Category Archives: solar power

Residential Solar Leasing – There are 2 sides to this in the United States at least

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Holy Cow. There are really two sides to this issue and opinions are very strong. I think it actually depends on the company and their integrity but maybe that is just me. I start with the NO sayers and next week I will post the YES sayers.

 

http://solarleasedisadvantages.com/

 

Solar Leasing

 

FACT: If you owe federal income taxes, then there’s absolutely no such thing as a $0 down solar lease or PPA.

And here’s why: A mandatory condition of both of these rental programs is that you forfeit the 30% federal tax credit and any cash rebate to the solar lease or PPA company.

The 30% federal tax credit alone is typically worth anywhere from $3,500 to well over $10,000.000 at the leasing company’s much higher pricing.

Before signing any contract, always demand to be shown, in writing, both the amount of the tax credit and any rebate that you’re providing as a down payment as well as the total system price.

If your solar lease or PPA salesman refuses to provide you with this information, then it is in your best financial interest to ask your salesman to leave.

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Go there and read. More next week

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Here Is What Illinois Could Look Like In 2050 – But are we smart enough

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So here is a graphic that I borrowed (eh hum) to show the folks that read here how Illinois could swith to clean energy. But do Illinois leaders have the smart to do it? I do not know, but we shall find out. By the way I tried to put the graphic directly up here but you know I am technologically challenged so just follow the link.

 http://thesolutionsproject.org/infographic/#i

 

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Go There and read. More next week.

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Solar Power Wins – So much for it being intermittent, or not storable

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All the criticisms of alternative power sources were just a bunch of bullshit put out by the fossil fuels industry to try to prevent the widespread use of the. And the proof by god is in the numbers.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/california-electric-grid-sets-solar-231527788.html

California electric grid sets solar generation record

Reuters
March 10, 2014 7:15 PM

March 10 (Reuters) – California set back-to-back solar power records last week, the state grid operator said on Monday.

The amount of electricity produced from carbon-free solar facilities connected to the grid reached 4,093 megawatts on Saturday, surpassing the day-earlier record of 3,926 MW, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) said in a statement.

With 5,231 MW, California leads the nation in installed solar generation, including thermal and photovoltaic facilities, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Power generated from solar has more than doubled from June 2012 when the ISO recorded 2,071 MW of peak production, the ISO said

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Warren Buffet Loves Renewables – Shouldn’t you

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When Warren speaks everyone listens. So for this Thanksgiving buy a little stock in a renewable energy company and enjoy…

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/11/27/when-it-comes-to-renewable-energy-buffetts-not-blo.aspx

Here’s What Warren Buffett Thinks About Renewable Energy

By | More Articles
November 27, 2013

“Rule No. 1: Never Lose Money. Rule No. 2: Never Forget Rule No. 1.”
–Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is famous for both his legendary investing acumen, and his simple, straightforward investing advice. For years, alternative energy has been viewed as non-competitive with traditional energy production from coal and other fossil fuels, making them money-losers for most investors.

Buffett’s own Berkshire Hathaway  (NYSE: BRK-B  ) subsidiary MidAmerican Energy is heavily investing in alternative energy sources, including both wind and solar. And considering that MidAmerican produces more than $1.2 billion in annual “ammo” for Buffett’s “elephant gun,” the story on renewables is clearly changing.

Should investors follow the Oracle into “green energy” to make more greenbacks? Let’s take a look.

MidAmerican has been investing in wind energy for a decade, and is easily the largest producer of wind energy in North America; wind actually accounts for more than 30% of the company’s total energy generation capacity. Current projects will move the total to almost 40%.

MidAmerican has relied on both General Electric  (NYSE: GE  ) and Vestas  (NASDAQOTH: VWDRY  ) for wind turbines for different projects. A large project in California, which deployed more than 300 megawatts of power generating capacity, featured 100 Vestas wind turbines. GE’s turbines, on the other hand, are the most commonly used in MidAmerican’s fleet

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Go there and read.  More next week. When it is my birthday, YAA.

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Germany Gets 20% Of Its Power From Renewables – After the renewable gold rush

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I thought I would start us out with a song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOMaqe0LOmo

The days when all the lies are proven false is right here and right now. Wind, solar and geothermal can replace coal gas and oil. And hthey can do it in the industrial heartland. It is the future and ain’t it grand?

