Category Archives: Solar

2012 Revisited

Crystal Ball

In “The World Will Not End & Other Predictions for 2012, here, I wrote:

  1. “Apple and IBM will continue to thrive. Microsoft will grow, slightly. Dell and HP will thrash. A share of Apple, which sold for $11 in December, 2001, and $380 in Dec. 2011, will sell for $480 in Dec. 2012.” (Mostly Correct, except Apple did better than I expected.)
  2. “The Price of oil will be at $150 to $170 per barrel in Dec., 2012. The price of gasoline will hit $6.00 per gallon in NYC and California.” (Wrong)
  3. There will be another two or three tragic accidents in China. 20,000 people will die. (The number of accidents was underestimate. Their magnitude was overestimated – however … )
  4. There will be a disaster at a nuclear power plant in India, Pakistan, Russia, China, or North Korea. (Wrong)
  5. Wal-Mart will stop growing. Credit Unions, insurance co-ops and Food co-ops, however, will grow 10% to 25%. (Wrong on WalMart, right on Credit Unions, altho the numbers were off.)
  6. The amount of wind and solar energy deployed in the United States will continue to dramatically increase. (Right. Very Right!)
  7. The government of Bashar Al Assad will fall. (Wrong – but there’s still time.)
  8. Foreclosures will continue in the United States. (sadly, true, but not as bad as it could have been – thanks to Obama)
  9. Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will resign. Calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from matters involving his wife’s clients will become louder, but Justice Thomas will ignore them. A prominent politician who says “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” or her husband, will be “outed” as gay. President Obama will be re-elected.” (Right on Obama and the American voter. Wrong on Arpaio)
  10. The authors of Vapor Trails will not win a Nobel Prize for literature. They will not win a “MacArthur Genius Award.” Nor will I despite my work on this blog or “Sunbathing in Siberia” and the XBColdFingers project. (Right, tho I would have like to have been wrong on this one.)

Here are the details. Continue reading →

Solar Power & Electric Utilities: Is The Paradigm Shifting?

Ground Mounted Array.

The 16-module solar array pictured above was built in 2005.  It probably has 2.5 Kilowatt (KW) to 2.8 KW of nameplate capacity. In New Jersey, residential solar systems range from 3 KW to 30 KW. Most are between 4 and 10 KW. Commercial systems range from 8KW to 200 KW. Utility scale systems are in the 10 Mega Watt (MW) to 550 MW range. In 2005, the costs for small scale residential systems were around $8.50 / watt, exclusive of any incentives. Today it is probably around half that, and cheaper for the larger utility scale systems. 1.0 MW system would require 4,000 modules of 250 watts each. The system pictured above requires about 50 square feet of land.As illustrated by the photo of the Topaz array, below, a 550 MW system, like Topaz, would require 2.2 million modules, and would cover a lot of ground.

First Solar Topaz

First Solar, FSLR, a $2.8 Billion company, and Sunpower, SPWR, an $840 Million company, two of the pillars of what is left of the American solar energy industry, made some interesting statements in their 2011 annual reports: Continue reading →

Occupy Wall Street – On Energy

Woman Dancing on the Bull

Monday, Sept. 17, was the First Anniversary of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests.

The protesters at Occupy are/were demonstrating against the current economic system and to make “Fracking” illegal.  (See “Stop Spectra: Resist Fracking in NYC” or “City Limits, Occupy Wall Street, Opposes Fracking“) Energy Policy and Economics … the intersection of energy and economics in the bio-humanosphere – the memes we knit together at Popular Logistics.

My coverage of Occupy Wall Street started on Sept. 22, 2011, with “Protesting Marked Cards and a Stacked Deck.” Quoting Mr. Buffett’s op-ed in the NY Times, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” and citing President Obama’s statement about the American Jobs Act, explained on White House . gov and Talking Points Memo, which Senate Republicans subsequently filibustered, I called for repeal of the “Bush Tax Cuts” on the wealthy, and for passage of Obama’s American Jobs, the so-called Buffett Rule.

