Free book teaches DIY for solar energy

Despite its abundance on Earth, solar energy remains a largely underutilized natural resource. One Western professor is hoping to change that by teaching people how to harness their own solar energy - for free. Recently appointed Western University's John M. Thompson Chair in Information Technology and Innovation, Joshua Pearce has co-authored a do-it-yourself (DIY) solar energy e-book with his long-time collaborator Lonny Grafman, a lecturer at Humboldt State University and the founder of Appropedia - the leading sustainability wiki that anyone can edit. Approximately 173,000 terawatts of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously - that's more than 10,000 times the world's total energy use. Despite this, most recent data shows solar energy represents only about 0.5 per cent of Canada's national electricity generation. "That's not good enough," said Pearce, one of the world's top solar photovoltaic technology experts. Open source means the coding for the e-book edition of To Catch The Sun is freely available for modification and redistribution.