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/10/17/us-germany-renewables-boom-idUKTRE79G0N420111017

 

Analysis: Renewable “gold rush” powers Germany’s north shore

 

 

By Erik Kirschbaum

ROSTOCK, Germany | Mon Oct 17, 2011 6:04am BST

(Reuters) – Renewable energy has created a “gold rush” atmosphere in Germany’s depressed north-east, giving the country’s poorhouse good jobs and great promise.

The natural resources attracting investors and industry are of a simple variety: wind, sunshine, agricultural products and farm waste such as liquid manure.

The rush to tap green resources in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state is reminiscent of the frenzies that came with gold or oil discoveries in past centuries. The buzz can be felt in towns and sparkling new factories across the Baltic shore state.

“Renewable energy has become extremely valuable for our state,” said its premier, Erwin Selling, in an interview with Reuters. “It’s just a great opportunity — producing renewable energy and creating manufacturing jobs.

“From an industrial point of view we’d been one of Germany’s weaker areas. But the country is abandoning nuclear power. That will work only if there’s a corresponding — and substantial — increase in renewables. It’ll be one of Germany’s most important sectors in the future. We want to be up there leading the way.”

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Taiwan Does Solar In A Big Way – Asia in general understands the need to ditch coal

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China is having smog days in some cities that have pollutants 50 times higher then allowed in the United States. Rates that can cause lung damage in mere minutes. So everyone in Asia is well aware that they need to switch from carbon fuels to renewables. Unfortunately, India has not learned the lesson yet.  But Taiwan definitely has.

http://solarbusiness.com.au/rise-rise-taiwan-solar/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SolarBusinessServices+%28Solar+Business+Services%29

The rise and rise of Taiwan Solar

21 Oct, 2013

(I skipped the first couple of paragraphs)

Either way, this beautiful, mountainous, island nation has become a technological powerhouse in Asia. Driven initially by Japanese influences prior to World War 2, it has developed a highly successful semiconductor industry including wafer foundries, Integrated Circuit (IC) packaging and testing industries and was considered the world’s number one in 2011 in terms of IC revenues.

The Taiwanese semiconductor industry developed an early vertical integration model (upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors) including silicon materials and silicon wafering; midstream IC design, IC manufacturing, and IC packaging industries; and downstream computer, cellular phone, and consumable electrical product companies. The transition from semiconductor to photovoltaic industries was a therefore a logical and natural progression for Taiwan and explains why it has become so enormously important.

Fast forward to 2012 and the beginning of trade tariffs on Chinese made PV products in some countries.  With deep historical and business ties to China but technically an independent status, the importance of Taiwan’s PV manufacturing sector took a huge leap forward.

One example of the Taiwanese PV industries rise to PV success is WINAICO.  WINAICO’s parent company is Win Win Precise Material Co Ltd who established themselves in 2003 as a supplier and marketer to the semi-conductor industry. By 2007, it had created Winergy Solar and soon afterwards WINAICO, establishing a network of global sales offices and joint ventures to develop, market and deploy its PV technologies.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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The OIL Drum goes offline – Does that mean that Peak Oil Theory is wrong?

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That is a very interesting question. At one level is is just a case of a bad attribution. It would be like saying if Jane’s stopped publication then there are no airplanes. At another level, as all the authors say that were involved, they may have just run out of new and bright things to say. It could also be that with many other things predicting the END OF THE WORLD, when it never happens, the readers got bored. That several major religions have preached that for thousands of years and nobody has gotten bored yet would speak against that. I have always been skeptical about the doom and gloom nature of the blog itself but when the CIA and the Defense Department believe something then, you have to believe it has some credibility and really oil is a finite resource. So with deep water drilling and fracking we may just be buying time. Then there is global warming. Anyway I drivel on.

http://peakenergy.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/our-clean-energy-future.html

Aug 19

Our Clean Energy Future

Posted by Big Gav

Following on my recent post bidding Farewell to The Oil Drum, I’d like to have a look at what I view as our longer term future for energy production and consumption.

As noted in my previous post, for the time being the combination of unconventional oil extraction and the ramping up of extraction of natural gas (from both conventional and unconventional sources) has continued to push the point of peak oil production out into the future, defying the predictions of the more pessimistic peak oil observers. During this period we have seen a boom in the research and development of solutions to help us eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels, which I’ll explore in this post.

Solutions can be divided into 3 groups :

 

  • Renewable energy – solar power, wind power, geothermal power, hydro power, ocean energy and biomass derived power (including biofuels)
  • Distribution of renewable energy – energy storage and the electricity grid
  • Adopting alternatives to oil and other fossil fuels – electric transport, bioplastic, alternatives to fossil fuel based fertiliser and new models for manufacturing, construction and agriculture

 

Renewable Energy

The graphic below shows the energy available from renewable energy sources annually compared to global energy consumption. The numbers are intended to give a rough idea of relative scale – for any given energy source a wide range of estimates can be found in the literature so the numbers are indicative.

