Via Slashdot Hugh Pickens writes:
According to Rhone Resch, the last three years have seen the U.S. solar industry go from a start-up to a major industry that is creating well-paying jobs and growing the economy in all 50 states, employing 93,000 Americans in 2010, a number that is expected to grow between 25,000 to 50,000 this year (PDF). In the first quarter of 2011, the solar industry installed 252 megawatts of new solar electric capacity, a 66 percent growth from the same time frame in 2010.
Solar energy is creating more jobs per megawatt than any other energy source (PDF) with the capability, according to one study, of generating over 4 million jobs by 2030 with aggressive energy efficiency measures. There are now almost 3,000 megawatts of solar electric energy installed in the U.S., enough to power 600,000 homes.
In the manufacturing sector, solar panel production jumped 31 percent. ‘The U.S. market is expected to more than double yet again in 2011, installing enough solar for more than 400,000 homes,’ writes Resch. ‘Last year, the industry set the ambitious yet achievable goal of installing 10 gigawatts annually by 2015 (PDF) – enough to power 2 million more homes each and every year.’
Hi Bob. Sorry, about that. I re-read my post and realised that it could have been taken as a serious suggestion.
And then I felt sad.
Because, while the idea of powering our civilisation by the use of human generators may seem self-evidently unacceptable, and outright horrifying to most of us at WUWT (and to most of the general population, I hope), it’s true that a large number of urban eco-warriors would appear to view it as so self-evidently acceptable, and outright utopian that they can only believe those who object to it are motivated by personal greed.
Rest assured — I never meant it as a real proposition. I was mostly interested that on a theoretical, ideal plane, this woefully inefficient and inhumane system would still be producing far power than the solar method.
But I really should have realised that, from a certain angle, it could look like I was being serious.
It’s a bad old time, isn’t it, Bob?
What dunderheads. “We find that all non-fossil fuel technologies (renewable energy, EE, low carbon) create more jobs per unit energy than coal and natural gas.”
First, who ever said that that is a legitimate or proper standard by which to judge anything? Some years ago someone claimed that microchips consumed more energy per mass that the average car. OK, but so what? Does that mean we get rid of microchips? It is irrelevant. We shouldn’t set energy policy based on job creation. Energy policy should be based on getting useable energy to the consumer most efficiently and in the least costly way.
Second, coal and natural gas are established, mature industries. They did their job creation years ago. What if coal and natural gas employ a million people but green energy after its meteoric growth only employs 100,000? What if to create those 100,000 jobs the millions in the traditional energy industry have to lose theirs.
This is data, for the sake of data, totally irrelevant and largely worthless, except to advance a political agenda.
re commieBob- “In fact, photovoltaic might not be economical for that application even if the panels were free.”
I’ve been tracking panel prices for a while now. China and Taiwan have ramped production from zero 3 years ago to more than 50% of the global market this year. They will dominate the globe within 5 years. This shift has driven prices down at the same time that production is being automated. Blemished poly-Si panels with some defects are available for 0.70/Watt right now.
Now assume the panels are free. If these are installed by you, using home-made panel supports, and grid tied inverter, disconnect to breaker panel, no tax credits or subsidies taken, the cost is still about $1.50/W(pk). The payback time here in Florida (5 hrs/day full sun, 80% efficiency), at 0.13/kWhr grid prices, is about 8 years, assuming you didn’t take out a loan for the initial outlay, and there are no maintenance costs (ha!).
This is basically at my threshold for installing them on my home. Of course, it means I am doing all of the design, installation and commissioning work.
If the free panels are installed by a contractor, the payback period is multiple decades, even with the 30% tax credit. This is partly because the installers jack up prices to grab as much of your tax credit as possible. I have a grid-tied system price quote from last fall for $9.50/W(pk) installed by a contractor. Yikes!
Frank Lee MeiDere says:
July 28, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Two items:
1) Can I be politically incorrect? (That’s a stupid question, I’m well skilled in being politically incorrect.)
Hire the obese to do the peddling – they come with their own energy supply!
2) watts, watt hours, and watt hours per day.
You have abused the units to the point I can’t figure out what you mean.
3,000 mega watts which powers 600,000 homes is 3 Mw per 600 homes, 5 kw/home. At 720 hours per month, that’s 3600 kwh per month. That’s a lot more than my peak usage. Perhaps they’re assuming electric heat.
93,000 people to create 3,000 mega watts is way too few people! You need multiple people per house – one person has no hope of powering six houses!
