From the Ventura County Star:
ROACH DRY LAKE, Nev. — Not a light bulb’s worth of solar electricity has been produced on the millions of acres of public desert set aside for it. Not one project to build glimmering solar farms has even broken ground.
Instead, five years after federal land managers opened up stretches of the Southwest to developers, vast tracts still sit idle.
An Associated Press examination of U.S. Bureau of Land Management records and interviews with agency officials show that the BLM operated a first-come, first-served leasing system that quickly overwhelmed its small staff and enabled companies, regardless of solar industry experience, to squat on land without any real plans to develop it.
As the nation drills ever deeper for oil off its shores and tries to diversify its energy supply, the federal government has failed to use the land it already has — some of the world’s best for solar — to produce renewable electricity.
The Obama administration says it is expediting the most promising projects, with some approvals expected as soon as this month. And yet, it will be years before the companies begin sending electricity to the Southwest’s sprawling, energy-hungry cities.
Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/sep/01/land-leased-for-solar-power-unused/#ixzz0yMLDZjM2
– vcstar.com
“Currently, a 200 Watt solar panel costs about $500-600 and lasts for 30 years. … It makes sense to put these on your roof and sell the excess electricity to the utilities.
Right. Let’s see, electricity costs less than $0.20/kwh, so that panel will general a maximum of $0.04/hour. In a typical climate, you are looking at an average of 5 hours/day peak-equivalent generation, and 200 days/year of clear skies. Figure 1000 hours of peak-equivalent generation per year, and you have $40. It will take you 15 years just to get your investment back – with no interest!
This discounts many important facts:
– You must have an inverter, and an approved electrical installation, costing several thousand dollars and generating nothing.
– The efficiency of your system will be much less than 100%.
– The efficiency of solar cells degrades over time.
Financially, generating electricity using solar cells makes no sense at all. Other forms of solar power – for example, thermal, to drive steam generators – may work, but not on the roof of your house.
paulw…
You might find it worth taking a look at another blog – one that is essentially economics-based – that has examined this “report” more closely, which summarises thus:-
Last page. Who are the subsidisers? In order, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, China, Egypt, Venezuela, Mexico, Indonesia, Argentina, Iraq, Uzbekistan, UAE and so on….
Absolutely none of the advanced industrialised countries are providing sufficient subsidy to even make the list. Only 8 of the G-20 do ….and none of the rich ones.
So, you see what they’ve done? They’ve compared what poor countries do to subsidise fossil fuels with what rich countries do to subsidise renewables….and yet left us with the impression that it’s all rich countries doing both.
Think for a moment: they’re comparing $50 billion with $550 billion, as if it is therefore obvious that we (the US, UK etc) should therefore both reduce fossil sibsidies and increase renewables. But what on earth does Iran subsidising petrol have to do with how much the UK or Germany should subsidise solar PV?
Quite, nothing.
Now I’m all in favour of those fossil subsidies being entirely done away with but not for climate change reasons. Rather, WTF is a poor place like Iran doing giving $100 billion to car drivers?
Or, if you prefer, sure, get rid of those subsidies but don’t think that they’ve got anything at all to do with us here in the rich world at all.
For the full details see: http://timworstall.com/2010/08/04/my-god-the-lying-bastards/#more-16703
Michae Schaefer says:
“in jobs, which CANNOT be outsourced, because they have to be performed locally, to be economically competitive: Like manufacturing, assembly, installation, maintenance…”
If you think that manufacturing and assembly can’t be competitively outsourced you’re in for a nasty surprise, because they already are. Installation admittedly has to be performed locally, but probably not by local labour. The same for maintenance. It will be partly performed locally, but by travelling maintenance teams, and the faulty units sent back to the manufacturer or a specialist maintenance supplier somewhere else, quite possibly overseas, for repair. Wake up to the real World, man.
The idea of the sun and wind being “new” and needing special funding, is incredible. The sun has been shining on earth and creating wind long before we left the primordial stew. With the exception of atomic power, all of our energy comes from the sun and always has and likely always will. Petroleum, coal, corn, wind, wave, sugar, wood, dung, hydro .. all require for the sun for an energy source. At some point in their production most of these sources have had to combine a bit of sunshine and our true best friend “C02” to sequester some energy for later use. Hydro and wind just use the heat and its evaporative powers. People have been studying it every day ( it is closed most nights) since the first dawn. New indeed.
paulw,
FYI back in 1982, I work as a technicain while getting my degree on a research project for creating solar arrays out of aluminum foil and silicone with hydrogen bromide fuel cells. It was quickly discovered that there was no payback on the fuel cells, so they concentrated on the solar arrays only. After all you can’t get much cheaper than alumuinum foil and sand.
