“Are we really as a species so stupid to put up things that could wipe us out in the end? Not only could we achieve self-destruction through military means, but also with so-called peaceful or civil measures.” That’s what went through Gerhard Knies’s mind when the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown happened in April 1986.
Immediately following the accident, Knies, a high-energy physicist who spent most of his career at the Electron Synchrotron laboratory in Hamburg, Germany, did calculations that convinced him that solar energy offered a solution. “We don’t need to invest in risky nuclear power or in fusion.” By the time he retired in late 2000, climate change had become another big concern globally, “and it was clear that we need[ed] a solution before we run out of fossil fuels,” says Knies. “I started to organize.”
Knies brought together some 40 experts to study the technical feasibility of collecting solar...
