Solar revolution continues in California, China
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First, PG&E, the huge Northern California utility, says it will increase its use of solar power nearly fivefold.
The project is one of the biggest solar-thermal investments in the United States. It will build a 100-megawatt solar-thermal plant, which will use both the sun and steam to produce energy, and several plants will follow, reports
Merc colleague Sarah Tribble.
Second, if you are an entrepreneur and you've run out of ideas, check out this story: China is set to spend $200 billion on renewable energy over the next 15 years. Say that number over again. Go East, young man.
http://www.siliconbeat.com/cgi-bin/mt331/mt-tb.cgi/1904
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Tracked: August 17, 2006 7:45 PM
It seems every country is dramatically increasing their green energy in the coming years. Every second article has a doubling or tripling etc of the exisiting. I think things are going to change dramically in the next few years.
solar power on August 11, 2006 7:16 PMComment link
Why waste money on solar when relicensing the two shutdown nuclear plants (Rancho Seco 913Mw and San Onofre 425Mw) would provide over 1300Mw of clean and safe 24 hr/day electricity for electricity hungry California.
Come on folks; solar and wind are distributed energy sources. Hydro-gravity is too but at least water can be pumped back to upper pools with surplus electricity for reuse. Nuclear and hydrocarbon is concentrated. Both are dirty but reliable. Nuclear produces waste that must be stored or recycled, while hydrocarbon produces air polutants CO2 and in the case of coal CO2 plus nitrous oxides that cause respritory ailments.
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For those of you who haven't toured a solar panel plant, one common part of the plant is a substation serving that plant. The point is it takes a lot of energy to build solar panels. So much so that more than half of the lifetime of the panel is used just paying back that energy used to create it! This mania about solar is digging the hole deeper and faster.
We have solutions, but the brain snatchers have taken over our minds. Hydro, nuclear and clean coal are here and available. Drilling for natural gas on public lands is a good solution. The rest are research and development projects that jeopardize solving our energy crisis.
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Alan, there is some merit to what you describe, but your observations are mostly warranted for high temperature processes mostly used with conventional hitemp diffused doping silicon wafer cells. You are ignoring the promise found in many thin film and other novel manufacturing processes & materials, that are now just coming into some prominence.
Take the case of Nanosolar, (not in any way advocating Nanosolar btw) but there the energy requirements for a specific output of photovoltaic cells, the requiried manufacturing energy - I'd hazard a guess there are substantial improvements in time to net energy balance and more.... The Nanosolar roll to roll CIGS ink cells are not energy hogs in the manufacturing plant.
By contrast, older tech is older for a reason. Innovation holds the potential to change tradeoffs substantially. This is why folks who are trying to develop new cell technology, always mention $1 /watt as a cost goal in manufacturing / selling price. They may not get there if attempted with too little manufacturing discipline, but folks are trying, and trying hard. To give up, before you thoughtfully and diligently tried, is foolish.
None the less, PGE's thermal solar power plant expansion is significant. In truly large scale, the solar heated working fluid paradigm can work well. LUZ has shown with the dual tube in tube evacuated gap, the resulting low loss thermal insulating configuration of their solar collectors is very advantageous.
It is pretty simple engineering and there is no complicated technology as in novel photovoltaics requiring substantive innovation. Maintenance is pretty easy too, a boon for larger powerplant scale installations. While it is not a photovoltaic, LUZ is in some sense more practical for large power generation, and NOW. It is possible with their 30% efficiency to conceive of building much larger plants than PGE is committing to, and with success.
Restarting the old nuclear power plants is not something to ignore. They should not remain idle, but the restart is both hugely capital intensive to bring equipment and plant up to operating condition. In the case of the damaged Browns Ferry Plant - the restart is almost arduous and hugely costly, on a scale that far exceeds cost of a LUZ type plant, with the nuclear having all the safety and other risks - and LUZ being a slam dunk simple mechanical engineering thermal system...and LUZ being perfectly safe...
Here in California and other sunny climes, the LUZ technology is very very useful, but my guess not so attractive to VCs since the firm is independent and not in early startup stage. It would be nice if someone with a large amount of capital had the foresight to buy LUZ with intention to do a massive buildout in some southwest desert area for large scale on grid power generation. That is both low risk, and would change everything...as the success has NO technical hurdles at all..
Mark Wendman on August 14, 2006 10:25 AMComment link
For the posting by Alan Gartner, I would guess that he did not live in the area when Rancho Seco still had a license. The plant operator could not keep the plant running for more than a month or two before a problem would occur. Fixing the problem would result in big $$$ repairs, and the plant out of operation for months. Since the local utility had to purchase replacement power, they finally decided to put the issue to voters to shutdown the plant. I remember the opponents campaigning against the remaining open as "Rancho Mistako".
For San Onofre, reportedly being built on top of an earthquake fault may not be a problem, until it becomes a really big problem.
So, considering the billions spent on just those two plants, the solar solution seems more attractive, potentially even lower cost. Plus puts all that desert land to some use, and no worries about anyone "stealing" the fuel for nefarious uses.
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