I concluded,

Tax policy must be linked to fiscal policy. What we are doing today, Obama, Buffett, and the protesters would say, is using tax policy to make rich people more rich…. we should use tax policy to develop infrastructure… to build a 40 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array on each of the 92,000 public schools in the United States…. This would use tax revenues to pay for infrastructure upgrade – and tax revenues pay public schools electric bills. PV Solar systems provide energy without pollution, without toxic wastes, without greenhouse gases. And in the event of an emergency, if disconnected from the grid, we would have a network of 92,000 local emergency shelters with power during the day, when the sun is shining.

Continue reading →

Do We Need Nuclear Power? Part 3

Aerial photo of Indian Point, courtesy Columbia University Earth Institute

Indian Point, Aerial view, courtesy Earth Institute

Indian Point’s two reactors, operating since 1974 and 1976, generate up to 30 percent of New York City and Westchester’s power. Yet the plant remains controversial.

March 1, 2012, Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law, moderated  the Forum on the Future of Indian Point held at Columbia Law School. The forum asked whether Indian Point was “Safe, Secure and Vital or an Unacceptable Risk?”   Renee Cho covered it on the Columbia Earth Institute blog, here.

I was not there. However, have some thoughts …

Continue reading →

Marine One hangar to get solar roof

Marine One

Marine One, White House

Charis Michelsen, writing in January at CleanTechnica, reported that the Quantico hangar where Marine One (the designation of the helicopter used to transport the President – the rotary-wing equivalent of  “Air Force One”) will be getting a 120-kilowatt array, estimated to produce 150,000 kWh/year:

The solar array will be installed by FLS Energy and the solar panels will be provided by Suniva, which was chosen by FLS Energy CEO Michael Shore specifically because of its panels’ high efficiency and because it builds American. (Suniva’s panels contain more than 80% U.S. content, according to Suniva.)

Solar Arrays for the Marine Corps & Obama’s Marine One Helicopter Hanger

 

 

Question for John Kerry

40 KW Solar array on Whilehall St Ferry Terminal

40 KW PV Solar Array on SI Ferry Terminal

While Chinese subsidies of their solar energy industry have decimated the manufacturing base of the American solar industry, solar energy continues to expand across the country.

What if we stimulated the solar industry with a public works program?

What if we decided to deploy a 40 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array on each of the approximately 90,000 public schools in the country?

The best kept secret in NYC may be found on the Staten Island Ferry, or more precisely, on the south roof of the Whitehall Street terminal. It’s a 40 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array.

Taxpayers pay the electric bills of the ferry terminal, which today are much lower because of the energy the system produces. Taxpayers also pay the electric bills of public schools, courts and other municipal, state and federal office buildings – and the externalized costs of pollution and “health effects” related to mining coal and uranium, drilling oil or frakking gas.

I met Senator John Kerry at the Harvey Nash Inc. Leadership Breakfast at the Plaza Hotel in NYC on Friday, March 2, 2012. At the conclusion I asked him to consider a 40 kw photovoltaic solar energy system on each of the approximately 90,000 public schools in the US.

At $5.00 per watt, which is less than the cost of new nuclear and much less than coal with carbon sequestration, these 90,000 systems would cost $18 billion. They would produce electricity without burning fuel, creating wastes, or creating targets for terrorists, and would pay for themselves in eight to 15 years, depending on the market price of electricity. They would also produce energy for 25 to 40 years – paying for themselves several times over.

This kind of a public works project would create jobs. Even if we didn’t mandate that these used products made in American factories, which I think we should, installation and maintenance would have to be local.

It would also lessen our dependence on fossil fuels.

And each solar energy powered building could be designed to generate electricity during the day during an emergency which shuts down the grid, further enhancing our emergency response capability.

Senator Kerry responded that this would be a perfect project for the Infrastructure Bank that he wants to create. However, the political climate is such that it can’t get done.

