Guest essay by Philip Dowd
Whenever the subject of renewable energy comes up, the conversation usually turns to solar. You hear statements like: “The world receives more energy from the sun in one hour than the global economy uses in one year.”[a] You then ask yourself; “Why can’t we just capture the energy from the sun and solve our energy problem that way?” Why not, indeed?
Let’s suppose that we convert the entire American economy to “all-electric”, and we produce all of the electricity to power it from a solar facility. In other words, we stop burning carbon and capture the sun. What would this solar plant look like? How much would it cost? We can get a ballpark answer to both of these questions with a few assumptions and some simple calculations.
First we need to know how much electricity our solar power plant must generate. An analysis from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[b] divides the US economy into four sectors – Residential, Commercial, Industrial and Transportation.
Total demand for energy from these sectors (in the box) is about 70 quadrillion BTU’s (or “quads”) per year. So, our solar power plant must reliably deliver the electric energy equivalent of 70 quads to run the US economy for one year, or 56*1012 Wh (56 Terawatt hours) of electricity per day[c].
Our solar facility would consist of a photovoltaic (PV) panel and a battery. (There are other forms of solar power, but PV is good for this purpose.) The PV panel would generate enough electricity during the day to power the economy and charge the battery, and the battery would power the economy at night. Our task is to calculate:
1. The size of the PV panel
2. The size of the battery
3. The cost of the whole thing.
The Photovoltaic Panel
Let’s assume the following:
1. The PV panel would be spread out in the Southwestern states, because that is the sunniest place in America[d].
2. We build in a 50% safety factor to handle any contingency
If we start with demand of 56 Terawatt hours of electricity per day and add a 50% safety factor, we find that we will then need a system that can produce about 83 TWh/day[e].
The easiest way to estimate the footprint of a solar facility of this size is to look at the operating experience of existing solar power plants. Here are several examples [f].
Facility Location Electricity Output/sq meter
Nellis Nevada 150 Wh/day
Beneixama Spain 160
Serpa Portugal 90
Solarpark Mühlhausen Bavaria 68
Kagoshima Nanatsujima Japan 170
The sample shows that actual output is in the 70-170 Wh/day per square meter range. If we assume 150 Wh/day-sq m for our power plant, then its foot print would be about 210,000 sq mi[g].
The Battery
For the battery we will use technology known as “Pumped Storage”[h].
This method stores energy in the form of potential energy of water, pumped from a lower elevation reservoir to a higher elevation reservoir. In our example, electric power from our solar facility produced during the day would be used to run the pumps and fill the upper reservoir. Then, at night, the stored water would be released through turbines to produce the electricity that would run the night time economy.
This is proven technology. “Pumped storage hydro (PSH) is the largest-capacity form of grid energy storage available. As of March 2012, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) reports that PSH accounts for more than 99% of bulk electric energy storage capacity worldwide, representing around 127,000 MW”h. There are about 50 pumped storage plants with more than 1,000 MW of capacity in operation around the world[i] .
In 2009 the United States had 21,500 MW of pumped storage generating capacity[j]. Many of these plants were built during the 1970’s and have therefore been operating for more than 30 years.
Two good examples of pumped hydro electric energy storage in the U.S. are:
1. The facility at Ludington, Michigan[k] is built on a bluff overlooking the east shore of
Lake Michigan. It was constructed in 1969-73.
2. The Bath County facility[l] is located in the northern corner of Bath County, Virginia, on the southeast side of the Eastern Continental Divide, which forms this section of the border between Virginia and West Virginia. It was constructed in 1977-85 and is currently the largest pumped storage facility in the world.
Here are the relevant specifications (from this spreadsheet[m] ):
Capacity Capital Cost Stored Energy Footprint
(MW) ($2014/W)[n] (GWh)[o] (Acres)
Ludington, MI 1,872 0.98 25.5 1,000
Bath County, VA 3,000 1.40 43.0 820
For the purposes of this anlysis, we assumed that the night time energy demand would be about half of the daily demand, or 41 TWh. If we fulfilled this requirement with pumped storage, we would need about 1,000 facilities like Bath County , VA, or about 1,640 like Ludington, MI[p] .
If we assume the average footprint of these facilities to be 1,000 acres, the total footprint would be about 2,600 sq mi[q] for the Ludington option and 1,300 sq mi[r] for the Bath County option.
Note that for the sake of simplicity this analysis does not include a factor for energy losses during the charge/discharge cycle. Overall, the pumping/generating cycle efficiency has increased pump-turbine generator efficiency by as much as 5% in the last 25 years, resulting in energy conversion or cycle efficiencies greater than 80% (MWH, 2009)[s]. Including this factor does not materially change the result.
What Would It Cost?
Assuming today’s technology and today’s costs, this power system would cost about $65 trillion to build.
