Perspective

In our view, the converging threats of poor energy security, declining fossil fuels supplies, and radical climate change dictate that the World needs a greatly expanded renewable energy infrastructure. However, by its nature, all renewable energy supplies are highly diffuse and widely dispersed. This means that any renewable energy technology must take up large areas of land in order to intercept and extract the renewable energy resource. If one calculates exactly how much land area needs to be set aside, different renewable technologies turn out to require vastly different land areas. This simple fact alone ought to make thought-leaders question which renewable technologies are actually viable. However, at present investment and policy decisions are typically heavily influenced by the short-term cost of energy alone. This is, in our opinion, far too short sighted and a wholly incorrect basis for directing energy investments and energy policy. Of greater importance is whether the renewable energy technology has the potential to scale to meet our national and international energy needs at competitive cost. This is why XE is developing a concentrating photvoltaic (CPV) technology that uses abundant, accessible, inexpensive materials, in a system design which aims to maximize the energy yield per unit area, at competitive cost. Moreover, by keeping the scale of our energy needs, and the scalability of our renewable energy technologies, in mind from day one, we have been able to foresee a much larger market for renewable energy than is currently envisioned by most energy analysts who, frankly, are too tied to economic assumptions that are about to run counter to the physical reality. It is clear our total renewable energy infrastructure needs to have a balance of different component technologies. Nevertheless, we should plan wisely to develop those renewable components that can actually scale to meet a significant fraction of our energy needs, and not be distracted by short term non-scaling opportunities that will eventually leave us underpowered and out of options. Ultimately, taking a longer-term view of the renewable energy space will provide a greater business opportunity than might have otherwise been possible.