Apple, Google, IBM – the way forward

Apple HQ, in Cupertino

Apple HQ, Cupertino, California

Back in 1965, IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson, Jr, wrote, in IBM’s Basic Beliefs & Principles,

“We accept our responsibilities as a corporate citizen in community, national, and world affairs; we serve our interests best when we serve the public interest…. We want to be at the forefront of those companies which are working to make the world a better place.”

Today, IBM says “Sustainability is no longer an option. Sustainability is an imperative.” IBM is focused on making data centers and supply chains more efficient, and providing their customers with tools to become less unsustainable (IBM green blog). The European Commission awarded IBM for energy efficiency at 27 data centers (IBM Press Release).

However, it looks to me that Google and Apple are one or two steps ahead of IBM. Google has invested $915 Million in solar arrays, which should be 1.0 to 1.5 MW. Apple is putting a 5MW solar array on the roof of it’s headquarters in Cupertino, pictured above, and described here on Treehugger and here on 9to5mac. Apple is also using solar and biofuel to power it’s new data center in South Carolina (article in Renewable Energy World). Essentially:

  • A 100-acre, 20 megawatt (MW) solar array, supplying 42 million kWh of energy each year.
  • A 5 MW biogas system to come online later this year, providing another 40 million kWh of 24×7 baseload renewable energy annually. Apple claims this will be the largest non-utility-owned fuel cell installation in the US.
  • Combined, that’s 82 million kWh/year of onsite renewable energy generation at the facility.

For more details, see the 2012 Apple Facilities Report.

Apple’s building may be a derivative design of the Widex headquarters, in Allerød, Denmark, described on Widex home page,  here. The Widex building is a ring that surrounds a large atrium courtyard to be planted with grass, flowers and trees and is according to Widex,”designed to be both pleasant to look at and be in…. and environmentally friendly

Heat for the building will be supplied by a geothermal system, where groundwater is used like a heat reservoir; excess heat in summer can be stored and used when needed during winter. Our ambition is to reduce energy consumption by 75 percent compared to traditional technology.

Apple, Google, and IBM report high profits. Their stock prices are also high, perhaps demonstrating the correlation between doing well and doing good.

Nuclear Power – or Un Clear Power

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, has voted to allow Georgia Power to spend $14 Billion of ratepayer monies to build two reactors, Vogtle 3 and 4 near Waynesboro, Georgia. These would be the first new nuclear plants in the US in 35 years. Opponents say “we don’t need the power, but the utility wants the revenue stream.” Supporting this allegation Georgia Power plans to charge ratepayers – customers – for the costs of construction WHILE BUILDING THE PLANTS – BEFORE THE ARE ONLINE. see Georgia Power – Nuclear – Recovering Financing Costs.

Scott Peterson, of the Nuclear Energy Institute, was quoted on Morning Edition on Friday, 2/10/12, here, ” saying,

Nuclear plants, because they are very large, 24/7 power producers, really anchor the entire U.S. grid for electricity,”

He also said,

“Gas prices are unpredictable, and so is energy from wind and solar.”

He’s wrong on all three counts.

  1. Gas prices are rising. They may be difficult to predict on a day to day basis, but the trend is upward.
  2. Similarly, solar and wind are also predictable. The Department of Energy, DoE, knows precisely how much wind and sun passes over every square inch of the United States, and how much sunlight hits every square inch of the United States over the course of a year. And how much electricty a wind turbine or a photovoltaic solar energy system will produce anywhere in the US. The PVWatts solar calculator, for example,here, http://www.nrel.gov/rredc/pvwatts/,  tells you how much power a solar array will produce over the course of a year.
  3. And nuclear is not 24 x 7. While the waste is 24 hours by 7 days per week by 365 days per year by ten thousand years, nuclear plants are not 24 by 7 days by 365.  They are more like 24 by 7 by 350; they are shut down for about a month for refueling every 18 months. Nuclear plants are also shut down unexpectedly due to events like hurricanes, earthquakes, floods.