 

These numbers in some ways understate the amount of energy potentially available (ignoring solar power potential at sea or in space, for example, or wind power at high altitudes or far offshore, or geothermal power deep below the surface of the earth) but still serve the demonstrate that the renewable energy available to us is orders of magnitude larger than our current global energy consumption.

The contribution made by renewable energy to our energy needs is expected to exceed that made by gas (and double that made by nuclear power) by 2016, though progress needs to be accelerated if we wish to create a sustainable energy system.

Solar power

Solar power is the largest energy source available to us, dwarfing all other sources – renewable and non-renewable. Approximately 36,000 Terawatts of power could be captured by land based solar power generation – compared to current global energy use of around 16 TW. As a result, most of the plans floated for shifting to 100% renewable energy (examples include proposals by Mark Jacobson and Stuart Staniford and local plans for countries like Germany and Australia) rely primarily on solar power.

Solar power is not only the largest energy source available to us but it is also the fastest growing energy source, with solar power generation increasing by over 58% in 2012.

There are a number of options for harnessing solar power – power generation using solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and solar thermal arrays along with passive solar techniques such as solar hot water heaters.

I have been of the view that solar thermal power generation (also known as concentrating solar power or CSP) would become our most important source of power in the longer term. This view was based on a number of advantages that solar thermal possesses – it does not require rare or expensive materials (enabling it to scale without hitting resource limits), it can be built on (and is best suited to) arid land that has few other uses, it can incorporate energy storage (thus avoiding the intermittency issue), it is compatible with the existing centralised generation model and it can be combined with traditional sources of power generation (coal or gas) in hybrid power plants that allow an easy transition using existing connections to the electricity grid.

An area of desert around 250 km by 250 km covered with solar thermal power generation could supply all the world’s current electricity demand.

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Go there and read a really long article. More next week.

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I Believe The Future Is Not Thorium – But many many people disagree

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I wrote the following rant in response to a question from my stepson Gus. I did it the way I write emails, minues capital letters and punctuation. I may change that later but for now here it is.

as one of my professors used to say.. think about the question before you ask it because it will have an answer….so my first answer is that nuclear anything is an inappropriate use of technology and worse yet design….at least here on the earth…at least until the END…now in space that is another matter…as a small is beautiful person schumacher said that – building nuclear power plants is like using a firehose to knock an ant off your toilet seat…it would do it but it would trash the rest of the bathroom….

using commercial grade nuclear power plants to generate electricity are by their natures large and complex with many moving parts.. they were larely invented by scientists who had a hard on for large complex machine and the military who needed cover for their nuclear weapons program…so it really has no relation to the actual generation of electricity in the world and represents a valid dichotomy in intellectual thinking .. ie. large and central vs. separate and continuous … to me diffuse power systems make a lot of sense…1. they require far fewer power lines so transmission lose is reduced and 2. there is much less of a chance of an actual power failure…then there is the cost

finland is currently the most committed nuclear power plant builder…i know that sounds very weird but it is true and they are right next door to norway the home of the first commercial thorium nuclear test reactor…(what a great segue and a return to your real question)…finland’s last nuke was projected to cost 3 billion $$$ and it came in last year (5 years late) at 8 billion $$$…now understand findland kinda models the earth towards the end of our sun’s useful life…where nukes make sense…they gots no fuel besides wood and it is colder than hell there much of the year…(plus as a political side note they got russia as a neighbor.. big yuk) still it really makes no sense…

so if you can accept the facts of large complicate expensive energy systems and find the current nuclear ones to be dangerous then thorium salt generators may seem to hold promise…i would argue that if the usa was going to go nuclear in the 1950s this is the direction we should have gone…in fact oak ridge build 2 such reactors one, a straight salts burner (remember fission is just a large fire) and 2, a burner with a “mat”….they were quickly shut down because they did not involve highly concentrated uraniun and plutonium…so from that perspective thorium reactors are much safer…generate higher temperatures and generate much “safer” waste…

again for me we got the biggest nuke that we need in the SUN…usens puny humans caint do no betters…so i say we use that until it begins to fail and then use all the stuff we could burn then…unfortunately we have burned 1/2 of it already so we better stop quick….and for the record…contrary to the science fiction models…i do not believe we are going anywhere in this solar system anytime soon so to all the capitalists that have been treating this planet as disposable i say tsck tsck tsck….the billionaires currently have a huge hard on for mars…well they have not solved the radiation, speed and food problems yet let alone the fuel problems so i say have a go at it bloke…i will stand by the side and watch…remember that voyagers 1 and 2 where launched when i was a child and they are just now leaving the solar system…thought votes are still out as to whether they have yet or not…

 

BUT THEN THERE IS SOLAR:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/07/08/germanys-solar-industry-is-imploding/?partner=yahootix

Germany’s Solar Industry Is Imploding

William Pentland, Contributor

I write about energy and environmental issues.

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The title says it all. Go there and read. More next week

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Should SolarCity Change Its Name – Changing their name to EfficiencyCity

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I mean really if they are going to drop their insistence on solar panel installations as part of a retrofit then why keep the name? Are they now a software company or are they now a software and then install whatever company? Good questions with no answers. It would be like Tide if it were to stop making soap and started making dishwashers. Would they keep the name and why?

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-peak-at-solarcitys-new-energy-efficiency-software?

Has SolarCity Created the Amazon 1-Click for Energy Efficiency?

 

“We believe SolarCity has the best database of residential energy use of anyone in the world.”

 

Stephen Lacey: June 28, 2013

 

After SolarCity shifted its energy efficiency strategy and pulled back from doing residential retrofits in-house, the solar services behemoth is moving straight into intelligent efficiency.

 

GTM’s Eric Wesoff recently reported on SolarCity’s evolving business plan and the resulting changes that company executives say will scale residential efficiency in the same way solar services have scaled residential solar.

 

But solar is very different from efficiency. For the most part, solar is very standardized and installations are uniform from home to home. Efficiency retrofits encompass an extraordinarily broad category of activities and skills. Incentives are also quite different for efficiency, making it more complicated from a financial perspective. That’s why only a handful of U.S. solar contractors have offered efficiency as an in-house service.

 

SolarCity decided that doing the retrofit work itself was not the best way to scale. Instead, it has turned from manpower to the power of big data.

 

The secret sauce is a “simulation engine” that shows homeowners exactly how much they’re spending on energy everywhere in their house. The initial database was created using information from 16,000 home energy audits performed over the last five years. It relies on an algorithm developed at the Department of Energy that crunches 100 million calculations per home for each individual energy efficiency audit (which is still performed by SolarCity when installing solar).

 

“The simulation software looks at every component in a home in relation to one another,” said SolarCity COO Peter Rive. “Every ten minutes, it thinks about what one thing is doing and about its effect on the rest of the systems within the home.”

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Finally President Obama Addresses Climate Change – Now how about the Congress

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The jackonapes in congress prattle on about how there is no Global Warming, and even if there is it ain’t man made. Those in the pocket of Big Coal want to find a way to make it cleaner. Like there is a way and America dithers on while China and India rush ahead. The song should go America the stupid with amber waves of insanity. Still at least the president has put something out there.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/obamas-climate-change-speech-three-words-less-coal-finally/66565/

Obama’s Climate Change Speech in Just Three Words: Less Coal, Finally

 

Philip Bump 4,220 Views 9:20 AM ET

The process of climate change is complex and involves a vast array of contributors. But slowing climate change largely relies on one thing, cutting carbon dioxide emissions, and cutting carbon dioxide emissions heavily relies on reducing the use of coal. For all of the president’s intricate proposals during his speech on the topic of climate change today at Georgetown University, nothing is as important as his plan to reduce America’s use of coal.

It’s important to consider the president’s proposals within an economic context. As Senior Administration Officials™ noted during a call on the topic last night, the president made a pledge to reduce carbon (dioxide) emissions in 2009 that the United States has made great progress in achieving. This is largely due to three things out of Obama’s control, however: the slow economy, a drop in electricity demand (in part due to the slow economy), and the increased use of natural gas for electricity production. Electricity production comes down to money, after all; if you figured out a way to generate gigawatts of power by leveraging the power of bare skin, America would be a nudist camp before sunset. We don’t love coal, we love that coal is cheap and is, by now, well-integrated into our power infrastructure.

Obama’s push to reduce coal use has two parts.

Decrease domestic coal use by limiting carbon emissions at power plants. Again: This is the most important part of Obama’s speech, bar none. If he dropped everything else in his plan, this idea would still warrant a significant amount of attention, both here and abroad.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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