The largest solar array in the United States? (via Wired.com)
Wired – that is, editor Noah Schachtman – has identified what is, apparently, the largest solar array currently in the United States. President Obama recently spoke there. Where is it? Read below the jump for more.
First Water Systems – based in Marietta, Georgia – makes AC/Solar systems for pumping, water purification and re-use. Some are designed for fixed installation, others for mobile use by disaster responders. The FW-300-M, which can easily be carried in a pickup truck or trailer, is solar-powered, and can process 5 gallon per minute – 300 gallons per hour. Assuming only 8 hours of daylight – 2,400 gallons. It’s safe to assume one gallon per person per day will be adequate – so even only powered in daylight, this unit can purify water for over 2,000 people. The smaller, more portable FW-60-M(S) produces 1 gallon per minute and has been specifically designed for first responders. (We caution that it should also be assumed that the water to be purified has already been pumped level to the purifier).
This would also, of course, require about 100 55 gallon barrels and sufficient personnel and equipment (e.g. handtrucks) to transport the purified water. So planning around using this system will require a bit of planning and expense in addition to acquisition of the unit. This is just one of a number of units in First Water Systems’ product line; we hope to have more information about this unit – including cost – and other units – in the near future.
Solar Stik, invented by Brian Bosley and in business for about ten years, sells easily deployable solar and solar/wind generators which can be easily daisy-chained into an array. We don’t think there are any other systems with these features.
Chris Crosby of Solar Stik – a woman of nearly infinite patience, given the number of questions I asked more than once – explained that their systems have their origin in marine applications, and started out with water and wind resistance as baseline design parameters.
All of the non-marine systems (and, I gather, some of those as well) break down into Pelikan cases and can therefore be hand-transported.
The ability to interconnect relieves responders from constant monitoring of charging equipment during an emergency, like having many dishes on single burners with different cooking times.
The system can also accept power from marine/vehicle batteries, AC charging – so it can be kept ready with large reserves; the reverse is true – if the sun is shining and the wind blowing, the swappable Power Paks make it possible to harvest energy while it’s available for later use – and transport it and use the energy where it’s needed. In other words, the emergency power use isn’t limited to charging items immediately adjacent to the solar array – a charged Pak can be transported – that is, carried – to where it’s needed.
We’ll try to follow up on this in the next few days, including some comparisons to other systems. In the meantime, however, this gallery should illustrate some of the attributes of the Solar Stik system(s).
Tweet SCS Energy, of Concord, Mass., wants to build a new coal plant in Linden, NJ.
According to Kate Galbraith, reporting in the NY Times, “A Plan for U. S. Emissions to Be Buried Under Sea“, 90% of the carbon dioxide will be captured, compressed, pumped thru a 24 inch diameter pipe, approximately 70 miles south-east, past Staten Island, New York, and Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean Counties in New Jersey, to a point 25 or 30 miles east of Atlantic City, New Jersey,and injected by a well drilled a mile beneath the sandstone floor of the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic is about a half mile deep at that point.
Gailbraith reports that the plant could cost $5 billion if completed on time and on budget. And it will need $100 million a year in Federal Government subsidies, which amounts to another $4 billion over the plant’s 40 year operating life span.
The carbon sequestration is projected to use 25% to 40% of the energy released from burning coal, so the 750 megawatt plant will be a 450 to 562.5 mw plant. That’s $16 Billion to $20 Billion per gigawatt or $16 to $20 per watt, depending on the overhead costs, of sequestering the carbon.
Solar is roughly $6.50 per watt with no subsidies, no fuel costs, very low maintenance, and no loss in transmission. Offshore Wind is $3.00 per watt, with no fuel costs.
President Barack Obama fired GM CEO Rick Wagoner. He was replaced by Fritz Henderson, who had been Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer. While I agree that Wagoner should probably have been fired, I think his replacement should have been someone from the outside. Promoting from within is a good thing when a company is doing well, but not when the company is collapsing. General Electric, for example, has always promoted new CEO’s from within. But GE was not in trouble when Welch took over, or when he handed the reins to Immelt. IBM was in trouble when the Board brought in Lou Gerstner, an outsider, to, as he put it, teach that elephant to dance. GM is in serious trouble. As an insider, Henderson may be too in step with the corporate culture to change anything. As an outsider I can see what Henderson might miss.