The Fort Calhoun reactor, on the Missouri River in Nebraska was shut down for refueling in May, 2011 . It stayed shut down due to flooding. It was offline throughout the summer and fall, (my coverage here and here) and as far as I know it is still offline.  According to David Lochbaum, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the shutdown cost the plant’s owners $1 million per day – $100 million if it was brought back online in September, $250 million if it is still offline. And I would hazard a guess that the owners asked for and received permission to charge the ratepayers those $1.0 million per day. (As far as I know the plant is still offline. I will update this post when I have more information.)

Regarding the Vogtle plants … the plan is to build two Westinghouse AP 1000 pressurized water reactors, here. Theses are 1154 MWe plant, that, according to Westinghouse,

“use the forces of nature and simplicity of design to enhance plant safety and operations and reduce construction costs.”

They are forecast to cost $14 Billion. $14 Billion divided by 2,308 MWe is $6.065 per MWe. That does not include the costs of security, fuel or waste management

Solar and wind costs less, takes a lot less time to deploy, do not require fuel, do not produce dangerous toxic wastes, do not present a target to terrorists and do not require special security infrastructures.

21 of 2011 – Most Significant Events of the Year

Tweet Follow LJF97 on Twitter  While it ain’t over till it’s over, 2011 is over. A lot that could have happened, didn’t.  Obama didn’t resign, Donald Trump didn’t throw his hat into the ring or divorce his current wife and marry one or more Kardashians.  Newt Gingrich threw his hat into the ring, but also didn’t divorce his current wife and marry one or more  Kardashians. These are the most significant events of 2011.

  1. Japan, March, 2011 . Nebraska, June, 2011. An earthquake triggered a tsunami which slammed Japan with a 30 foot wave, which shut down twelve nuclear reactors at three sites, triggering melt-downs in three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi site. We now see radioactive particles in food and soil in Fukushima Prefecture. The United States government recommended an evacuation of a 50 mile radius from the plant – this is a semi-circular no-man’s land of 3,927 square miles. It would be 7,854 square miles but the plant was on the coast and therefore half of this radioactive no-man’s land is in the Pacific Ocean.  The environmental ramifications of radioactive materials spreading over Japan and flowing into the Pacific Ocean are not known (Popular Logistics click here, here, here), however, liabilities to TEPCO and Japan are estimated to $100 Billion (click here). In the United States, two nuclear power plants on the Missouri River, the Fort Calhoun and Cooper plants, were shut-down when the Missouri River flooded (Popular Logistics, here). Eight nuclear power plants from South Carolina to Connecticut were shut down in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck with an epicenter in Virginia August 23, 2011, and Hurricane Irene a few days later (Popular Logistics, here). In the words of Mycle Schneider, describing the World Watch Institute report he authored, “The industry was arguably on life support before Fukushima. When the history of this industry is written, Fukushima is likely to introduce its final chapter,” (click here). However, the three melt-downs at Fukushima, coupled with the melt-down at Chernobyl in 1986 and the partial melt-down at Three Mile Island in 1979, suggest a probability of one melt-down every 14 years.
  2. South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, August, 2011. Hurricane Irene covered an area of approximately 170,000 square miles, or about the size of California.”Hurricane Irene, August 26, courtesy of NASA
  3. Washington, DC, December. 2011. After 4,000 Americans were killed, about 50,000 were wounded, and $1 trillion was spent over 8 years, President Obama ended the American mission in Iraq that Congress authorized in October, 2002, President Bush started in March, 2003 and declared “Accomplished” in May, 2003 (for a timeline, click here).
  4. Washington DC, Abbottabod, Pakistan, May, 2011, American soldiers, on orders from the White House, found and killed Osama bin Laden in a compound in Pakistan (NY Times, click here).
  5. Yemen, In summer, 2011, American military forces, using a drone aircraft piloted from the ground via remote control, from the ground, targeted and killed Anwar al Awlaki, an American born Al Queda operative in Yemen (NY Times, click here).
  6. The hacking group “Anonymous” broke into the computers of the security consulting group “Stratfor” and found 44,188 Encrypted Passwords, of which roughly 50% could be easily cracked. 73.7% of decrypted passwords were weak” (NPR, click here).
  7. The “Stuxnet” computer worm virus, harmelss on PC’s runing MS Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and other computers, appears to have targeted centrifuges used in the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities.  While the viruses were discovered in 2010, they became understood in 2011. The virus caused the centrifuges to spin out of control, wrecking themselves (NY Times, here, NPR here, CNET here, Wikipedia here). Continue reading →