A professional bicyclist in the Tour de France can’t sustain 400 watts for an hour, your figure is some 30 kw per person – off by a factor of 100. http://www.srm.de/index.php/gb/srm-blog/tour-de-france/661
75 watts per hour per bike – 75 watts per bike makes sense (achievable, even) 75 watt-hours per hour per bike is okay, but silly. For a 40 hour work week, call it 2000 hours per year, that would be 150 kwh per bicyclist per year. I’d need a lot of them, even if I shut off the air conditioning! At $0.10 per kwh, each would only supply $15 of electricity per year.
People don’t appreciate exactly how cheap energy is today….
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Power – units are watts, joules/sec, calories/sec, foot-lbs/sec, horsepower etc. It’s the number printed on a light bulb.
Energy – power use over time. units are watt-hours, killowatt-hours (kwh), joules, BTU, etc. It’s what you pay the utility company for. 100 w light for an hour, that’s 0.1 kwh. two 100 w lights for 5 hours, that’s 1.0 kwh, 10X the energy. 75 watts per hour – that’s turning on another 75 watt light every hour. You’d have 24 of them on a day later.
Perhaps its not such a good idea to compare jobs per installed MW but rather per MWh. Cost structure of solar is rather different and so is its visual impact. This is a developing technology that has made fantastic gains in the last few years. It will not make coal he nuclear obsolete anytime soon, if ever, but it most probably already can do good in countries where electricity is used for cooling and ease the load on the power grid. That may prove to be really handy when an increasing number of vehicles rely on electricity. Now, if that happens, there will be a lot more batteries around. This will make the business case for solar look better as well
chris y wrote: I have a grid-tied system price quote from last fall for $9.50/W(pk) installed by a contractor.
Large scale systems in California recently have been priced at $3.50/watt — total costs, no credit offsets. Home systems about double that. I posted links to a couple of examples a while back.
yeah, a minimal look at Edison iron batteries show that while they have a long life-cycle, they suck at storing energy. 30% storage, and heavy.
The only good battery is hydro, (or really, coal/methane/oil) and Greens don’t like it.
How much has all this cost the taxpayer? Because of the huge subsidies required, solar energy is absolutely worthless for consumers.
Wolfman says:
July 28, 2011 at 1:58 pm
“One question–”is more jobs per megawatt than any other energy source” another way of saying that it is economically inefficient?
Yes. You tee’d up the first comment… and ‘put it in the cup’! Hole in One!
What happens when the gubmint can no longer subsidize this boondoggle?? Can you say no more hiring and a lot of layoffs??
TO: Frank Lee MeiDere
RE: Hi Bob. Sorry, about that. I re-read my post and realised that it could have been taken as a serious suggestion.
I understood you intended this as satire and I failed to include a comment on the satire. However, just to have some fun with numbers…
Assume an average person could generate 25 watts for 8 hours, that’s 25 watts x 8 hours = 200 watt hours. / 1,000 to convert to kWh = 0.2 kWh. Ignoring the cost of the equipment, the federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees is $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009. Thus $7.25 per hour x 8 hours = $58 for 0.2 kWh or $290 per kWh!!!! Now that makes solar power look cheap.
There was an article in the May/June issue of IEEE Power and Energy Magazine entitled ‘State of the Solar Union’, by Shyam Mehta. Shyam Mehta is a Senior Analyst at GTM (GreenTech Media) Research, focusing on global solar markets. He is a solar PV cheerleader.
It has this gem-
“Almost half of 2010 demand for PV, in terms of Megawatts of installations, was driven by a single market- Germany, with 7.5 GW. That country has the ideal combination of qualities required of a PV market: a still-attractive feed-in tariff (despite numerous reductions over the years), short project-cycle times, and an uncapped incentive program.”
Notice anything missing from this list? Yup, no mention of daily solar insolation. Now why would that not even get a mention?
Another gem- “The exception is 2008, where Spain briefly assumed that role [of savior market]; again, it was an irrationally generous incentive program, along with a loophole, that effectively produced an uncapped market that year,…”
So as of June 2011, with Si PV panel prices dropping below $2/Watt (peak DC), and panel manufacturing costs below the holy grail of $1/W, the global solar PV market remains completely dependent on subsidies, tax credits, property and sales tax exemptions, cash rebates, renewable portfolio standards, feed-in tariffs, accelerated depreciation rates, fast-tracking of construction permits, no-cost land leases, environmental impact exemptions, etc, etc, etc.
