[NukeNet] Comments on Solar, and invitation to Carter Center, S. David Freeman speech.

Fri May 16 22:53:46 EDT 2008

Hi, everyone!

Want real energy independence?  Put  Nanosolar Powersheets on your roof, if you can get them.  The only place they are manufactured is in San Jose California, and that facility has at least two years worth of back orders.  Why Nanosolar?  Popular Science said when they gave them the 2007 innovation of the year award that their price would be only 1/10th that of conventional photovolataics.  

So, instead of $40,000, which I understand is the usual cost of a home electric producing photovoltaic system, you would only pay $4,000.  Affordable.

Then, buy a plug in  hybrid.  Put in in your garage and plug it into your own electric generation system.  I think you'd still have excess electricity to sell back to your utility.  My husband questions why cars couldn't be covered with nanosolar powersheets instead of having to be plugged into an electric source.  Has any one investigated that?   Instead of centralized solar, I believe in distributed solar for real energy independence, and wouldn't we all like to avoid service stations, except for real service.  The catch, who is making affordable electric plug in hybrids?

In LaGrange Ga., our Sierra Club group is pushing for our city to be a "Cool City."  We are recommending to the Mayor that he locate a Nanosolar Powersheet factory here, and solicit Kia, currently building an auto  manufacturing company here, to build plug in hybrids.  

We also proposed that the City of LaGrange install Nanosolar Powersheets on all our Municipal Buildings, Schools and Public Housing Projects.  If our city, and all the other 802 (or more now) Cool Cities did this, it would jump start the solar industry.  I have asked the city how much they are paying for power for all these buildings, but have had no response.  

By the way, everyone, you are invited to see S. David Freeman, former Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors who cancelled 8 reactors and delay 6 others, author of a new book, "Winning our Energy Independence," June 11 in Atlanta, Ga.  He will be speaking at the Carter Center Museum Auditorium at 7:30 PM.  His book will be on sale before and after his lecture, and he will sign books during the reception following his speech.  Free admission.  David promotes solar and plug in hybrids.  He calls oil, coal and nuclear the three poisons.  Hope to see you there.  

Jeannine Honicker

To: nonewcoalplants at energyjustice.net; no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com; cleanenergy at yahoogroups.com; savetaylorcountyfloridaresidents at yahoogroups.com; EANoF at yahoogroups.comFrom: hopeforcleanwater at yahoo.comDate: Fri, 16 May 2008 17:35:30 -0700Subject: [no-new-nukes-yall] Solar electric a highly attractive energy option

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880514026

Solar electric a highly attractive energy option

by Dave Erb • published May 15, 2008 12:15 am

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In 1916, Thomas Edison wrote, “Sunshine is a form of energy, and the wind and the tides are manifestations of energy. 
“Do we use them? Oh, no!
“We burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front porch for fuel.
“We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property.”

Not much has changed in 92 years. 
Arguments for expanding centralized electric generation often rest on the false premise that renewable energy (RE) isn’t ready for prime time. But photovoltaic (PV, or solar electric) energy is preferable to nuclear today —economically, logistically and environmentally. The evils of coal speak for themselves.
In 2003, the worldwide PV industry installed 744 megawatts (MW) of systems, for revenue of $4.7 billion, an average wholesale cost of $6.32 per watt. Technological progress has raised the installation rate and dropped the unit cost dramatically. Grid-tied home-scale systems can be purchased in Asheville today for $8 per watt, retail, fully installed. Economies of scale for larger systems are significant.
Investors catching on
Because PV is still young enough to promise continuing gains, investors are pouring billions of dollars into companies like First Solar.
Presuming no overruns, Duke’s 800 MW Cliffside coal plant will cost $2.4 billion ($3 per watt). Each 1,100 MW Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactor proposed by Duke Power and Progress Energy will be $7 billion ($6.36 per watt). Let’s not oversimplify a comparison of dissimilar technologies. Unlike coal and uranium, sunshine is free, but PV in North Carolina operates at a capacity factor of 20 percent, versus 90 percent for a nuke. We must consider the cost of energy (kilowatt-hours, kWh) alongside the cost of power (watts).
The Solar Energy Industries Association conservatively calculated that $6.32 per watt for PV translated into $0.18 per kWh. This seems high compared to mercury-laden coal energy, but it’s competitive with gas-fired peak energy, which PV most seamlessly replaces, and with the generating costs many utilities already incur because of (not despite) the use of nuclear.
Less impact, cost
Don’t be fooled by the low cost per kWh on your present bill. No new generator, of any sort, can compete against plants that were paid off decades ago. Looking forward, PV carries no fuel price risk, nor will its use raise the price of any fuel. Unlike fission and combustion plants, PV can be located in any unshaded site, without waste, safety issues, emissions, noise, water usage or wildlife impacts. Because PV is modular, construction work in progress (CWIP) ratepayer charges are unnecessary.
Grid-tied PV benefits utilities and their customers. Inverters, which make PV output grid-compatible, are transistorized power conditioners. Their presence in a distributed generation (DG) network maintains power quality and line voltage, protecting computers from hiccups and other devices from burnout. DG relieves pressure on the transmission system, mitigating the sorts of problems that darkened much of the East in August 2003. In these days of terrorism paranoia, a million widely-dispersed 5 kW PV arrays offer a harder target than one 1,000 MW nuke or coal plant. And PV capital expenses are usually borne voluntarily by the homeowner who installs the system, not by the utility’s other customers.
How utilities buy
With net metering, the homeowner’s electric meter runs backward whenever his grid-tied system generates a surplus. In effect, the utility buys peak-time electricity at retail. Since peak power frequently costs more at wholesale than it sells for at retail, this seemingly even trade actually profits utilities. Readers unfamiliar with the power business might want to reread the previous sentence.
Implausible as it seems, the auctions that trade power really do cause utilities to buy high and sell low. Enron and others nearly bankrupted several California utilities a few years ago by manipulating this quirk. Pumped storage hydro projects, like Virginia’s Smith Mountain/Leesville dam complex, function primarily as “batteries” for the off-peak output of coal and nuke plants, and are concrete (pun intended) indicators of the same market dynamic.
Detractors frequently advance the red herring that replacing existing generation with RE would be prohibitively expensive. But nobody is advocating that we rip out the grid and start over. Like any other form of power, renewables will be added through expansion and attrition.
I helped design and build several successful RE systems in a region with 14 percent less sunshine than Asheville. PV works, and not just in Arizona. It could provide large amounts of cost-effective energy long before anyone could finish constructing a new centralized generator, without sacrificing mountains in Appalachia or Nevada.
The future has arrived. We should turn around and face it.

Automotive engineer Dave Erb is a consultant, working primarily in electric and hybrid electric vehicle design. He lives in Asheville.

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