Furman Appointed to Manalapan Township Finance Committee

Lawrence J. Furman, MBA, co-founder of Popular Logistics, has been appointed to the Manalapan Township Finance Committee (Township here,  news article here). The Finance Committee reviews  expenditures, projects tax receipts, and submits the budget to the Township Committee. Back in 2007 Furman suggested that the Township Committee look into deploying solar energy systems on municipal properties. He was appointed to the Manalapan Township Environmental Commission in 2007, served for two years. In 2008, he ran for School Board with a platform built around solar energy for the schools.  While he lost the election, and Manalapan does not yet have solar energy systems on municipal properties or schools (are these related?) people are talking about it. He earned his MBA in Managing for Sustainability from Marlboro College in December, 2010.

He has delivered various iterations of a talk entitled “Beyond Fuel: Energy in the 21st Century,”  at the June meeting of the NYC Business Sustainability Action Round-Table, NYC B Smart, and in September, 2011 at the Space Coast Green Living Festival, Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Furman has been thinking about energy and what we now call sustainability since 1976, when, as a student intern with the New York Public Interest Research Group, Inc., NYPIRG, at Rachel Carson College, then at the State University of New York University of Buffalo, he helped develop a case for offshore wind power. His testimony, delivered to the “NY State Legislative Committee on Energy, the Economy, and the Environment” stated:

We could power the New York City Subway System with a battery of wind driven electric turbines, located off the shores of Long Island. It would burn no fuel, and, therefore, unlike coal, oil, gas, and nuclear power, create no waste.

When you factor in the life cycle of the fuel, and the pollution and health costs of the wastes, this would be less expensive than the fuel based alternatives.

Reflecting on this today, he said,

“My colleagues and I knew what we were talking about, but the Committee members didn’t get it. Sadly, it seems that the Committee’s name – Energy, the Economy, and the Environment – indicated it’s priorities.”

“If the cheapest unit of energy, the ‘negawatt,’ is the unit of energy that you don’t need, then the next cheapest is the ‘nega-fuel-watt,’ the unit of enegy you obtain without consuming fuel.”

On this committee I intend to look at our energy expenses and see where we can save money in the long term with PV Solar, LED lighting, insulation, micro-hydro, etc.

Moore's Law Applied to Solar Power

Gordon MooreDoes “Moore’s Law” hold for Solar Power?

In New Jersey, between 2001 and 2010, we went from a total of six systems with a combined capacity of 9.0 KW to about 7000 systems with a combined capacity of 211,000 KW or 211 MW. This is illustrated below.

Solar Capacity, NJ, 2001 to 2010. Increase from 9 KW in 6 systems to 211 MW, or 211,000 KW in 7000 systems

Increase from 9 KW in 6 systems to 211,000 KW in 7,000 systems. Copyright, 2010, L. J. Furman. All Rights Reseved.

This is the “hockey stick” curve of exponential growth typical of positive feedback mechanisms. I expect this kind of growth to continue for the next few years as prices drop, until solar meets 25% to 35% of New Jersey’s needs. This would be another 2500 to 3500 systems and about 200 additional MW in 2011 and 4000 to 5000 systems of 300 to 500 MW in 2012 , and brings me back to “Does ‘Moore’s Law,’ or a corollary, apply to PV Solar?” or “Is this a bubble?” Continue reading →

Paul Krugman on fracking and renewable energy

Schematic diagram of hydro fracking | Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet As  Paul Krugman points out, in the NY Times, “fracking” for hydrocarbons, , see pictures at left, would, in fact, be highly subsidized:

Before and after images of hydrofrackingFracking — injecting high-pressure fluid into rocks deep underground, inducing the release of fossil fuels — is an impressive technology. But it’s also a technology that imposes large costs on the public. We know that it produces toxic (and radioactive) wastewater that contaminates drinking water; there is reason to suspect, despite industry denials, that it also contaminates groundwater; and the heavy trucking required for fracking inflicts major damage on roads.

