House of Solar

Written by Philip Proefrock
Tuesday, 18 March 2008

Lots of people are getting excited about all the various technologies for using biofuels of one sort or another as a replacement for fossil fuels, and they may present a short-term option. But looking at the various kinds of energy production that are possible gives some insight into the best directions to promote in terms of developing long-term efficient energy production.

A study cited on EV World makes a comparison between different crop- and direct-production methods of generating energy in terms of miles per acre per year, with some eye-opening information.

At the bottom end of the scale is soybean biodiesel, which can provide only 2,400 miles per acre per year. Corn ethanol is more than six times as efficient, yielding 18,000 miles per acre per year. But because of the relatively slow rate of production from plant-based fuels, these options far fall below the productivity of directly produced energy.

The same acre can produce 10 times as much energy from wind as it can from corn ethanol, 180,000 miles per acre per year. But both corn ethanol and wind power pale in comparison with solar photovoltaic, which can produce more than 2 million miles worth of transport per acre per year.

This is not to completely dismiss biofuels out-of-hand. The cost of an acre’s worth of solar PV arrays is far more than 100 times more expensive than planting an acre of corn. Many biofuels can be produced on marginal lands that are ill-suited for solar. And cellulosic ethanol can even be produced from waste, effectively making it a zero land-use fuel. And presumably the comparisons are based on sites that are optimal for each mode of generation. A site that is highly suitable for harvesting wind energy may not be a good site for growing corn, and vice versa.

The infrastructure and the existing “car parc” (the entire fleet of all vehicles in the country) is also going to take decades to turn over to the point where a significant proportion of the vehicles on the road are electric vehicles. Both a mix of energy sources and regionally appropriate choices need to be part of a comprehensive energy plan. But this offers a useful comparison that suggests where the best allocation of resources should be focused in terms of long-range planning for our energy future. ————————

Biofuels versus Solar
Lutz’s identification of ‘electric’ car technology as the top priority program at GM may prove prescient if 2006 turns out to be the year world crude oil production peaked. Assuming we are in for a gradual, but steady decline in oil production over the coming decade, the focus on electric drive and related energy efficiency technologies will be critical in more ways than we may think.

With the declining availability of once vast reserves of ancient sunlight we’ve been pulling out of the ground at breakneck speeds, future generations are going to have to rely increasingly on the available sunlight that falls on the planet each day either in the form of biomass-based fuels (biodiesel and ethanol) or on electricity generated by the wind or directly from sunlight.

Five Star Consultants’ Ken Regelson recently did a study that examined these alternatives from the perspective of “yield in miles driven per acre of land per year.” The results are pretty amazing and fall in line with a similar study done in Germany and published in Photon International. See Drive Further on Sunlight.

Obviously, the most efficient way to move a vehicle when measured in use of land area is converting sunlight directly into electricity to run electric cars, everything else with the exception of biodiesel derived from algae, pales by comparison.

The Senate May Kill 42 GW of Planned Renewable Energy
Written by Hank Green Wednesday, 05 March 2008

While the U.S. House has happily passed the renewable energy credits that have, for the last few years, kept the U.S. competitive with other countries in this burgeoning new economy, the Senate has failed to pass the legislation three times.

The largest planned solar power project in history, a 280-megawatt solar thermal plant in Arizona, will not be built if the tax credits are not extended. But that’s not where the story ends. Over 42,000 MW — that’s as much as 75 coal-fired power plants — are hinging on this bill. Those projects, representing the largest yearly growth in U.S. solar EVER, will go online in 42 states only if the subsidies stay in place.

The renewable energy credits will expire at the end of 2008 and already planned projects are putting in a provision saying that they will cancel if the credits are not passed. The problem seems to be that every version of the renewable energy credit bill that has hit the Senate takes subsidies away from oil and gas companies and gives them to the renewables energy. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the head Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has said that he will block any such legislation, calling the repeal of their subsidies a “tax” on oil and gas.

Many Senators claim that ending oil and gas subsidies will only serve to increase gas prices but, call me crazy, giving taxpayers’ money to the oil companies so they can lower prices doesn’t really make that much sense. We could just give the money straight to the taxpayers instead of helping to increase the already-record profits of the oil industry.

Subsidies exist to help bolster new economies when they need the capital, not to prop up dying systems. If our country can put together the funding to create 42 gigawatts of renewable energy, that will be something that we can all be proud of. That, in fact, will stop the demand for new coal power plants while putting us in a position to compete with the rest of the world in this new energy economy.

Senate Democrats are scrambling to put together a stand-alone version of the bill. The last two have failed by just one vote (notably, John McCain did not vote on either bill) and Democrats are confident that they can pull that extra vote from somewhere before their effectual deadline at the end of the first quarter of ‘08. Let’s hope they get this done…NOW.

why-john-mccain-is-not-the-candidate-to-stop-global-warming

Greenland holds as much water in ice as the gulf of Mexico. It is melting at an alarming rate. When ice on the water melts our oceans do not rise but when ice that is out of the water melts ,like Greenland, we will see our coastlines disappear. Take a moment to learn about what is going on in Greenland. You can not ignore something that will literally come to come of your doorsteps.

