Energy wonk Robert McLeod has long post filled with statistics and graphs, arguing a simple point: if historical trends continue, solar power is going to dominate. Soon. (You'll recognize this as substantially similar to the argument made by solar booster Travis Bradford.)
If you're into statistics and graphs, read the whole thing. If not, here are some good excerpts:
Photovoltaic cells are not like any other method humanity uses to collect and use energy. Existing techniques extract energy either from mechanical motion (wind, hydroelectric, tidal) or heat differentials (fossil fuels, nuclear, solar-thermal). Whereas all these systems produce useful work by the turning of a shaft (usually to spin photovoltaics convert sunlight directly into direct-current electricity. While photovoltaics are still beholden to the laws of thermodynamics and entropy, the difference still implies that they abide by difference rules. In particular, they have a total absence of moving parts and as a result are almost free of maintenance requirements. Photovoltaic cells degrade in performance only very slowly as they are bombarded by cosmic rays. Most manufacturers offer warranties that guarantee they will still reach 80% of their rated power output after 25-years.
...
... solar production hasn't been growing at 3.2% per year. It has, in fact, been growing at 33% per annum for the last decade [2], and it's expected to continue that trend for the immediate future. ... while the impact of solar may be trivial now, it will not be over the next 25 years. If solar can maintain the same growth rate is has for the past decade, solar can supply all of mankind's projected electricity demands 26 years from now. [my emphasis]
...
The learning rate of photovoltaics is much higher than that of other energy technologies. In fact, it's more in-line with things like computers or DVD players. ... The small incremental nature of photovoltaics is a major advantage from a R&D perspective, as I've described previously. While coal and nuclear power plants are installed in increments of hundreds or thousands of megawatts, solar panels are measured in the hundreds of watts. Thus while a design change to a nuclear power plant can take a decade or more to manifest itself, solar manufacturers can do this in weeks. As a result, photovoltaic technology will go through hundreds of design revisions in the time it takes coal or nuclear plants to go through one.
...
Intermittency is the problem that renewable energy sources suffer from due to the natural fluctuations of their power source. Any transmission grid that relies on renewable sources as a primary input will require a substantial amount of storage, deferrable demand, or load-following spare capacity. The severity of intermittency can be thought of as a combination of its predictability, correlation to demand, and variance. Compared to its chief competitor, wind, solar is far more predictable. ...
It is my opinion that the concern over intermittency of solar power is exaggerated. This is due to the fact that the learning rate of photovoltaics dictates that the cost of solar will fall below that of the main established sources of power (coal, nuclear) well before solar will constitute a significant fraction of our energy consumption. I think most people will agree, when the price of solar energy drops below that of the competition, the game changes. When you have power to burn, simple and low-capital techniques of storing or transmitting solar electricity become practical. At $0.05/kWh solar would have a margin of $0.04/kWh or more to work within for charging electric vehicles, filling deferrable demand, storage techniques such as Vanadium redox batteries, or long distance high-voltage direct-current transmission.
...
Many people will look at the graphs in disbelief that the easy path photovoltaic power has been traveling can continue. All I can really say in reply is, those are the historical numbers. The learning rate is exceptionally stable. The growth rate has been, if anything, accelerating in the face of a industry silicon shortage. Thin-film technologies seem well positioned to cause the price to continue to fail into the near future. Solar power doesn't have very far to fall in many European nations before it's cheaper than residential rates. As residential solar becomes the cheapest power available that will continue to push demand upward and fuel growth. There's nothing obvious to me that says 'Stop' in solar's future and it's a fact of exponential growth that the early years matter the most. Even if the growth rate drops 1 % a year over the next 25-years the eventually outcome seems predetermined, it's just a question of the timing.
(via WSJ)
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Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix
Comments
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sunflower Posted 4:56 am
16 May 2007
http://www.harbornet.com/sunflower/pvethanol.gif
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:08 am
16 May 2007
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol3
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol2
Since it does ALL of the US demand for on-road fuel, and shows just how big Switchgrass would be.
