If, AS GREENS suggest, the 21st century becomes the solar century, we will have Ishaq Shahryar to thank. Thirty years ago, as a young emigre from Afghanistan in the US, he virtually invented solar power as a serious energy source. He helped develop it for space satellites, slashed costs a hundredfold and then, in a bid to bring it to the people, he designed the first solar-powered Ferris wheel and brought solar panels to motorway call boxes and billboards. Now events back home lure him. He played a key role in setting up the interim government in Afghanistan late last year. But he refused cabinet posts, wanting the freedom to pursue his latest dream-reinventing Afghan villages as solar-powered, Internet-connected powerhouses for the modernisation of one of the least industrialised countries on Earth. Now, as he tells Fred Pearce, he has been nominated as Afghanistan鈥檚 top ambassador-to the United States.
Tell me about your early life in Afghanistan.
I am from a family of intellectuals: scientists, doctors, lots of writers and poets, a few advisers to the old government when the king was on the throne. When we lived in Kabul in the 1950s, there were four major high schools. One was American, one French, one German and one British. The government sent the top three students from each school on scholarships abroad. In 1956 I was top of the list from the American school, so I went to the US to study physical chemistry. I expected to go back after my six-year scholarship.
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Then in 1961 President Kennedy set the US on course to put a man on the Moon. Did that inspire you?
Yes. I was one of three people who were hired to develop silicon technology for solar cells for spacecraft. I developed the idea of printing solar cells onto silicon wafers. And I came up with a system using alkali to etch the wafers, instead of acid. This substantially reduced the cost and increased the efficiency of solar cells. Instead of 20 or 30 steps to make a space solar cell I ended up with four steps, and a cell with a 9 to 10 per cent efficiency.
So then you decided to stay in America?
I just never got round to going home. Instead, Spectrolab, a division of Hughes Aircraft, hired me to develop solar cells for terrestrial applications. This was during the oil crisis of the early 1970s. The push was on to develop alternative sources of energy to end the US鈥檚 reliance on oil imports, and to make them cheaper. Solar cells used to cost NASA $1000 a watt, but at Spectrolab we got it down to $30.
At what point did you begin to think you were onto something very big here-that solar could be the power source of the 21st century?
The oil embargo was the start of it. Hughes sent me round the world to sell the new technology. I thought there would be a tremendous market in the Middle East, where they had lots of oil money and lots of remote villages that needed power. I spent a lot of time in Iran when the Shah was in charge, and set up a joint venture with a prominent company very close to the Shah. I also worked for the Saudis and India and went to South-East Asia and Japan. I was committed to selling solar power for terrestrial uses.
I took a small solar panel that powered a radio on these journeys. Wherever I went, people were delighted and amazed by it. I told them I was a 鈥減hotovoltaic fundamentalist鈥�.
But that revolution never happened. Oil prices went back down and everybody forgot about solar energy.
Yes鈥� but even before then, Hughes decided they wanted to concentrate on winning government contracts for solar cells in space. So I started my own company, Solec International, in 1976 to see whether I could make terrestrial solar cells more efficient. We did-by 1993 we had got the efficiency of solar cells up to 20 per cent and prices below $5 a watt. Today it鈥檚 around $3.50 a watt. When we got the patent for that, I sold my company to Sumitomo Sanyo of Japan. I ran the company for them for another two years. But then I quit and started a systems design company called Solar Utility.
I thought that while we solar pioneers had made tremendous technological breakthroughs, we made a horrible job of educating people about solar power. We spent billions on research and development, when we should have focused on public relations, to make solar power visible. So in the past five years I have designed a solar-powered Ferris wheel for Santa Monica pier, and solar-powered billboards, bus shelters and telephone call boxes for freeways.
Your home is solar powered, I suppose?
I don鈥檛 know how to tell you this. I have solar lighting on my drive. But when I started putting solar panels on the roof of my house by the ocean in Pacific Palisades the neighbours raised hell, lawsuits and all. I backed off, but one day I鈥檒l do it.
So you haven鈥檛 persuaded your neighbours yet. What about the President? What do you think of George Bush鈥檚 energy policies and his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol?
Unfortunately this administration is turning the clock back to the 60s and 70s, with its emphasis on oil, gas and nuclear. I鈥檓 very upset about that-especially after President Clinton promoted the idea that a million roofs should be solar powered. It鈥檚 very dangerous for our environment and our future, especially nuclear for God鈥檚 sake. I hope Bush will eventually see things our way.
