I don't mean to in any way diminish the need for PV, or the fact that costs are declining - only to point out that the capacity factor is limiting on solar, and has to be factored into any discussion of comparative economics.

I am starting to feel that Grist is just a slightly green version of Popular Science, breathless touting every technological advance without a shred of analysis.

The age of solar may end before it ever really stated because we run out of precious metals such as gallium and indium it takes to build solar cells long before there are enough of these things are made to ever make a difference. At any rate, they are likely to cost a lot more than this article implies.

Anyway, even if there is enough, mountains all around the world will have to be torn up looking for the materials to make these solar cells. Not sure if this is "better or worse" than coal but it is worth finding out before one gets all excited about these solar cells.

Conservation is the only real option.

From:
http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/027ns_005.htm ...

"Armin Reller, a materials chemist at the University of Augsburg in Germany, and his colleagues are among the few groups who have been investigating the problem. He estimates that we have, at best, 10 years before we run out of indium. Its impending scarcity could already be reflected in its price: in January 2003 the metal sold for around $60 per kilogram; by August 2006 the price had shot up to over $1000 per kilogram.

Uncertainties like this pose far-reaching questions. In particular, they call into doubt dreams that the planet might one day provide all its citizens with the sort of lifestyle now enjoyed in the west. A handful of geologists around the world have calculated the costs of new technologies in terms of the materials they use and the implications of their spreading to the developing world. All agree that the planet's booming population and rising standards of living are set to put unprecedented demands on the materials that only Earth itself can provide. Limitations on how much of these materials is available could even mean that some technologies are not worth pursuing long term.

Take the metal gallium, which along with indium is used to make indium gallium arsenide. This is the semiconducting material at the heart of a new generation of solar cells that promise to be up to twice as efficient as conventional designs. Reserves of both metals are disputed, but in a recent report René Kleijn, a chemist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, concludes that current reserves "would not allow a substantial contribution of these cells" to the future supply of solar electricity. He estimates gallium and indium will probably contribute to less than 1 per cent of all future solar cells - a limitation imposed purely by a lack of raw material."

Yeah, there are some efficiencies, but the essentials are about the same.

The real gain will come when we get a 10x gain in power available per person -- the only technology so far that gives us this is controlled fusion.

This isn't it, but check out Toshiba's Basement Fission device:

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/12/toshibas-home-n.htm ...

Twenty foot long by six foot wide, the reactors produce 200kW of energy and run themselves: the entire thing is manufactured with the fuel within, and when it runs out, they can just send a truck to pick it up.

If you consider that this is comparing a $2100/KW charge for coal.

Thats already outdated.

New Coal is going to need to be in the $3000-6500/KW range.

_

Also that $1000/KW markup merely for the mounting, can largely be mitigated when you start integrating solar panels into roofs.

You have to buy a roof anyways.

Whats so wrong if it's coextruded with roof sheeting for commercial flat roofs on warehouses and stores.

One might also question how much cheaper it would be if you were to be doing the solar film in bulk industrial solar farms.

As opposed to individual panels built as retrofits on existing residential roofs.

No, no, no, Roberto! Let you be part of the early buzz, buzz, buzz.

You know like bees buzzing around a hive in Spring. You remember bees, yes?

And, like me, probably are thinking of Spring. In Upstate New York a temperature of 54F on December 24.

Hot water, passive heating, and even heat exchangers for cooling can be done.  It's just a pain because you have to deal with water circulation systems prone to leaking, or pump failures.  You'd be amazed what the common person could do to lower bills this way, and it sure seems to beat $10,000 solar PV collectors to make a tiny bit of electricity.  

Wind turbines are for making cheap electricity, about a $50,000 investment for a household.  Hot water, lose the electricity and use solar.  It works even in the winter, using a reserve tank of several thousand gallons. /sam

Onward through the fog

Hasn't it occurred to any of you that the market for IPOs of solar companies is so hot right now that anyone with a story and an apparent pedigree can raise money?

Nanosolar's claims of a buck a watt for cells and 2 bucks a watt for panels are very carefully couched so as to allow them to wriggle off the hook for the next 20 years. No one, including (especially?) the New York Times, bothered to ask them obvious basic questions.