Not to mention, Switchgrass only reducing CO2 emmisions by a mere 4%.
_
But yeah there's only 3 places to get energy from.
Earth - Geothermal
Moon - Wave
Sun - Solar
And wave and geothermal are inheriently limited.
Meanwhile solar is experiencing exponential growth, with many factors offering ways to MULTIPLY solar output.
_
What I find disgusting though is that the subsidy for ethanol is about 12x-20x larger than that for solar.
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Gar Lipow Posted 5:10 am
16 May 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:17 am
16 May 2007
(And it's high O&M cost, and it's high NIMBY factor)
Wind is also very region specific.
(Also it peaks at night, when demand is low)
While no doubt wind will be a key player, it doesn't offer the exponential growth, reliability, and ubiquitous installation as solar PV.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:18 am
16 May 2007
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/E85vWindSol
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Jason Peterson Posted 5:29 am
16 May 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:30 am
16 May 2007
http://greyfalcon.net/pv
Also here's the ethanol versus PV/Wind chart I was talking about:
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol.png
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Corey McKrill Posted 5:42 am
16 May 2007
I'm reading Fast Food Nation right now, and it has an explanation in the first chapter of how the fast food industry was able to take off because of the rise of the automobile. That rise was far from a natural progression though. At the beginning of the 20th century, a lot of R&D was going into public transportation, ie railroads, subways, trolleys, etc. Lots of cities were developing the infrastructure, the population was using it, and by all indications, that form of transportation would overshadow all others and shape the design of American population centers in the foreseeable future. Then automobile, oil, and tire companies started lobbying for subsidies, and the GM corporation started secretly buying trolley systems across the country and dismantling them. GM then manufactured the buses that replaced the trolleys.
The results of this are clear. Despite the incredible inefficiencies of automobiles, and the relative benefits of mass transit, the former overshadows the latter by a long shot.
To bring this back to solar, this post outlines a lot of advantages that solar has over other technologies, and mentions its robust growth rate, despite huge subsidy advantages that some other technologies have. However, what's going to stop oil, coal, or biofuel corporations from buying up solar manufacturing companies and patents, shelving them, and imposing technologies that are more lucrative for them onto the market?
Grist's InterActivist ... creating a one-of-a-kind portrait of on-the-ground activism.
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sunflower Posted 5:47 am
16 May 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:48 am
16 May 2007
http://www.greyfalcon.net/ethanol2.png
Why are we using Ethanol again?
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:50 am
16 May 2007
There is no longer a requirement that gasoline fuel be blended with ethanol or MBTE.
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/regs/fuels/rfg/420f06020.htm
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Gar Lipow Posted 5:55 am
16 May 2007
If you remember that most solar power is in direct sunlight, then solar is intermittent too. (I prefer variable, because down times for both wind and solar can be predicted--with poor accuracy 24 hours in advance,with tremendour accuracy and hour or so in advance.)
Even solar at 80 meters is about 72 terrawatts. But once you get up to 15,000 and 35,000 feet with flying energy generators you are 1,400 terawatts or so compared to current world wide consumption of 14 terawatts.
Speculative? But so is nickel a kWh PV. If you want to compare current PV to current wind, then economically feasible potential is higher for wind. If you want to look at possible breakthroughs in both, then there a good shot the same will be true in the future. (Note that this economic analysis is only talking about electricity. If you are talking about low grade heat for climate control, hot water, and certain industrial uses, could mostly be met by solar heating. These uses are 20%-40% of consumption depending on which nations you are talking about.)
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:59 am
16 May 2007
Fair enough. :P
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Delay And Deny Posted 6:42 am
16 May 2007
Sonofusion.
The resurgence of cold fusion from table top materials works better.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:05 am
16 May 2007
But you believe in Cold Fusion.
_
Just about as unlikely.