The Full Story

———————— One Profile

The Solar Economy Profiles:

Fred Morse began his reign as king of the solar thermal industry four decades ago, when President Nixon asked him to figure out whether solar energy made sense for America. His conclusion: most definitely. He managed solar energy in the Department of Energy for Presidents Carter and Reagan until 1989.

Two years later, the federal government slashed renewable energy subsidies in the face of plummeting natural gas prices and solar went out of vogue. In the late 1990s, as co-chair of the Western Governors’ Association Solar Task Force, he helped bring it back. Today he heads up Spanish energy company Abengoa’s solar efforts in the U.S.

Forbes: Why did solar thermal energy disappear for so long?

Morse: The policies got out ahead of the technology. Because of the two oil crises, Congress started to pass legislation that we were very excited about at the time. Policies make markets. But the technology couldn’t respond. Then the policies changed and the investment tax credit that was available at the federal and state levels went away and the projects were no longer financeable. That’s unfortunate, because now the technology is ready and the policies aren’t.

Then why is solar thermal making a comeback?

We have policies today, but they’re not quite enough. Some states have portfolio standards–X percent of a utility’s new energy must be from a renewable source. These require the utilities to do something. But if you don’t have a solar set-aside within that mandate, then it’s hard for solar thermal to compete with other renewables.

And there’s a 30% investment tax credit, but it’s only available for two years, and it takes four or five years to site, permit and build a plant. It’s like saying to somebody who’s starving, “The good news is that your meal is ready, but the bad news is you have to eat it in three minutes.” If the tax credit isn’t extended, solar will die again. Immediately.

What kind of policy would you prefer to see?

Look at Germany. Germany has the annual solar radiation of Seattle. Why on Earth are they building solar power plants? Because the German people care so much about the environment that they’re willing to allow the government to tax them–to put a surcharge on their rates of a euro a month, not even a can of beer–and with that, they pay solar developers a goldmine.

People in Germany rent other people’s roofs to put this on. It’s their retirement. Policies make markets. It’s absolutely ridiculous that the U.S., a country with a solar resource that is the best in the world, has not found a way to incentivize it.

The U.S. really has that much of a solar resource?

If I say Texas, you say oil and gas. If I say Arizona, you don’t say solar energy. But Arizona’s solar resources dwarf Texas’ oil and gas.

And you’re optimistic that the U.S. is going to start taking advantage of this resource?

I think that in the next few years you’ll see 3,000 megawatts of solar energy in the U.S. Now we have 419.

So what’s changed, besides state energy mandates and the federal tax credit?

We woke up to energy security and climate issues. And the technology has continuously improved. For power tower technology, the heliostats have gotten larger, more accurate and cheaper. For trough technology, the receiver tubes have become more efficient. These things allow you to lower the price of a plant.

Will there be more technological improvements in the near future?

I’ll give you some crazy ideas. Over the next five years, I predict solar thermal will be competitive with fossil fuels because there will be a carbon cap or tax.

Right now solar thermal plants don’t operate after the sun goes down, because it’s not economical to store the energy. But I predict that in five years, thermal storage will be advanced enough and cheap enough that it will allow solar to be used at night and become a competitor for base load power, which it isn’t now.

The third part of my vision is that we’ll build transmission lines from the Southwest to big load centers on the East Coast, so you can generate solar electricity in the Southwest, cost-effectively, run it well in to the night and ship that power across the country. And I’m not smoking anything.

Those are pretty big predictions. So could solar eventually power the whole country?

That’s not feasible. I believe the country, which now has a blend of hydropower, coal, gas, nuclear, wind, biomass, geothermal and solar, will always have that. But the ratios will change as the economics change. At some point, 500 years from now, we might run out of fossil fuels. Then we could be 100% solar. But I think it will be a gradual shifting of the balance.

Some time ago, Google announced that it would install a number of solar panels on the much-discussed Googleplex. Those panels are now in place, on, and, according to the company, generating “an electricity output capable of powering approximately 1,000 average California homes.”

It’ll still be quite a while before that free electricity offsets the initial cost of the system, but at least the panels have earned Google a little positive PR. The Earth Times Online, for example, states, “The Google system is also now the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the United States.”

To help people grasp the size of this development, Google has even created a new performance monitoring site; I’m told that, over the past day, those solar panels have generated enough electricity to run almost 6,000 loads of laundry. There are interesting charts, as well - as it is solar power Google’s using, you’ll note that output drops to zero overnight. more..

Googles daily Solar energy output graph

Ronald McDonald House gets a solar boost
6/20/2007 4:24 PM
By: Business Wire

The new Ronald McDonald House at the Mueller redevelopment in East Austin will be solar-powered.

Green Mountain Energy began installing a 10.8 kilowatt (kW) solar array Wednesday on the rooftop of the new home for families of sick children. It’s the first solar-powered Ronald McDonald House in the country.

The 54 photovoltaic solar panels will power up to 15 rooms. There will also be an educational kiosk to explain how solar energy works and how it contributes to energy efficiency.

Green Mountain Energy Company is funding the project through its Big Texas Sun Club, a program where Green Mountain customers can choose to support solar energy installations by adding $5 to their monthly bill. To date, nine solar projects have been funded with this project. When complete, the Ronald McDonald House will be the 10th and the first solar facility the company has in Austin. more…