1. What's the conversion efficiency today? Not next month, or next year, or next decade. Today.

2. What's the cost per watt for a cell, and for a panel containing their cells? Not next month, or next year, or next decade. Today.

3. Whose technology is it? Theirs, or did they buy it from a company down the street? (Literally.)

Unlike you suckers, I actually lived through the Internet bubble. I saw all kinds of companies in Silicon Valley raise all kinds of money on lies, and watched their executives waddle off into the sunset with their share of the loot before those companies went bankrupt because they'd never had anything to begin with.

Solar thin film is real, but Nanosolar doesn't have anything that the other guys don't have. Not anything meaningful. Just ask them to tell you in detail what their secret sauce is. They won't do it.

The only thing cheaper than coal is words on a screen. Those of you who are wanting to do the stock hype thing will keep talking this company (and others like it) up to the sky, but that doesn't mean anything. Just wait. You'll see.

Solar burners are about $450/kW(e) or $150/kW(t).  Same turbines or high-intensity pv less than $300/kW(e).  Capacity factor ~25 %.  [$100/m2 @ 80% annual thermal efficiency.]

Adjusted for capacity factors, coal $625/kW(t) and solar $600/kW(t).  [Assumes coal and sunlight are free.]

I do agree with the solar bubble comment from Analyst.  We are up to our eyeballs in solar scams.

Payback time at 2 bucks per watt?  Rapid!  Then it's free, right up on your own roof.  Right to your home needs and plugin car.  With the excess sold back to the grid.  So you can plugin for free elsewhere, at work, school, or shopping.

This innovation distributed on every suitable roof, along with the other renewables in a smart grid will do it.  And revive the economy too.

Only 439 mw per year won't do though.  One nuke puts out 1200 mw now.  If this is going to happen in 20 years, half our power from solar like this.  500,000 mw in 20 years.  25,000 mw per year average.  50 plants this size ought to do it.  And 50 more for export markets.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Wheew, a long list.  Taken into account solar would be maybe half of coal cost.  Real cost.

Then there is the fact that once solar panels are paid off in a couple years, all the power is free.  

This doesn't even count concentrating pV of only 10 suns that raises efficiency by 3 times and cuts the area of PV cells by 80%, plus cogeneration heat collection.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

1. Solar efficiencies for CIGS are less than for crystalline polysilicon, but are in the range of 10%.

2. I don't know their cost per watt, but they just started shipping the first of a megawatts worth of cells. Ask again after a year's production has flattened their learning curve and you'll probably be heading towards that buck.

3. You claim to be paying attention to the thin film arena so why haven't you seen the high quality people that have flocked from other Silicon Valley firms to Nanosolar. This is a home grown product with a raft of patents and hard won know how. Their real secret is a willingness to toss conventional wisdom out the window and turn their young and very bright scientists, engineers, and technicians loose on the multitude of technical problems they have to solve. The fact that they have begun commercial shipments is a great milestone.

Happy New Year!  

To whom has Nanosolar shipped?

Is this relevant?

The bidding on ebay for the second PV panel is now over $12,000. The winning bidder has to sign an agreement not to attempt to reverse engineer the product. Also, Nanosolar will only sell panels to electric utility companies. The end user must sign a non-disclosure form and situate the panels in a fenced, secure location. It is obvious that their technology has insufficient patent protection or is not patentable or it would be easy to circumvent their patents. They can't let the cat out of the bag until they have realized a good profit for their investors. On top of that, they are completely sold out through 2008. If you want to put these panels on the roof of your house, don't hold your breath. File this under: "Too Good to be True."

Posted by: Arne P. Ryason at December 21, 2007 07:14 AM

This all needs government regulation, direction, and investment to stop the effect of monopoly energy gamers. Just as WW 2 war production needed government direction.

The company that designed and built the first WW2 jeep only got a contract to manufacture trailers, not jeeps.  The patent rights were over ruled in favor of national survival.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

While I can't draw it here, imagine a diagram of pyramid like the food pyramid. On top (smallest part) is renewable energy, followed by energy efficiency, then on the broadest part energy conservation.