Fox New's Boss goes Green, encourages Bill OReily and Shawn Hannity to do the same.
Algae BioFuel ever being successful
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:10 am
16 May 2007
So you don't believe in Global Warming because you don't think the evidence is strong enough.
But you believe in Cold Fusion.
The difference being that Sonofusion is verifiable in the lab and has been written about in peer reviewed journals. AGW isn't...it's just the pipe dream of Lindt Chocolate Munching Eurocrats and their "intenational committees".
http://www.physorg.com/news10336.html
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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Biodiversivist Posted 9:11 am
16 May 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jones Posted 10:41 am
16 May 2007
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462 ...
(Please note: it's not written by the IPCC.)
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Delay And Deny Posted 11:24 am
16 May 2007
Svensmark's book cracks most of those "responses" including the very first one about historic carbon highs.
We've been much higher in the past...
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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Delay And Deny Posted 11:26 am
16 May 2007
I was ready to read through these articles when I read:
Ocean sinks
Human emissions of CO2 are now estimated to be 26.4 Gt per year, up from 23.5 Gt in the 1990s, according to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in February 2007 (pdf format).
Again -- the IPCC is NOT primary research, nor is it from a peer reviewed journal. What is more, after 17 years in business, they have been exposed as warping data and also adjusting their "models" everytime the data proves them wrong.
Sorry, Grist, tricks are for kidz.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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Andrew Dessler Posted 11:53 am
16 May 2007
The IPCC report was written by hundreds of climate experts from 130 countries and was based on peer-reviewed scientific literature. The report has itself undergone several layers of scrutiny; it was evaluated by thousands of other climate experts, critiqued by over a hundred IPCC-member governments, and open to public review.
The IPCC's previous report, released in 2001 with similar conclusions, was reviewed and endorsed by a blue ribbon panel of the National Academy of Sciences, and its conclusions were subsequently endorsed by the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and others. These groups are not composed of a bunch of funding hungry scientists screaming that the sky is falling, but rather distinguished researchers stating that the Earth is warming. Think about this. How often can you get at least 100 professionals, such as doctors or lawyers, to agree on any complex problem?
In the end, the IPCC reports are perhaps the most thoroughly vetted documents in the history of science. These reports are therefore widely regarded as the most authoritative summaries of what we know about global warming and how confidently we know it.
As a result of the firm basis in science, the IPCC reports are the most authoritative statement of what we know and how confidently we know it.
Let's compare to the IPCC report to Svenmark's book: Has Svenmark's book been peer reviewed by hundreds of scientists? No. Has it been endorsed by a blue-ribbon panel of the U.S. National Academy? No. Has its conclusions been endorsed by the American Geophysical Union? No. American Meteorological Society? No. AAAS? No. etc.
I think it's clear what the credible source of information on climate change.
PS: this also goes for all the press releases and web sites that skeptics links to. These have not undergone multiple layers of review ... so they cannot compare to the IPCC in terms of credibility.
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Jones Posted 12:05 pm
16 May 2007
It performs a secondary review of primary, peer-review-published work. So an assertion like the one you quoted can be taken as a peer-reviewed assertion. To reject the New Scientist article on that basis is clearly fallacious.
I would assume that Svensmark's "book" is not a peer-reviewed journal, so citing it as evidence is clearly hypocritical.
But still you're probably right. There's clearly no point in your reading the article.
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GreyFlcn Posted 12:05 pm
16 May 2007
Without that Svensmark is no more credible than the original guys who claimed to have invented cold fusion.
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JMG Posted 12:13 pm
16 May 2007
Perhaps the "skeptic's guide" needs a whole separate entry on the science of modeling, the process by which models are tested, validated, and improved as real experience is incorporated into the model and deviations from the model's predictions are used to help assess a particular model's strengths and weaknesses.