Economics 101 tells us that an industry imposing large costs on third parties should be required to “internalize” those costs — that is, to pay for the damage it inflicts, treating that damage as a cost of production. Fracking might still be worth doing given those costs. But no industry should be held harmless from its impacts on the environment and the nation’s infrastructure.

Yet what the industry and its defenders demand is, of course, precisely that it be let off the hook for the damage it causes. Why? Because we need that energy! For example, the industry-backed organization energyfromshale.org declares that “there are only two sides in the debate: those who want our oil and natural resources developed in a safe and responsible way; and those who don’t want our oil and natural gas resources developed at all.”

So it’s worth pointing out that special treatment for fracking makes a mockery of free-market principles. Pro-fracking politicians claim to be against subsidies, yet letting an industry impose costs without paying compensation is in effect a huge subsidy. They say they oppose having the government “pick winners,” yet they demand special treatment for this industry precisely because they claim it will be a winner.

“Here Comes The Sun,” by Paul Krugman, on NYTimes.com, dated November 7th 2011.

Mr. Krugman also notes that, with respect to solar energy, there’s good news:

… [T]he price of solar panels is dropping fast…. In fact, progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy,” with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year.

This has already led to rapid growth in solar installations, but even more change may be just around the corner. If the downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.

And if we priced coal-fired power right, taking into account the huge health and other costs it imposes, it’s likely that we would already have passed that tipping point.

But will our political system delay the energy transformation now within reach?

100% Clean Renewable Energy in 25 Years

Dolphins surfing
Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet The  observable fact that dolphins surf is something we humans need to think about.

Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute, coined the term “Negawatt” when he said “The cheapest unit of energy is the one you don’t have to buy.” The next cheapest, the “Nega-Fuel-Watt” is the unit of energy that doesn’t require fuel.

  • Insulation Nega-Watts allow less power to heat or cool a given space.
  • Solar Nega-Fuel-Watts transform photons into electricity or heat.
  • Wind Nega-Fuel-Watts transform moving particles of air into electricity.
  • Geothermal Nega-Fuel-Watts transform the heat of the earth into heat or electricity, or use thermal gradients to cool a space.
  • Hydro Nega-Fuel-Watts transform moving particles of water – currents – to generate electricity.
100% Clean Energy
100 Gigawatts Wind $300 Billion
100 GW Marine Hydro $300 B
50 GW Solar $200 B
50 GW Geothermal $200 B
200 GW Equiv Efficiency $200 B
A Smart Grid $100 B
500 GW or GW Equiv. $1.3 Trillion

I’m not sure if Lovins first public use of the term Negawatts was in Montreal in 1989 (here) or in Foreign Affairs in 1976 (abstract here), whether 22 or 35 years ago. Regardless, our current energy paradigm today is the hard fuel based path Lovins criticized 35 years ago. While we are turning away from nuclear, as documented by Mycle Schneider in the WorldWatch Report (here) – the latest radioactive nail in the radioactive coffin being the fatal explosion at a reprocessing facility in France on Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 (here) – we burn literally mountains of coal and oceans of oil and gas (According to the DoE, in 2010 we burned 1,085,281 thousand short tons of coal and 15,022 thousand short tons of coke (here). And there are consequences.  We suffer oil spills, polluted water, mercury, coal mine disasters, nuclear power plant melt-downs, we fight wars …

Wind and solar don’t burn fuel. The winds blow, the sun shines, you put a widget in the path of those moving particles in the air or those photons of light and you get electricity – without greenhouse gases, radioactive wastes, toxic wastes, and it costs less. So the question is not ‘Can we meet our energy needs with clean, sustainable renewable energy technologies?” The real question are How? How Much? And How quickly?

We could do it in 25 years if we wanted to.  And we should, for our children, our grandchildren, the cetaceans with whom we share our oceans, and other charismatic megafauna with whom we share our world.