Energy conservation needs to be our priority -- telling people to turn down the heat, turn off unneeded lights, to drive less and use more mass transit, and not to leave appliances like televisions and computers turned on and plugged in when unused.

Energy efficiency is a secondary priority. Government needs to force manufactures to sell only the most efficient equipment. We need standards and more research on this behalf.

Then renewable energy -- the smallest part of the equation needs to be promoted most. It's like the fats and oils in the food pyramid -- it's the good stuff we really like, but should be used sparingly to power our lifestyles.

In my apartment, a one bedroom with two floors, I use an average of 1.9 KWh a day. That's more then 1/10th the average New York home (which is about 20Kwh a day). I have electric hot-water and supplemental electric heat (not my choice!), but I always turn off the power strip to the laptop, and I don't have any incandescent bulbs or a televison.

The previous renter in the apartment used 2-3x more electricity then I use in a day -- simply because I have less electronics, use more efficient lighting, and most importantly turn off things when I leave the room. I also pay the 1.3 cents per killowatt hour for wind/microhydro energy.

It's more expensive to make a crystalline cell, so the cost/watt is generally what you want to look at, although if the customer is a utility then the real estate value comes into play because you need a whole lot more ground to generate the same amount of energy if you use thin film.

But I'll even be willing to set the cost of real estate at zero for the purpose of this little tete-a-tete. What I really want to do is get down to brass tacks and discuss the significant issues.

You say Nanosolar will be "heading towards that bukc" a watt. Yeah, and that plus a couple bucks will get you a tall coffee of the day at your favorite overpriced coffee boutique. My point is that, first, it's an out-an-out fraud for anyone to write a headline, "Cheaper than coal and falling," and that second, none of the idiots who write junk like that have a ghost of a clue about what any of the numbers really are.

You talk about bright scientists, blah blah blah. Yeah, I know. They all went to Stanford. So did a whole bunch of propellerheads who gave us, say, the DSL-based Competitive Local Exchange Carriers. They were not only Stanford grads, but they had "Cisco-powered networks." Which flat-out didn't work.

Remember Cisco's $2+ billion writedown and restatement for, what was it, 2000 and 2001? The only reason John Chambers isn't sitting in jail next to Bernie Ebbers is that Silicon Valley has better lawyers and better p.r. agents than Worldcom ever did. So don't throw this "talented engineer" crap at me. Been there, done that.

Now, a couple more things.

1. The crystalline guys, and the other thin-film guys, aren't standing still. Printing solar cells on non-traditional substrates is not any sort of new idea. Nor is the pursuit of manufacturing efficiencies and economies of scale. Nanosolar is pursuing a moving target. You might not know it, but they know it.

2. There are no secrets in the PV industry. Everyone knows how everyone else's products work. Solar PV isn't very advanced technology. I bet you didn't know, for example, that on the crystalline side of things a producer doesn't even need a clean room when they make their wafers like the electronics silicon producers do. I've been to the Chinese factories.

If Nanosolar winds up being more real than I suspect, then I'll be overjoyed to have been wrong about them. Seriously, I'll be happy about it because I'd really like to see solar take off. Oh, and I don't have any financial dog in the fight, in the form of investments in the companies or suppliers, etc. I'm just an observer who recently happened to see some of the factories in China.

What bugs me about this stuff is to see the same, tired hype. Did you and the other hypesters learn NOTHING from the last bubble? Are you pushing stocks, maybe fresh from having pushed interest-only mortgages until that bubble burst?

1. Dimensions of the problem
   
2. Elegance of the solution
   
3. Quality of the entrepreneurs

At the moment, the stocks of alternative energy companies are on a tear because of the high price of oil. Every pig is being shown as a racing thoroughbred. The same thing happened during the recent residential real estate bubble, and during the Internet bubble of 1995-2000.

If there was ever a time to be hypervigilant about claims made by alternative energy companies and their promoters, now is the time.

