The Future of Solar Energy

The Future of Solar Energy CesareSilvi We can imagine the future in thousands of differentways. Things that we believe we cannot do without today may eventually become useless. New knowledge and ongoing changein the world we live in should encourage us to stretch our imaginationsand look farther ahead. In the spring of 1992,in what was long ago the center of imperial Rome, artist Peter Erskine fused the past and the present by means of the sun. I had met Erskine the year before in Denver, at the world conference organized every twoyears by the International Solar Energy Society (ISES).Amidst all the engineers, chemists,physicists, economists and legislatorsconvened to dis cuss concrete applicationsof solar technologyand problems of pollution and environmentaldegradation, there was Erskine,in attendance as an artist of the year 2000. In Rome, Erskine’sSemets of the Sun: Milhnial Meditations (Fig. 1)[11 transformed the thirdcentury ruins of Trajan’sMarket into a theater of human life as he painted it with sunlight. Produced and processed by advanced solar and information technology and guided by the artist’s imagination and The SolArt GlobalNetwork sectionof Leonardo makes visible the activitiesof a group of artists, engineers,scientists and scholarsparticipating in an international project. Theparticipants in the SolArt GlobalNetwork are dedicated to provoking the cultural changesnecessary to moveour societiesfi-oma dependence on petroleum-based sources o f energy to a dependence on renewable resources.For further information on theSolArt Global Network, contactJurgen Claus and Nora C h w at CentreOveroth, Overoth5, B-4837B a e h , Belgzum. Tel: (32) 87-743791; fax: (32)87-743796. Additional infmation can also be obtained on theLeonardo World Wide WebSite, located at