DR. LAWRENCE
L. KAZMERSKI
Director, National Center for Photovoltaics National
Renewable Energy Laboratory
Kazmerski Biography>> |
2006 Taylor Lecturer Says Solar Energy
at Tipping Point
On the 50th anniversary of the development of the first
practical solar cell, at Bell Labs in 1956, Lawrence Kazmerski,
Director of the National Center for Photovoltaics at the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory at Golden, Colorado,
came to Penn State to deliver the 2006 Taylor Lecture.
With humor and a tremendous breadth of knowledge on the
past, present, and future of solar cell technology, Dr.
Kazmerski enlightened and entertained an enthusiastic audience
in the HUB-Robeson Center with a multimedia presentation
that included footage of old newsreels, an original solar
transistor radio from the 1950s, and a current European
television commercial that portrays solar energy raining
from the sky in the form of batteries
Kazmerski expressed
the belief that the use of solar energy worldwide is
at a “tipping point” for explosive
development. In Germany, for instance, solar panels
have been installed on 700,000 roofs and a “feed-in” tariff
has been established by the German government that guarantees
a high rate of return to consumers for generating electricity
and returning it to the energy grid. He warned, however,
that the U.S. may be losing out as other countries forge
ahead with government support. “The United
States is losing photovoltaic market share,” Kazmerski
told the audience. “We need to maintain consistent
federal research funding or scientists will leave this
field.”
He also expressed concern with the slow process of commercializing
solar technology in this country. He passed around a 1950s-era
solar-powered transistor radio for the audience to inspect. “This
solar-powered radio was in production within a year of
the development of the first solar cell,” Kazmerski
said. “We don’t do that anymore. We have to
cut the time to market, which is currently eight years.
We need to get going."
Questioning the lack of urgency Kazmerski
joked, “Maybe
it’s all in the name. Bell called them solar batteries. That
sounds better than photovoltaics.”
A second generation
of solar technology, with either much greater conversion
efficiency or lower materials cost, is ready to come to
the market, he said. This technology,
which includes thin films, organics, concentrators, thin
silicon wafers, will have a disruptive effect on the energy
field. This is a critical time for research and development
in materials science and chemistry. “If we don’t
invest in 3rd and 4th generation solar cell research, in
25 years we won’t own them.”
Penn State faculty
call for aggressive energy research
In presentations
given prior to Kazmerski’s talk,
Penn State professors Harold Schobert, Thomas Mallouk,
and Digby Macdonald presented both overviews of the current
energy crisis and details of their energy-related research.
Schobert, who recently stepped down as director of the
Penn State Energy Institute, offered a history of various
energy crises that began with the Hittites 3500-4000 years
ago. The Hittites, the first civilization to smelt
iron, cut down all of the trees in their region to make
charcoal for their iron furnaces. This led to the
first energy crisis and the collapse of the Hittite civilization.
Today we are in the midst of a energy crisis of our own,
Schobert told the audience. There is good reason to believe
that petroleum availability will be a growing problem,
as a result of civil unrest, growing demand, and Hubert’s
peak, which predicts a peak in production followed by a
rapid depletion of finite resources. The best way
to find “new” energy is to conserve what we’ve
got and use energy more efficiently, according to Schobert. Carnot’s
equation suggests that the best way to raise efficiency
in a closed system such as an engine or furnace is to raise
the temperature. This requires new materials, “superalloys
for ultrasupercritical systems.”
Tom Mallouk, Dupont Professor of Materials Chemistry and
Physics, agreed that energy security is a national concern
but believes that the environmental problem from the accumulation
of greenhouse gases may be more serious. With the growth
in energy use, which is expected to double by 2050, we
could be facing environmental disaster in 10 to 50 years,
he said. “For students thinking about what
to do with your life, this is the most important problem,” Mallouk
asserted.
In his solar cell research, Mallouk is using an approach
that involves photonic crystals that can slow light so
that it stays in the dielectric material of the solar cell
longer and enhances the absorption of the red wavelengths. So
far, this method has shown a 25 percent increase in the
current 10 percent efficiency of traditional dye-sensitized
solar cells. By contrast, silicon solar cells are
already 25 percent efficient, he said, but cost too much
in materials. With Penn State colleague Joan Redwing,
Mallouk is trying to lower the materials cost by using
silicon nanowires.
Digby Macdonald, professor of materials science and engineering,
directs the Center for Electrochemical Science and Technology
at Penn State. MacDonald is interested in the degradation
of electrodes in fuel cells. Fuels cells are a promising
technology that could produce clean energy by combining
hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity. The
oxygen electrode reaction, Macdonald suggested, is one
of the Achilles heals of fuel cell technology.
Within the cell, energy is produced by an electrochemical
reaction that also produces hydrogen peroxide, which degrades
the electrodes and reduces the fuel cell performance. The
actual catalysis process is still not well understood,
he said. New methods for investigating the effect of the
thin oxide films (50 to 10 angstroms) that form on the
platinum electrodes needed to be developed. “It’s
hard to measure that thin a film,” Macdonald said. His
group developed a formula to measure oxide film thickness
by the current voltage. “Our conclusion – the
thickness of the film is the most important factor in electrode
efficiency in a fuel cell. Now we can try to engineer a
better electrode.”
Written By: Walt Mills
Photos: Mike Fleck, Materials Science and Engineering
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DR. LAWRENCE
L. KAZMERSKI
Director, National Center for Photovoltaics
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Lawrence L. Kazmerski is Director of the National
Center for Photovoltaics at the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory, Golden, Colorado. He received his Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering from the University
of Notre Dame in 1970, and was on the faculty of the
University of Maine before coming to SERI (NREL) in
1977. His research at Maine included NSF- and ERDA-funded
work in thin-film photovoltaics and the report of the
first thin-film copper-indium-diselenide (CIS) solar
cell. He was SERI’s first staff member in photovoltaics,
hired specifically to establish efforts in the characterization
of photovoltaic materials and devices; he led NREL
efforts in measurements and characterization for more
than 20 years. He has held adjunct professorships at
the University of Colorado, Colorado School of Mines,
and the University of Denver. Dr. Kazmerski has published
over 300 journal papers in the areas of solar cells,
thin films, semiconductor materials and devices, surface
and interface analysis, molecular beam epitaxy, semiconductor
defects, scanning probe microscopy, nanoscale technology,
high-temperature superconductivity, solar and photovoltaics
technologies, and solar hydrogen. He has authored or
edited four books, and serves on the editorial board
of several journals—and he has more than 160
invited presentations at international conferences,
workshops, and seminars. He was co-founder and editor
of the journal SOLAR CELLS, published by Elsevier-Sequoia
(1979-1991). Kazmerski is Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier
journal, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
He has three R&D 100 Awards. He is active in the
IEEE, AVS, MRS, APS, ISES, and ASES. Kazmerski was
the recipient of the Peter Mark Memorial Award of the
AVS in 1981 and IEEE William R. Cherry Award in 1993.
He has received several international recognitions
for his work in solar photovoltaics. Kazmerski is a
Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the American Physical
Society (APS), a Fellow of the AVS, and a Fellow of
the International Energy Foundation (IEF). His is a
Distinguished Lecturer of the AVS (1999-present). In
2000, Kazmerski was recognized as a Honorary Member
of the AVS for his contributions to science and the
Society. This year, Kazmerski was elected as a member
of the National Academy of Engineering.
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THOMAS E. MALLOUK
DIGBY D. MACDONALD