Dave Roberts missed a step in claiming "cheaper than coal" in his headline and in the table - while this will likely eventually be true for capital cost per peak kW (if nanosolar's price claims stand up - and they're shooting themselves in the foot if they don't), wind hit that price mark years ago and is presently less than half the cost of coal per peak kW. But we don't measure energy in kW, but in kW-hr (or btu or some product of power and time), and the kW-hr output in a given year from a solar or wind installation is, exactly as Sean Casten points out above, lower than 365  24-hour days of peak output by a factor of 3 to 4.

Then there's the issue of storage or somehow making up for power loss when the solar/wind isn't available - that adds capital cost when you try doing this at a very large scale, as outlined in the recent Scientific American article. So we're really still a factor of 4-5 away still even if you accept the claims of nanosolar, and "solar cheaper than coal" just isn't a valid claim yet.

but blogs -- even if correct -- won't take us all the way to where we need to go

Congress is not swayed by anonymous hippie types, like us

There has to be an organized lobby that looks like a traditional lobby

who can sift through information, and present a coherent and convincing story

That's number one.  And then, the ability to deliver votes at election time must be proved.  But that is really down the road.  First, someone traditional looking has to articulate a position

-- and propose specific legislative solutions.  And gather co-sponsors.

For all the moaning about the sloth and incompetence of Congress, where is the enviro community when it comes to organizing effective lobbying?

We need to do better.  Solar is one example.  Geothermal systems is another.  Wave power (my favorite pipe dream) is another.

Where is the organized voice?

One thing I learned is to never align yourself with any fuel, energy source, or technology combination.   If you can make a car run on garbage, like the movie 'Back to the Future' or whatever, I don't care as long as it has near-zero environmental effects. Solar sure sounds great to me.

Sooner or later we'll have to talk about the electric grid as well, and that part scares me.  But I've always wanted to see an electric power generation "throw-down" just like on the Food Channel. A small nuke here, a coal plant, a natural gas plant, a co-gen, a biomass system, a wind farm, and some kind of solar array scheme.  That's seven types of electric utility operations.

Two things became apparent to me, a geographer by trade. First, there is no way one could build seven such power generation stations within a single market, and if built, they would all have different cost structures due to regional economies and regulations. So seven of these brand new puppies located in the Northeast would be much different than in Chicago, Texas, San Diego, or Seattle, speaking of relative costs and pricing (e.g., Seattle still has some hydro-power).  

Then I thought, being a good geographer I am, I'd take a look at the interstate electric transmission lines in the U.S.  Wow, what a mess, and to shove power down those lines you need scheduling, ways to dump excess power (ha-ha on storage when you're online!), and to pay the costs of selling electricity over the lines no matter if you want them or not. It's not a bad thing if your company already owns the power lines and transmission stations, I suspect. And so to speak, the distribution system looks totally nuts.

So that's my point. Using national averages or some generalized economic model could be highly misleading. Regional variation and economies could give conflicting results. In some areas, coal could be the winner in terms of dollars per kW-hr and CO2 output per kW (if clean coal is ever possible).  I dunno, you need some metrics here, and grams of CO2 per kW sound good to me,  Just don't forget that solar and wind power have parasitic losses too, that could involve CO2 upstream emissions ... for example if power is required to turn wind turbine blades when the wind is slow, and power comes from the coal-fired power generation station.  
-sammie

Onward through the fog

Yes, it is.
aweo.org/windbackup.html

the turbines use a great deal of electricity themselves. Most of them cannot even run without input from the grid. Although they produce electricity intermittently, they consume it continuously. In every report I've seen, input from the grid is not accounted for in the figures of net output. Specifications from turbine manufacturers do not include the amount of electricity they require.

It may be that large wind turbines use as much electricity as they produce. Whether the wind is blowing in the desired range or not, they need power to keep the generator magnetized, to keep the blade and generator assembly (92 tons on a 1.5-MW GE) facing the wind, to periodically spin that assembly to unwind the cables in the tower, to heat the blades in icy conditions, to start the blades turning when the wind is just getting fast enough to keep them going, to keep the blades pitched to spin at a regular rate, and to run the lights and internal control and communication systems.