But in fact there is tremendous demand for solar energy now in California, and I am glad to have lived to see that. All the manufacturing companies here have their order books full for nine months.
You failed with 鈥渟olar fundamentalism鈥� in the developing world. Can these countries now skip the age of carbon in a leapfrog jump to post-industrial technologies like solar power, or is that pie in the sky?
I think if they can see some success stories many of them will be willing to try. My idea is to create a model solar village. In Afghanistan right now, I am hoping to get funding from the agencies involved in reconstruction to set up such a model village. We鈥檇 build about 500 prefabricated houses, each with two bedrooms, living room, shower and so on, with 500 kilowatts of panels on the roof. The village would have a school with a satellite dish and modems, and a clinic. If you want to build a city like that then you can put 10-15 of these villages together. I think if I can build one, the idea would take off throughout the Middle East.
What did you think when the US was bombing your homeland?
The bombing probably killed 200 to 300 people, but if it hadn鈥檛 happened, one million Afghans would have died of starvation this winter. I am a Pashtun, but I had a tremendous desire to get rid of these terrorists and the Taliban. So God bless America. Thank God it happened. It was tragic that 3000 to 4000 were killed in America. But they liberated 26 million poor, starving people.
You returned to Afghanistan in March. How did you find it?
There was total devastation. All these beautiful towns and cities were just bombed to bits. But the morale of the people was high. Shops and restaurants were open and everybody smiled.
What do you think about the political situation now?
I think the Bonn conference in December, which set up the interim government, was a good example of how we Afghans can solve problems if we can sit down together and talk about things. For the first time in the history of Afghanistan a government was formed by consensus. It was just amazing.
How were you involved?
I have been an adviser to the former king for the past five years. Fourteen of us, including Hamid Karzai, now the leader of the country, set up the Rome Group to advise him and work towards a new government in Afghanistan. We were one of the four groups meeting in Bonn. At the conference, I was offered the ministry of planning but I rejected it. It was announced that I had been made minister of transport, but I went to the UN office and withdrew my name.
Why did you do that?
I have personal obligations-I have children in America aged 10 and 15. I felt that as a minister in a cabinet my hands would be tied. And I thought that for the moment I could best serve Afghanistan from outside. For example, I can talk to you and everyone about these dreams I have.
What role do you now see for yourself?
I have been asked to become Afghanistan鈥檚 ambassador to Washington. It will mean giving up my US citizenship, but it will allow me to play a big part in the economic revolution that we need now in Afghanistan.
What is your vision for Afghanistan?
Start with my model village idea. But I also want to change Afghanistan from an agricultural to an industrial society. It鈥檚 tremendously rich in oil and gas, copper, iron and precious metals, all kinds of things. I want to get the green light to bring in US companies to explore for and develop oil and gas reserves and mines. It would be very easy to industrialise Afghanistan. And the people are very entrepreneurial.
But it is a very rural and backward country. How long would that take?
I鈥檇 say in 10 or 15 years we could do a lot. But it鈥檚 like what President Kennedy said about going to the Moon. We have to take the first step even if the journey takes a thousand years. Another crazy dream I have is for the one million orphans in Afghanistan. Why not bring them all to the industrialised world, put them into families, send them to school and train them in technical skills? Then they could go back and help transform Afghanistan.
So, the American way. How would you make that happen?
I made a proposal to the UN that the reconstruction money should be handled by an executive committee of seven or eight Afghan-Americans and Europeans with advisers and subcommittees for each field, such as agriculture, energy, housing and so on. Each committee should have an Afghan-American chair. There are so many with real expertise in different fields. They would be responsible for forwarding requests for funding to the donor countries. It would be a corporate structure. And every company that goes there should set up a partnership to develop entrepreneurship in Afghanistan.
But will the country be stable enough?
Afghans lived very peacefully for 40 years under the king. What went wrong was foreign interference. When we wanted to get oil or other materials out, the Soviets interfered. Now the Soviet Union is gone and we have a different world. If someone else like Iran tries to destabilise the government I think they should be punished for it. I think Bush is already warning them. They should stay away.
What do you think Afghanistan look like 10 years from now?
It will be a successful industrialised country, a model democratic Islamic country. Islam teaches democracy.