Since modeling is such a common practice in so many diverse fields, there will be opportunities to show how modeling works in complex fields other than climate research, and then to show how the techniques of careful modelbuilding apply independent of the phenomenon being studied, and then to discuss the qualities of the most cited climate models.
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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Jones Posted 12:14 pm
16 May 2007
...they cannot compare to the IPCC in terms of credibility.
After all, credibility is "The quality, capability, or power to elicit belief."
The sources the sceptics link to clearly do have the power to elicit belief.
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Pangolin Posted 12:28 pm
16 May 2007
Sterling Energy Systems has a contract to install 20 thousand solar thermal electricity units in the California desert. (hint: look for the W. pics on the website). That still leaves a LOT of desert empty.
If you combine solar thermal collectors with low grade geothermal as outlined in this govt. document you would get much more power from the combined system than either system alone. Here's a swiss company that installs units on apartment blocks and large buildings.
Solar thermal systems can also provide combined heat and power as outlined in this article about Infinia corp.
The best solar pv can provide you with is electricity and in high density environments I say go for it. But lets not neglect any means of providing the main services we use power for. Heating, cooling, transportation and lighting without GHG emissions.
Keep solar thermal in mind.
Put the Carbon Back
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sunflower Posted 1:22 pm
16 May 2007
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Pangolin Posted 1:42 pm
16 May 2007
But we need to use ALL available technologies if we are going to head off disastrous climate change.
Put the Carbon Back
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:59 pm
16 May 2007
Hydrogen, BioFuels, and Carbon Capture and Sequestration, are technologies we could do without.
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sunflower Posted 2:10 pm
16 May 2007
Not as sexy as shiny solar concentrators but far more effective, fast ROI, and fast expansion of existing technology without subsidies. Side benefits include not spending money on dryers (very important), clothes last longer, smell cleaner.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:55 pm
16 May 2007
In fact wind can power the PV factories that make their replacement energy source. pV with room temperature superconduction, how efficient could that be? This is just one example of possible pV breakthroughs. PV concentrator designs are already at 39% efficiency.
Imagine a Prairie National Park with one huge wind machine per square mile, covering thousands of square miles. When the wind machines come down in 40 years that incredible natural legacy will be left. The american wildlife park like the african wildlife parks. On a mega scale.
Wind development will be stifled by land speculation in high wind speed areas like the great plains if the government does not step in and provide a program of leasing for wind development in a huge park like this. Who is buying up this land now?
My guess is fossil energy companies with the huge windfall profits they are reaping from natural disaster and oil wars. It will allow them to slow wind and make more profits from their fossil fuel holdings.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Pangolin Posted 5:07 pm
16 May 2007
We'd get more meat off of a communally harvested stock of buffalo, horse and antelope than we currently get from cattle now. They're more efficient at turning grass into mammal than almost anything else alive.
While we are at it we could set aside a chunk of Texas for a rhino and elephant preserve. Lessee African elephants in Texas (and hyenas, Texas is natural for hyenas) and Indian elephants in Florida.
It's good to dream. I stop regularly at a restaurant on I-5 in California that has a stuffed polar bear in the bar. It's over 9 feet high. I take my kids in there to show them the majesty of what we are killing off.
Put the Carbon Back
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IronRinger Posted 12:02 am
17 May 2007
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:46 am
17 May 2007
99.9 of the technologies that Grist promotes are invalidated by Sonofusion.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:36 am
17 May 2007
Since the actual groundspace required is rather low.
Great way to help out family farmers bring in some extra income.
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GtoeOne Posted 2:38 am
17 May 2007
The data I need are, $/kw installed for peak production (noon at peak declination), capacity factor (what do I multiply by to obtain average output given peak), cloud factor (what is power on cloudy days) and maintenance costs (costs for cleaning, repair and replacement).
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sunflower Posted 2:43 am
17 May 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 3:29 am
17 May 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/2/9/1 ...
Tell your senators and congress person.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 3:36 am
17 May 2007
That biomass could be turned into clean electricty and organic fertilizer with biogas digestion feeding fuel cells. The gas would provide energy storage to backup the wind farm. Making the prairie energy system 100% reliable so that the whole grid would be stabilized.
