Further Reading
Solar Technology Deep Dive
Perovskite-silicon tandem cells hit 34.5% efficiency in 2025. This is the number I'm tracking because it represents a potential step-change in solar economics — not marginal improvement but a new physics baseline. Traditional silicon solar caps around 26-27% under standard conditions. Tandem cells stack perovskite on top of silicon, capturing different parts of the light spectrum that each material handles better.
Key Papers and Reports
- Science: Efficient tandem solar cells emerge — Review of tandem cell commercialization timeline, 2025
- NREL: Best Research-Cell Efficiency Chart — Continuously updated record of all laboratory cell efficiencies by technology
- IRENA: Solar PV Cost Reduction Roadmap — Supply chain scaling projections for perovskite manufacturing
- Wikipedia: Perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell — Comprehensive technology overview and commercialization status
Why This Matters for Storage Economics
Higher efficiency cells reduce the balance-of-system cost per watt — mounting, wiring, land use — which is where most of a solar installation's real cost lives. A jump from 24% to 34% efficiency means roughly 30% less hardware per MW installed. This compounds with battery cost declines to accelerate grid storage economics faster than the sodium-ion analysis alone suggests.
Books
- Breaking Through: Clean Energy and Competitiveness in a Carbon-Constrained World by C.K. Goldman & A. Lovins
- How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates
- The Climate Casino: What Happens When We Push the Planet Too Far by Will Steffen
- Net Zero: The Climate Revolution by Al Gore
- The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience by David Holmgren — practical guide to community-level energy transition
Documentaries & Films
- Don't Look Up (2021) — satirical take on climate denialism
- Kiss the Ground (2020) — soil carbon and regenerative agriculture
- An Inconvenient Truth (2006) — the classic climate documentary
- The Age of Stupid (2010) — from the perspective of 2055
- An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power (2017) — follows up on progress and setbacks a decade later
Podcasts
- Climate Quiz — climate science and policy Q&A
- The Good Pod — solutions-focused climate content
- O'Reilly Climate Radar Podcast — expert interviews
- Climate Down Under — Australia-focused climate analysis
- CAIT Climate Watch Podcast — World Resources Institute's policy deep-dives
Opinion & Analysis
- The Ecologist — long-running environmental analysis
- Grist — climate justice perspective
- Mother Jones Climate — investigative climate journalism
- The New Republic Climate — policy-focused analysis
- Climate Feedback — fact-checking of climate-related science reporting by domain experts
"The most dangerous phrase in the language is, 'We've always done it this way.'"
— Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
This reading list skews toward practical economics over techno-optimism or doom. The books I'd recommend first are How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (Gates) for the big-picture tech survey and The Transition Handbook (Holmgren) for what actual local action looks like when you're not in a position to change national policy.