... facing the wind, to periodically spin that assembly to unwind the cables in the tower, to heat the blades in icy conditions, to start the blades turning when the wind is just getting fast enough to keep them going, ...

not sound like a load of hooey?

Well, it is on the net.

How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?

It does not sound like much hooey to this observer who is familiar with Bonneville speed runs.
google.com/search?q=bonneville+%22push+vehicle%22

67 hits.

google.com/search?q=bonneville+push+record

11,200 hits.

Records set at Bonneville are recognized worldwide. ... Rules allow vehicles to get a push start because top speed is the main concern.

"Sometimes history needs a push." -V.I. Lenin

As the most common use of geothermal power is in a GeoExchange heating/cooling/hot water system. We should include ALL the options. Where they are installed in the Northeast or Southwest payback periods are under 10 years even where the grid is supplied by Coal or Nukes.

Yes GeoExchange systems require grid power to operate but so do nuclear plants and, as noted above, wind turbines. Overall they provide the required service for less energy input than other options.

Solar, wind, coal, nukes or geothermal power are all there to provide wanted services. Looking at the serviice that you require and then seeking the least wasteful means of providing the service should be the goal. In some cases the needed service of thermal management of a house will best be provided by a pile of straw bales and some mud plaster.

Simply pumping power from solar panels into electric resistance heaters is idiocy if the building in question has space for a trombe wall or other solar/thermal mass solution. To pretend, even for a minute, that we are going to replace current per capita energy useage with renewables is stupidity.

Manage the service needed before you manage the power input and renewables become a LOT cheaper. Solar doesn't need to replace coal on a kwh to kwh basis because wasteful useage can and MUST be eliminated.

Put the Carbon Back

To me, the Achilles Heel of the alternative energy crowd is its wishful thinking. Folks, you have to embrace cold, hard fact.

1. Solar energy is NOT cheaper than coal, and it's not going to be for quite a while, if ever. The best it will get is to be close enough to coal and/or nuclear to be worth the subsidies. We are rapidly approaching that target, and we'll almost certainly be there within 10 years on a broad scale. That's enough reason to ramp it up.

2. If you think you're going to put the electric utilities out of business, think again. It won't happen. At some point, a percentage of single-family houses and businesses will be able to disconnect from the grid (if better batteries are invented), but office buildings and apartments are going to need the grid. In practical terms, the solar houses of the near future will also be grid-connected and will essentially use the grid as a de facto battery.

3. I am a big believer in electric cars, but they won't happen all at once. It will take 50 years for them to be phased in.

Better take your own advice.  Check the facts, they are all over this blog.  Take some time to read them.

A distributed renewable generation and storage internet enabled smart grid that charges plugin hybrid vehicles, and conservation involving cogeneration and geo heat exchange heating/cooling.  That's the latest wrinkle.  Maybe you hadn't heard?


http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

"A distributed renewable generation and storage internet enabled smart grid that charges plugin hybrid vehicles, and conservation involving cogeneration and geo heat exchange heating/cooling.  That's the latest wrinkle.  Maybe you hadn't heard?"

This will take a massive amount of resources to implement on a scale large enough to make a difference. If you do the research, I expect that you will find that there will be massive shortages of the raw materials needed to make your scenario possible. And don't forget, resource extraction is often very damaging to the environment and requires vast amounts of energy. Countries also tend to go to war to project resource supplies.

Remember that we have to find solutions that are sustainable not just for North America, but all 6 billion people on the world.

This requires solutions that are not resource intensive. Unfortunately, this is not possible for automobiles regardless of what they are powered with.

Again, transit, rail and cycling are the transportation solutions that will work.

"Conservation involving cogeneration and geo heat exchange heating/cooling." Hmm. So you've got one power plant fueling more than one building, and you've got ground heat pumps.

"Maybe you haven't heard?" Uh, yeah, I've heard. I'm telling you to use the true numbers and to lay off the five-dollar words. Look, it's juice and heat. No need to dress it up in fancy clothes.

Take a chill pill, crank o senile dumdee.  Now that's ad hominem.  I'll admit it.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog