Where Does Solar Go from Here?

UC Santa Barbara’s John Perlin Illuminates Our Sun-Powered Past, Present, and Future in ‘Let It Shine’

By Nick Welsh | May 5, 2022

SOLAR FLAIR: UCSB visiting scholar and author John Perlin says the new edition of his book Let It Shine contains a plan for ending “the heating up of our planet and our reliance on petroleum autocrats like Putin.”

John Perlin lives, breathes, and dreams in science, and his particular passions are often related to alarming developments around the world, whether the climate crisis or the destruction of trees and forests. He wrote Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy in 2013, and the newly released paperback edition contains a plan for a 100 percent renewable future, “both an answer to the quest to end the heating up of our planet and our reliance on petroleum autocrats like Putin,” Perlin said. In the past decade, photovoltaics moved from expensive to now the least costly source of electricity, and solar arrays capacity increased from a billion watts to a trillion watts today. A visiting scholar in UC Santa Barbara’s Physics Department, Perlin replied to questions about his book and solar energy in general in Santa Barbara.

Years back, I rode a motorcycle that ran on a solar-powered steam engine someone built in their garage. Admittedly, it didn’t go fast, and it didn’t go far, but it was definitely ingenious. Any new applications you see in the future? And I thought I was a solar nutcase! Sure would like to meet the guy who built that solar steam engine. But panels now can elegantly power electric cars, bicycles, and motorcycles that can travel at normal speeds, and you can pump the solar fuel from your rooftop.

In Santa Barbara, solar panels on the roof of The Granada Theatre parking garage encountered arguments about sightline intrusions and other aesthetic considerations. What grade would you give the city — the birthplace of the environmental movement, in case you’d forgotten — for maximizing its solar opportunities? First, let’s get past the local grand delusion that Santa Barbara was the birthplace of the environmental movement. Have you not heard of Rachel Carson’s 1962 revelatory ecological bombshell Silent Spring?