They still had problems making it pay; in order to produce the arrays, a wide variety of acids were used making production an environmental problem. In addition, very high temperatures were required to finish the arrays, using a large amount of energy. After 15 years, the project was shelved as being financial unsound.
I’m sure they’ve made great strides in solar systems since my experience, but if they are even slightly similar, I can’t see how they would ever have a payback or how they could be considered zero emmisions energy sources. And this is disregarding the transmission and energy storage issues.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think it solar should be pursued, I just think it’s going to take more time and shouldn’t be thought of as a cure all for energy ills.
If you installed a 100 km long hydrokinetic turbine string off the coast of Florida, you can generate permanently 5 giga watts. Thats great then the combined Canadian and American output of Niagara Falls at much lesser cost. If you interlace and multiplex the string you can up the power to 25 gigawatts. (per 100km)
paulw says:
September 2, 2010 at 3:27 am
“Fossil Fuel Subsidies Are 12 Times Support for Renewables, Study Shows
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-29/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-12-times-support-for-renewables-study-shows.html
Who would have thought that the government subsidies on fossil fuels are more than half a trillion dollars. Compared to this, subsidies for renewables are under $50b.”
Paul, as Jeez says this is a ridiculus study intended to decieve the public and only an unformed person would believe the story . And none of the information actually presented re subsidies applies to the US fosssil fuels. If you check the basis for the study you will find that one of the largest government subidies was from China and dates to the period where oil prices were quite high and they admit that it is no longer accurate as oil prices dropped. China subsidized the consumer of the energy to keep it’s economy running since high oil prices would kill their industry.
This study also include subsidies by other Countries such as Venzuela that subsidize the consumer so that they can continue to buy gasoline for their auto’s at very cheap prices. This is one of the ways Chavez avoids a revolution. I believe Iran was also a large subsidizer of fuel to consumers.
Bloomberg is misleading the uninformed to make them believe there is a huge subsidy for Fossil fuels as they fail to give the details as to what/where subsidies are applied. The data does not apply to the US market. Think Bloomberg has an agenda by the omission of the facts behind the claim? Unfortunately one can no longer trust Bloomberg for reliable information .
“paulw says:
September 2, 2010 at 3:34 am
Currently, a 200 Watt solar panel costs about $500-600 and lasts for 30 years. It does not require much maintenance apart from the occasional cleaning with Windex :-).”
Mate, you are very misinformed.
China is a large manufacturer of solar panels exported to the US
I’d take issue with the first part of your argument. Every new technology you cited was profitable immediately upon production. It was expensive and it was very much a niche market but it was profitable. The only exception might be computers, the first of which were built by universities for research purposes and used by various governments for code cracking. The first manufactured aeroplanes were profitable or they wouldn’t have been made. The first mobile phones were profitable or they would never have got out the door. The first cars? THey made a fortune.
You’re confusing profitable with costly. Something may cost a lot, but if it brings in more than it costs then it will be profitable. Solar doesn’t do that. It’s hugely expensive, but people aren’t willing to pay for it without heavy government subsidy. That isn’t a cost-effective technology. There was no subsidy on cars or planes and mobile phones and microcomputers but they were profitable straight away despite being toys for rich people.
And you’re missing the cost-effectiveness of a technology. A car allowed travel further and faster for relatively less cost. It was more efficient than previous technologies. Mobile phones were more efficient than fixed phones, even when they were little more than field radios with a rotary dial stuck on the front. Solar isn’t cost effective. Without subsidy, it costs more to purchase than you will ever save from using it. It needs more money for operation than it will make. It cannot be profitable for the user without subsidy. The company manufacturing solar panels will make money on them because it can sell at a price-point that allows it to do so, but it can only sell at that price-point when the government provides a subsidy to the purchaser. And because of the high cost of the panels, utilities that make use of them for power generation can only make a profit if they then price their power high enough, or are able to create a mandated demand for their electricity generation. Without the government mandating use from renewables and providng subsidies for their continued use, solar power and wind power would never get any use at all.
The same can’t be said for coal and oil, or cars and phones.
Solar is inefficient, expensive and limited in where it can be used. It’s a dead-end. Without subsidy it would never be used for mass power generation.
Paulw:
That article doesn’t tell how those numbers were arrived at:
Did it include govt. subsidies / price controls that many oil producing nations give their own citizens to keep gasoline super cheap?
Did it subtract out the billions in tax revenues that governments collect on taxes, fees, and import duties. Some European countries pay $8 a gallon for gas with a majority of that being taxes. I pay some really stiff fees and taxes on my electric and gas bill to pay for all those damn solar SREC’s being paid out. Did that get included?
