilities as director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, Dr. Kippelen keeps up with the latest scientific breakthroughs affecting the development of solar power.
He also has collaborated for years with Dr. Ajeet Rohatgi who is the founder and director of the photovoltaic research program at Georgia Tech since the mid-1980s and who was responsible for spinning out of the university Suniva Inc., the Norcross-based manufacturer of high-efficiency silicon solar cells and high-power solar modules.
During an interview with Global Atlanta in his office on the Tech campus, Dr. Kippelen recalled that as a 7-year-old growing up in the Alsace region, he learned that the earth was populated by 4 billion people.
“The challenge presented by the growth of the world’s population is increasing at an incredible pace,” he said. “Forty five years since then, we now have a population of 7.3 billion and there are projections that the world’s population will be 8.5 billion by 2030.”
“That’s not that far out,” added the 52-year-old. “And I hope to still be around in 15 years.”
He didn’t say it outright being more of a scientist than a polemicist, but there was no question he feels that the brakes placed on the development of solar energy are being applied by those in charge of public policies and not the scientists.
The interests vested in carbon producing sources of energy — that means coal, gas and oil — are entrenched. “But something has to be done,” he said. “Energy demands are going to continue to grow, especially as more people aspire to a decent life.”
Concerning global warning, he believes in the atmospheric scientists who have recorded the rise of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. “And there is evidence,” he said, “that there is a correlation between the increase in CO2 and human activity.”
As a researcher in ways of harnessing the light generated by the sun into electricity, it has always been obvious to him that the omnipresence of the sun’s rays and the absence of carbon emissions in that process provide a solution.
For years the primary barriers were economic, but those disappeared in the 2012 when the cost per watt generated by solar amounted to $1. The cost per watt today is even lower, not half but getting there. “Solar is ready for prime time,” he said.
While the same refrain may be heard often at the Paris summit, Dr. Kippelen quickly steers away from sound bites due to the underlying complexities of the science and his skepticism about the willingness of those in authority as well as the public at large to abandon old ways.
For instance, the development of the equipment necessary for generating power is a large factor in the adoption of solar initiatives. “You may have to wait longer than you want,” he said referring to what he called “payback time.”
While Sicily or Hawaii, which experience a lot of sunshine, will have shorter payback times than say Germany, which experiences a lot more cloud cover over the course of a year.
Dr. Kippelen, however, is no pessimist. The Lafayette Institute opened in 2012 with the purpose of commercializing the new materials produced by the Tech scientists. These developments in themselves give rise to optimism, he said.
He also is encouraged by the new storage capacities for solar power, which in time may even do away with the extensive grid systems covering the developed world and provide power to the underdeveloped world more efficiently.
But as he prepared for his visit to France, the headlines referring to the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris aren’t far from his mind either. The social problems presented by the massive immigration France has experienced obviously can’t be solved overnight.
Yet the future of those youths, who are alienated and have little hope in their lives, he said, would benefit from the economic development and creation of new jobs that science and a growing renewable energy sector can bring to life. These should be able, he said, to provide hope and a greater confidence in the future.
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