So how would I fix GM?
Via the Autopia blog on Wired.com – “MIT Unveils 90 MPH Solar Race Car“, by Chuck Squatriglia:
MIT’s latest solar race car might look like a funky Ikea table with a hump, but don’t laugh. It’ll do 90 mph and is packed with technology that may end up in the hybrids and EVs the rest of us will soon be driving.
MIT Solar Team with “Eleanor”
The university’s Solar Electric Vehicle Team, the oldest such team in the country, unveiled the $243,000 carbon-fiber racer dubbed Eleanor on Friday and is shaking the car down to prepare for its inaugural race later this year. “It drives beautifully,” said George Hansel, a freshman physics major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the team. “It’s fun to drive and quite a spectacle.”
Eleanor is slated to compete in the tenth World Solar Challenge, a seven-day race across nearly 2,000 miles of Australian outback.
See also Mr. Squatriglia’s 10 Best Songs About Cars.
Moore’s Law, “The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles every two years” has held for transistors, integrated circuits, and even hard disk drives since his observation in 1965. However, it does not hold for Carbon Dioxide, which is governed by the Ideal Gas Law. This can be expressed as PV = nrT and means the volume of a given quantity of a gas is directly related to its temperature and inversely related to pressure under which it is stored. In economic terms, we might call it Yogi’s Corollary, “Storing a Gas Costs Money,” or Furman’s Observation, “Moore’s Law Does Not Apply to Carbon Dioxide.”
This means that Carbon Sequestration technologies are not going to drop in price very far or very quickly.
The good news is Moore’s Law should and probably will apply to photovoltaic solar modules, once the solar economy gets moving.
People say “all politics is local.” People in The Bahamas, New Jersey, Europe and California have more or less the same solution – re-usable shopping bags – to the same problem – plastic bags in landfills. Personally, I favor charging for plastic bags, which rewards people for doing the right thing and penalizes them for doing the wrong thing. It seems fair, given that we are paying, in our taxes, for burying the plastic bags. I would also like to see more cellulose based plastics.
Another common problem is converting our electric grid to run on electricity generated from clean, sustainable systems. Based on our brief conversation, it seems that the U. S. has four advantages over the Bahamas: Net Metering, Economic Incentives, Rulings in the Supreme Court, and possibly, our President-Elect, Barack Obama.
Coolstuff and MetaCafe have videos which show the power of a focused solar array melting steel. (Click here for CoolStuff – Here for MetaCafe) It’s basic college mechanics – and also pretty amazing.
The Gore Energy Challenge– 100% clean, renewable, sustainable electricity in 10 years, can be described in 3 words. Reasonable, Achievable, Visionary. Here’s how:
40% Land Based Wind = 150 GW: $300 Billion.
40% Offshore Wind = 150 GW: $450 Billion.
20% Solar = 75 GW: $375 Billion.
100% Clean Energy = 375 GW: $1.125 Trillion.
Save the Earth – Priceless.
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. And the age of fossil fuels is ending not because we are running out of fossil fuel, (altho we are) but because we are figuring out how better technologies. Biofuels, Geothermal, Marine Kinetic, Solar, Wind, and of course, Conservation.
The World Renewable Energy Congress is meeting this week in Glasgow, Scotland. Conference details here for any
interested in last-minute attendance. NanoTechWire reports that Professor Darren Bagnall and his Nano Group at the University of Southampton will be announcing progress in applying nanotechnology to the production of solar panels.
Professor Bagnall and his Nano Group at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) have conducted extensive research into how nanotechnologies can contribute to the creation of solar cells which can be manufactured on cheap flexible substrates rather than expensive silicon wafers by using nanoscale features that trap light.