BTW, did you know coal can be refined into liquid fuel? Sure can, it’s called the Fischer-Tropsch process, and in results in cleaner fuel, because the coal is first converted to a gas, and the gas then used to complete the refining process. The gasification stage filters out contaminants found in coal and normal oil.
A friend of mine was involved in that study at UT. It’s viable but the funding for it has tapered off. The new project is liquifying natural gas into diesel and jet fuel. The U.S. has a 600 year supply of natural gas. Easier than coal extraction as the gas comes to you; they’ve starting pilots on oil rigs in the gulf where the gas that was previously burned off is now being processed into liquid fuels.
Solar is a myth and will likely not be practical in our lifetime. For a parallel, one might look at electric cars – the technology existed in 1905, but it’s taken 100 years to become realistically commerically viable.
tty says:
September 2, 2010 at 5:36 am
Solar panels (and thermal solar power) are very sensitive to dust. Even a very thin dust layer will cut power production drastically. Ask the people who runs the Mars Rovers if you don’t believe me. That means that those power plants will have to be cleaned pretty frequently. With fresh water. In a desert.
Anybody seen any figures on how much that will cost?
It takes more than just plain fresh water. It also requires a cleaning agent. Take a look at the inside of a shower door after a few weeks. It will be gunked up with mineral deposits from the water itself. For solar panels, add in damage from blowing sand, bird droppings, hail, and so on depending on location. If they are the mobile variety that self positions towards the sun, then you also have mechanical components that are subject to wear & breakdown. Ma Nature is very tough on things that are out in the weather.
Mars is a different story; no humidity, rain, etc. just the very fine dust which can be blown off, although it will eventually cause degradation of the surface from fine scratches.
paulw says:
September 2, 2010 at 4:14 am
We should cut ALL subsidy.
Michael Schaefer says:
September 2, 2010 at 5:14 am
I don’t even know where to start with the folly here. Manufacture of this equipment WILL NOT occur in America. Solar and Wind are free? So are hydrocarbon fuels. Both incur the costs of leased land or mineral rights, costs of development, and costs of delivery, and maintenance of equipment. There is no free lunch. If it’s such a smoking deal, why not cover your home in solar panels? Try the $40k price tag to realize a 50% reduction in your power bill.
Thorium reactors are cool, and they should be developed as one of the many sources of electricity. Currently they exist as prototypes (for example in India, which has 25% of world deposits). It should take some time before we are able to deliver electricity from thorium. We do not have a national plan to deliver thorium plants as the effort is still in the research stage.
What we can do is continue developing solar energy. There are several technologies in development and there should be breakthroughs soon that will drop the price of the solar panels and increase the electricity they produce. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell which mentions research by the NREL (US) for good cheap solar panels.
My concern is the outright rejection of solar energy by commenters in this post. Apart from having disparate views on what is going on with the climate, there are aggressive views that dismiss the usefulness of solar energy.
Is there something that the world does not know about solar energy (is solar futile?) that my fellow commenters know?
Is the world wrong and you (fellow commenters) right about solar energy?
Way before it was fashionable [in 1984] I installed a solar heater for my swimming pool. It consisted of 12 3.5 X 7 foot boxes enclosing black anodized copper tubing under a plate glass wind barrier [if the tubing isn’t enclosed it will act as a radiator, and any breezes will greatly reduce the heating capacity].
Simple, very effective — but far from being maintenance-free. If the plate glass wasn’t cleaned at least weekly the heating efficiency went way down.
Maybe the government’s new hi-tech green jobs will provide work for unemployed window cleaners. ☺
Paulw
If you read the article you will see what Obama calls a subsidy. Actualy the article more accurately calls the tax breaks:
“Tax breaks that would get axed include:
Deductions for drilling costs
Credits for low-volume oil and gas wells
Manufacturing tax deductions for oil and gas companies.”
The objective is to kill US oil production and find a way to pay for all the wasteful spending by Obama and Congress. Most people do not know the massive amount of taxes already paid to the treasury by fossil fuel via leasing, royalities , and direct taxes.
Should Companies be able to deduct drilling costs as Obama proposes to eliminate?
The reasonable answer is yes unless one mis represents it as a subsidy.
In recent past the largest contributor to the US Treasury after income tax was leasing and royalities. Obama has already significantly reduced this income thus growing his deficit. This sounds like killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
Fact: In 2008, the U.S. collected almost $23 billion in revenues from federal oil and gas production and leases: $13 billion in royalties and $10 billion in bonus bids.
If you follow investments in the oil and gas industry, unfortunately the investments are moving overseas.
