solar electricity

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Shiny Rocks May Be Good For Solar Energy

February 19, 2009 in accelerating change, energy generation, solar electricity by nils | 3 comments

Fools Gold

Fool's Gold (image by Clearly Ambiguous, CC 2.0 licensed)

Interesting note flying around the blogosphere yesterday (see here, here, and here, amongst many websites featuring the news) about a research project done at Berkeley. It found that, based on material cost and availability, solar photovoltaics made with iron pyrites (aka Fool’s Gold) are more likely to solve our energy crisis than PV made with silicon or CIGS thinfilms. This is due to both the cost of the raw materials and their availability – both crystalline silicon and the CIGS precursors are relatively expensive and relatively rare. Iron pyrite and its precursors are among the most common elements on earth, in contrast.

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Zero Net Energy Homes Part 4 – Honda Accord Versus Solar Panels

January 13, 2009 in energy generation, solar electricity, transportation by nils | 1 comment

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Zero Net Energy Homes
El �ºltimo de los mohicanos

Money ('El Altimo de los Mohicanos' - photo by wakalani, CC 2.0 licensed)

One of the biggest problems for residential solar electricity generation is that it just costs too darn much to install those panels on your roof. Over the next five and ten years this will change significantly as new developments from the labs make it into large-scale production. Eventually houses will be generating all their own electricity using photovoltaics as a matter of course.

But is there a way to think about the cost today that makes the cost even seem reasonable?

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The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind

December 12, 2008 in analysis, biofuels, carbon mitigation, energy generation, transportation by nils | Add your comment

Windmill and old houses in Schipluiden

Old Windmill (image by waterwin, CC 2.0 license)

The results of this study on solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security, by Stanford professor Mark Z. Jacobson, are somewhat surprising, given the drumbeat from many areas on both nuclear and biofuels as necessary for the salvation of the world.

Jacobson analyzes 12 energy sources for their beneficial impact on global warming, air pollution, and energy security – the ten electricity sources are solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology; the two liquid fuel options are corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85.

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30-fold Increase In Solar Energy By 2016 – Moore’s Law, Anyone?

October 21, 2008 in energy generation, policy, solar electricity, solar thermal by nils | Add your comment

Solar Power International Logo

Solar Power International Logo

The opening keynotes at the Solar Power International trade show last week were eye-opening. (See the Tuesday Keynotes video on this page – Resch at 20 minutes, Hamm at 37 minutes.)

Rhone Resch of the Solar Energy Industries Association first told the story of getting the investment tax credit for solar renewed – 17 failed votes before it finally passed with the Paulson Bailout bill. He then outlined the benefits to the solar industry of the ITC – stability for solar energy businesses, creation of thousands of new business opportunities due to the remove of the residential solar cap, and a return to leadership of the US in solar. “Solar energy is going to create 440k new jobs, 1.2 million new solar installations, and 28 gigawatts of new capacity – enough to power seven million homes throughout the U.S.”

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Expanding Options In Solar Energy and Electric Cars

October 10, 2008 in accelerating change, energy generation, solar electricity, transportation by nils | Add your comment

Mission Peak (L), Mount Allison (C) and Monume...

Mission Peak in Fremont, CA. Image via Wikipedia

A roundup of a few stories that came out this week that I found particularly interesting.

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Running Some Numbers On Rooftop Solar Energy in 2018

October 2, 2008 in green building, integrative design, solar electricity by nils | 1 comment

Solar power systems installed in the areas def...

Solar power systems covering the areas defined by the dark disks could provide more than the world total primary energy demand in 2006 (assuming a conversion efficiency of 8%). Image from Wikipedia.

I recently asked physicist Richard Muller whether he thought the price-performance of solar electricity generation would follow a Moore’s Law-type curve. He said that this would not occur due to improving the efficiency of solar collection, as the current levels of efficiency – 20-40% – are reasonably high. However, he added

“I do expect the price to drop by a factor of 10, so we will have lots of solar.”

Well, in the nature of things, there’s definitely a limit to how much energy a solar PV collector can get from a square meter of sunlight. (There’s about 1kw of energy in a square meter – as I learned in Physics For Future Presidents, by Professor Muller – so we can expect to get 400 watts or less.) The amount of this energy per square meter we can collect will go up, but asymptotically approach (at best) the physical limits.

On the other hand, I’d argue that the cost of collecting it can go down a nearly unlimited amount – certainly multiple orders of magnitude. So what will solar PV look like in 2018 – ten years from now?

DoE Solar Energy Report On Market Penetration Outlook for Solar PV

September 30, 2008 in analysis, energy generation, solar electricity by nils | 2 comments

A laundromat in California with solar collecto...

A laundromat in California with rooftop solar collectors (Image via Wikipedia)

As we contemplate the future of energy, and the combination of utility-level and distributed energy, and of different types – solar PV, solar thermal (heat your own hot water for showers), wind, etc., one question I have asked myself is how much energy can realistically be produced by the solar collectors on the roofs of our houses and office buildings in the U.S.?

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Top Green Energy Stories For August 2008

September 10, 2008 in accelerating change, business benefits, energy generation, energy storage, opinion, solar electricity by nils | 1 comment

Top Fivewoodleywonderworks

Top Five Stories

August was a great month for energy storage breakthroughs! In addition, a big talking head talks big, and a business-of-green-energy announcement make my list of top stories.

1. Hydrogen from water
2. Fuel cell breakthrough #1: cheap catalyst
3. Fuel cell breakthrough #2: better cathode
4. Al Gore’s call to action: The U.S. should “produce all electricity from carbon-free sources by 2018.” (Actually from late July, but my blog didn’t start until August!)
5. Green energy investment up 60% YoY in 2007, on target for 60% YoY growth in 2008

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Another Analysis (More Detailed) Of Gore’s Call To Action on Renewable Energy

September 8, 2008 in analysis by nils | Add your comment

Wicked Barrel, by batintherain (Creative Commons license)

Wicked Barrel, by batintherain (Creative Commons license)

My very basic analysis of Al Gore’s call to action for “100% carbon free electricity” yesterday had the virtue of being dead simple. Jerome a Paris of The Oil Drum did a more detailed analysis back in July, based on wind energy generation, that reaches a similar conclusion to mine:

The short answer is: while 100% is probably unrealistic, it’s not unreasonable to expect to be able to get pretty close to that number (say, in the 50-90% range) in that timeframe, and it is very likely that it makes a LOT of sense economically.

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Running Gore’s Numbers: An Edifying, If Simplistic, Analysis

September 4, 2008 in analysis, solar electricity by nils | 1 comment

Photo: Bill Gantz

Photo: Bill Gantz (Creative Commons License: Some Rights Reserved)

In his galvanizing speech a few weeks ago Academy Award and Nobel Prize-winner Al Gore exhorted the United States to “produce all electricity from “carbon-free sources” by 2018.” This is a pretty abstract goal, in those terms – Gore (appropriately) didn’t go into great detail about how this should be done or even what it means in specific practical steps. Depending on your point of view and background knowledge about energy, the goal may seem easy or incredibly difficult, or even impossible, especially without further analysis.

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