And the tax payers don’t subsidize nuclear or oil? All the externalities of oil and coal fully priced?
Solar PV is a complex subject. Add in variable rate costing, and the subject goes beyond
the comprehension of almost everybody.
When I lived in California I spend months trying to understand the electrical rate structure,
US Federal tax credits for solar, insolation variation, mount angles, inverter systems,
local zoning codes, state tax credits and several other interacting factors. As it so
happened I had
1) Tier 3 and Tier 4 power usage
2) Good roof area
3) Electrical and mechanical skills
4) Cash to self fund purchase up front
5) Income to take advantage of the tax benefits
6) Enough physics background and computation modeling experience to calculate
the right array size
So I researched, purchased, installed and operated a PV system at my CA home.
No salesman, sell-back lease, installer, etc. involved. Lowest cost was not my object,
but rather maximum ROI — something nobody will sell you.
I was on the 7 year ROI schedule, which was quite an accomplishment. My 1.2 KW
system cut my power bill around $100 per month.
Then I got laid off, sold my house, and moved to Oregon. Since I owned my system
outright, it was easy to move it to a new house. Except that I had to once again
research mounts, angles, wiring and ROI. We chose to keep the system and
it is now installed at the new house and producing power. ROI is worse, but
we also use more power now that we have an electric dryer, electric range and
electric well pump. So ROI remains good, but not 7 years good.
ROI calculations for owner-builder PV systems are amazingly complex.
I think subsidies of solar energy can be justified in the short term if the result is a viable industry that can stand on its own. If solar energy will ALWAYS require subsidies, then that is no good. As far as creating more jobs per megawatt-hour of energy, that might be positive if it means the creation of jobs in many different industries that are supporting solar power. Of course, if we are talking about the solar power industry alone, that is inefficient. But we do need to make our energy production much less carbon-intensive.
Sal Minella says:
July 28, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Sal, thank you, and this is the hidden cost rarerly considered or quantified by anyone. PLEASE read Sal’s post, if anyone has a stuDY which quantifies this, I would appreciate it.
Harnessing fossil fuels brought an end to the need for slavery. It looks like harnessing the sun will bring it back.
Solar energy is creating more jobs per megawatt than any other energy source
Wow, and that probably doesn’t take into account maintenance. Have to hire people to keep the grass around the solar arrays trimmed and to blow off the dust, you know.
Kum Dollison says:
July 28, 2011 at 4:20 pm
It’s, now, expected that some Solar Farms will be installed next year at a cost of $2.00/watt, or even less.
Considering, that these panels are assumed to last, at least, 50 years, and possibly much longer,
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I looked into solar 8 years ago when I was building a new farm house. I know things have improved but NO ONE would guarantee their solar panels for even 20 years back then – read the fine print, they prorated them so the 20 year guarantee at the end of 20 years was virtually nil. And batteries – that is another story. Solar was at least 10 times the cost of grid power at that time when you included back up generation, battery and inverter replacement and solar panel failure rate and replacement. I have many solar panels around the farm for fencing and water pumping so please don’t tell me how maintenance free they are. They need regular cleaning in the summer to keep the voltage up, and they need even more cleaning in the winter to keep the snow off. So, I have a propane generator and a grid connection. Love to see where you got the “at least” 50 year life of solar panels as I have never seen anything much over 30 years – and since those panels have not done 30 years yet ….
Economists used to refer to government attempts to manipulate taxes and tariffs to create local industries as hot house industries. Perhaps such efforts will be called greenhouse industries soon.
I wish the solar (and wind) developers would focus on he niches where their products make sense (areas without a well developed electric grid for rich now) and not try to saddle the consumers with their expensive, unreliable product by political edicts.
Here’s a look at our pedal-powered future.
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/05/pedal-powered-farms-and-factories.html
Fred Berple,
Your comment 28 July at 2:05 “why not simply hire people to turn hand cranks to produce energy” made me think this early form of punishment in Sydney.
Bougainville wrote this in 1825.
New computer, try Bougainville wrote in 1825.
Frank Perdicaro at 9:56 pm has an excellent cautionary tale. You need to spend a lot of time with your calculator before you make a purchase. There are sad stories everywhere, notably the case of Spain.
Graham wrote:
Too true, Mark. May as well ask “How many hippies on welfare does it take to change a light bulb?”
Wow man, that would be about… Umm… Hey, stop bogarting that joint! I needs some Pringles…