Finally can anyone explain why Obama is subsidizing Brazil oil drilling offshore in deep water with low interest loans while attacking US drilling? Many like to tout Brazil’s ethanol production while ignoring the massive ongoing oil exploration there subsidized by US taxpayers. Their oil production has turned their economy around !!
In Germany alone, 500,000 people are working in the green energy-sector today, already. Re-calculated for the USA, an equally developed marked for green energy would put 2.5 MILLION people to work – in jobs, which CANNOT be outsourced, because they have to be performed locally, to be economically competitive: Like manufacturing, assembly, installation, maintenance…
Again: Once the power is installed, the raw material producing the energy is ABSOLUTELY FREE, IS GREEN AS-CAN-BE, and it is availlable in abundance for BILLIONS of years to come – because it’s wind and sunshine!
So, let me get this right. An industry that is going to have to employ an EXTRA 2.5 million folks is going to get us the same amount of energy more efficiently and more cheaply than the current system?
I. Don’t. Think. So.
I have reviewed the annual report of Exxon. I have done financial audits and rendered opinions on financial statements. Price Waterhouse does this and it is now under the sarbanes Oxley act. If there are subsidies to Exxon, why are they not reported in the annual report? I remind the people that claim subsidies, If Exxon gets them, they are in deep trouble to not report them. slip over to the 10K filings on exxon Mobil and they just are not there.
Greenie weenie accounting standards rename ordinary tax deductions for depreciation, materials and labor as subsidies.
Lets talk about subsidies. For solar to kick off, they need direct cash inducements to build paid on the front end. Wind energy had incentives to build. They also had incentives in the rest of the cycle including distribution systems.
Example:
If a cheese curl factory had the government load, truck and deliver snacks, they could make more money.
Solar wants a gathering and distribution grid paid for by others to distribute the electric.
bradley13 says:
September 2, 2010 at 5:41 am
It’s a pity you can’t explain that to David Cameron and more importantly Chris Huhne (Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the UK coalition government) they haven’t understood the basics.
From the “Energy Saving Trust” this is what you get selling power from a domestic source
Export tariff – you will receive a further 3p/kWh from your energy supplier for each unit you export back to the electricity grid, that is when it isn’t used on site. The export rate is the same for all technologies.
This is shocking. I am a strong believer of Obama, but this is really disappointing.
When the world is in need of the renewable energy resources which can replace fossil fuels and are pollution free thus non-utilization of the land which is best suited for generating solar energy is very disappointing. Negligence from the federal government in this concern is not at all acceptable or even understandable. We must raise a petition related to this issue so that awareness can be generated about the same and to get this issue resolved at the earliest.
I think it is high time we started taking nature and our planet earth seriously and do our bit about environment, sustainability, climate change, biodiversity, clean energy, green living and so on. [snip – commercial soliciting]
Why spend billions building the world’s most expensive and second to wind most inefficient power? Solar as well as wind demand 100% back-up from fossil fuel and solar in prime desert locations must utilize fossil fuel as back-up 60% (wind 75%) of the time. The reduction in pollution and carbon dioxide emissions from the massive programs wanted cannot produce any measurable reductions. They cannot clean the air, they cannot save any oil. They would also be used as an excuse for trillions in carbon taxes.
PaulW asks:
$3 billion is the approx subsidies that oil and gas companies take per year in the US.
Obama wants to cut these subsidies,
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-tries-to-cut-oil-and-natural-gas-subsidies-again-2010-2
Shall we cut these subsidies?
Of course, let’s cut all energy subsidies — fossil, nuke, “renewable,” and see who’s left standing.
I did some research into the field of solar cells a while ago while I was working on a project for a flexible organic circuit. The efficiency of direct-transfer solar cells (that is, cells that absorb light directly from the sun and convert it to energy) is pretty low. The standard cells are silicon PV cells that run about 10-20% efficiency (there’s an Aussie firm that can make one at 25% if I recall). Using a thin-film can increase efficiency. Last I checked, carbon-based polymer junctions were languishing at 6% efficiency (that’s worse than your solar-powered calculator cells).
Using varying metals, efficiency has been reported as high as 40% with a Ga / Ge / As material. Unfortunately, the cost of In and Ge have doubled in the past 6 years due to the demand of the new solar start-ups.
I just did a search and discovered a paper by some researchers at The Ohio State University that claims near 100% efficiency from a Mo / Ti / polymer material. Call me skeptical whenever someone claims one material can absorb the entire EM spectrum. But the paper is below. If this is true, Mo / Ti would greatly reduce the cost of solar cells while increasing the energy generated by the cells.
http://www.tgdaily.com/trendwatch-features/39807-new-solar-cell-material-achieves-almost-100-efficiency-could-solve-world-w
To clarify: natural gas can save oil if used in vehicles.