The prairie would still store 1.8 tons per year per acre of cO2 out of the atmosphere, except the mown portion which would be diminished in storage capacity somewhat. The organic fertilizer could start a huge wave of organic farming, sequestering much more CO2 as soil is built back up year after year, deeper and deeper with organic matter.
Broken record...sorry. Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jason Peterson Posted 8:36 am
21 May 2007
This is especially perplexing in light of the IPCC coming up with scenarios but giving them no probabilities. And then they say this in their own documentation!
However, many physical and social systems are poorly understood, and information on the relevant variables is so incomplete that they can be appreciated only through intuition and are best communicated by images and stories.
Future levels of global GHG emissions are the products of a very complex, ill-understood dynamic system, driven by forces such as population growth, socio-economic development, and technological progress; thus to predict emissions accurately is virtually impossible.
Sometimes GHG emissions scenarios are less quantitative [scientific models] and more descriptive, and in a few cases they do not involve any formal analysis and are expressed in qualitative [non-scientific] terms.
Or the factors influencing scenario plausability:
Extensive review of the emissions scenarios available in the literature.
Alternative modeling approaches.
Peer review (Including by the IPCC web site "open process").
IPCC review and approval processes.
Given that, what do they say about scenario uncertainties?
Choice of Storylines.
Authors Interpretation of Storylines.
Translation of the Understanding of Linkages between Driving Forces into Quantitative Inputs for Scenario Analysis.
Methodological Differences.
Different Sources of Data.
Inherent Uncertainties.
So I can't see why we can't calmly discuss what exactly "Global mean surface temperatures are projected to increase between 1990 and 2100 by about 1.4 to 5.8°C." means or "Projected by models to warm 1.4 to 5.8°C by 2100 relative to 1990" and how much we should trust it as far as to the range. Why is that not something a reasonable person might do?
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Jason Peterson Posted 8:57 am
21 May 2007
Imagine solar panels in orbit providing endless and huge amounts of hight wattage power 24/7 Take into consideration highly efficient panels on houses and etc removing the need to buy (or generate) electricity for A/C, water heating, light, etc. And then think; batteries to take care of the night, or to run your car, or to feed your hydrogen production.
So let's take this another direction. Imagine the (ir)rational and (il)logical conclusion. Approaching the year 2100, if the global mean land/sea temperature seems on track to reach the high end of the estimate in rise, and technology innovations, wealth, mitigation and adaptation have not slowed or stopped the warming, there's a very simple way to solve the problem at any time. We simply have a lottery, and kill 90% of the humans and animals on the earth.
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zackk Posted 2:42 pm
21 May 2007
then it's always been solar, hasn't it? except for the past little blip.
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BruceMcF Posted 2:21 am
24 May 2007
Bear in mind that modular, closed cycle pumped storage hydro is 80% efficient. If excess solar power (not the demand it was installed to meet, but the electricity available when it is generating above average supply) is available for $0.04/kWh, then that is $0.05/kWh plus capital costs for the peak supply from the pumped storage hydro. And the pumped storage hydro can store power from any variable electricity supply, whether solar, wind, or wave.
Virtually Yours, BruceMcF
Energize America 2020
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Nucbuddy Posted 2:23 am
10 Jul 2007
Wherefrom did that figure come?
How might the power be routed to the ground from that range of altitudes?
Here you said, "potential of [...] 350 terawatts from wind," which is 25% of 1,400 terawatts (TW). Assuming you meant that 350 TW electric (TWe) is the practical potential for tethered-windpower:
a) How might tapping this entire 350 TWe practical-potential affect air-traffic?
b) Would these tethers for 350 TWe have to be attached at regular intervals over the entire 510-million square-kilometer surface of the earth?
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