Speaking in the conference session on Photovoltaic Technology on Tuesday 22 July, Professor Bagnall will deliver a presentation entitled: Biomimetics and plasmonics: capturing all of the light. He will describe how his group has investigated biomimetic optical structures, which copy the nano structures seen in nature so that they can develop solar cells which allow efficient light-trapping. One type of structure is based on an anti-reflective technique exploited by moth eyes. Others are based on metallic nanoparticles that form plasmonic structures. Continue reading
Al Gore’s renovations – delayed, apparently, because of zoning restrictions – are well underway. JekyllnHyde on Gore’s improvements, initially quoting the Associated Press:
In an Associated Press interview, Gore responded to the phony attacks levelled against him a few months ago by a conservative think tank in Tennessee for consuming too much energy
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Al Gore, the environmental activist stung by criticism over his house’s energy efficiency, said Friday that renovations are nearly complete to make it a model “green” home.”This plan has been in the works for a long time,” the former vice president said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The only thing that has changed is that we’re more public about it because of the misleading attack by a global-warming denier group.”
Gore’s renovation project, which he said has been in the works for months, seeks to meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Now, I’m no environmental guru (as I’m sure there are people here on Truth & Progress with far greater knowledge on the subject than me) but it seems to me that Gore is a man who practices what he preaches. After his neighborhood council passed new zoning laws – ones that previously prohibited the installation of solar panels – Gore said that he’d be able to take the following additional steps
* install a geothermal system that will, among other things, drastically reduce the cost of heating his pool.
* upgrade windows and ductwork.
* install more energy-efficient light bulbs.
* create a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management.
Matthew L. Wald – who reliably turns out ahead-of-the-pack energy stories – with lots of detail, good news and bad – got to write about GM’s announcement that it plans to build the world’s largest rooftop solar array. “Large Solar Array Set for G.M. in Spain.“
Why is GM building this in Spain? Because the Spanish current subsidize solar at a rate five times that of the United States.
MetaEfficient reports that starting in 2010, Hawaii will require solar hot water heaters in new residential construction
Hawaii has become the first state to require solar water heaters in new homes. The bill was signed into law by Governor Linda Lingle, a Republican. It requires the energy-saving systems in homes starting in 2010. It prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Hawaii relies on imported fossil fuels more than any other state, with about 90 percent of its energy sources coming from foreign countries, according to state data.
The new law prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Some exceptions will be allowed, such as forested areas where there are low amounts of sunshine.
State Sen. Gary Hooser, vice chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee, first introduced the measure five years ago when he said a barrel of oil cost just $40. Since then, the cost of oil has more than tripled.
“It’s abundantly clear that we need to take some serious action to protect Hawaii because we’re so dependent on oil,” Hooser said. “I’m very pleased the governor is recognizing the importance of this bill and the huge public benefits that come out of it.”
Other Resources
Makezine – several recipes for DIY solar hot water heaters
From the Sietch – a solar water heater
also suitable for distillation, purification, and possible boiling/cooking. Thanks to Sustainable Design Update for the link
Architect Sheila Kennedy has, with her colleagues (whose names we don’t know, hence no attribution) designed The Soft House; Jorge Chapa at Inhabitat has an excellent post on Kennedy’s prototype house whose solar-collecting curtains would produce 16KWH. We strongly recommend you read Chapa’s post – and that you check in regularly at Inhabitat.
Given our concern with worst-case scenarios – and preventing them – this technological use could go far in prevention by producing more power cleanly and locally. But we want to see rugged and waterproof textile uses for tents and canopies and emergency shelters and sails – consider the possibility of transporting the equivalent of a circus tent to the site of a disaster or power failure – as contrasted to the transportation of heavy petroleum-consuming generators – or solid photovoltaic panels or turbines.
One last thought: Kennedy’s design, we suspect, likely does more than produce energy: it probably acts as a cooling mechanism, preventing or mitigating the effects of a heat emergency.
NanoTechWire has a short interview with Sheila Kennedy here.