The PV Panel
Utility-sector PV systems larger than 2,000 kW in size averaged $3.40/W of capacity in 2011[t]. The capacity of a solar power plant that could generate the required 83 TWh/day of electricity would be about 17 TW[u]. The installed cost of our facility would therefore be $3.40/W times 17 TW or about $60 trillion.
The Battery
If we use the actual construction costs of the two PSH projects above, the Bath County option would cost a total of about $5 trillion and the Ludington option would cost about $3.5 trillion[v].
A few comments
1) Putting the PV power facility in the Southwest makes sense from a solar energy point of view because this is the sunniest part of America. But, this strategy has two problems:
a. The Southwest, defined as southern CA + the southern tip of NV around Las Vegas + NM + the panhandles of TX and OK, constitutes about 400,000 sq mi[w]. Our facility would therefore cover about 50% of it!
b. If a major storm covered most (or worse, all) of this, electrical output would drop dramatically and the whole country would suffer.
2) Putting our PV power plant in the “Southern states”, defined as southern CA + southern tip of NV around Las Vegas + all of NM + all states east to the Atlantic Ocean, alleviates the storm risk scenario but puts much of the panel in states that are not as “sunny” as the Southwest, and so our PV power facility would have to be larger to account for that. Even without this expansion it would occupy about 22% of it[x].
3) Some people would say that much of the land in these states is “empty”; but others would say that it is wilderness or grazing land or farm land. It’s safe to say that either the Southwest or the Southern States strategy would provoke some real push-back.
4) PV Panels on houses. There are about 89 million houses in the US[y]. If the owners of every one of them installed 1,000 sq ft (e.g 20 ft by 50 ft) of PV panel on their roof, the total area would be about 3,200 sq mi., a small percentage of the needed area.
Additional Construction Costs
Building the solar power plant is not the only cost of capturing the sun.
1) Electrifying the economy. We simply assumed at the beginning that the entire economy has been “electrified”, so that all energy is now supplied in the form of electricity, but this in itself would be an enormous project. By far the largest part of this would involve the electrification of the transport sector. The chart above shows that transportation is the largest user of energy (38%) and that almost all of it comes in the form of petroleum. Electrifying this sector would mean abandoning the internal combustion engine and converting to electricity all cars, buses, trucks (especially tractor-trailers), ships, and the entire railroad network.
2) Re-building and expanding the entire national electrical grid. Today power plants are located close to the user. Major cities, e.g. Chicago, are surrounded by a network of power plants[z]. Our new solar system, however, would locate the power plants where the sun shines the most. So, in theory, much of it would be located in the Southwest, which is the sunniest part of America. This means that the solar-based grid would be much larger than present because it must transport electricity much larger distances, for example, from Arizona to New Jersey.
3) Developing a computer network to control the whole system, the so-called “smart grid”. The solar grid must be able to react to changes in the weather. Suppose we adopt the Southern States strategy. Further suppose that on Monday the Southwest is clear and the Southeast is cloudy. On that day huge amounts of electricity must move generally west to east. Then suppose that on Tuesday the Southwest is cloudy and the Southeast is clear. On that day huge amounts of the electricity must move generally east to west. This will be happening every day as weather systems move across America. The grid and control systems to handle this do not, today, exist.
Compare the “Solarization” of America With Other “Mega-Projects”
America is certainly capable of successfully sustaining large projects over long periods of time that require solutions to major engineering problems. Three examples are:
1. The Manhattan Project. The project to build the first atomic bomb spanned 1942-1946 and cost about $26 billion in 2014 dollars[aa].
2. Project Apollo. The project to put the first man on the moon spanned 1961-1972 and cost about $130 billion in 2014 dollars[bb].
3. The Interstate Highway System. This project was authorized in 1956 and was completed in 1991, 35 years later, at a cost of about $500 billion in 2014 dollars[cc].
These are three very successful projects. What were the keys to their success?[dd]
1. A perceived threat or reward that leads to public acceptance. The Manhattan project and Apollo project were both responses to perceived threats, which compelled policymaker support for these initiatives. The interstate highway system was perceived as an enormous jobs program that would also produce a big jump in economic productivity.
2. A clear goal. Each project had a clear goal – build the bomb, put a man on the moon by end of 1969, build the interstate highway system.
3. Government money that ensures success. All three projects were funded by government. For example, the Manhattan Project consumed about 1% of the federal budget during its life, and Project Apollo consumed about 2% during its life.
How does our solar project score on these three success factors?
1. Perceived threat or reward. Climate change and/or exhaustion of fossil fuels. But, does the American public buy in to this? Recent polls suggest that it does not.
2. A clear goal. Electrify the US economy and generate the electricity with a solar-based system. But, whereas the interstate highway system (for example) generated huge benefits to Americans, it is not clear if there are any near-term benefits from, for example, converting transportation from carbon to solar-produced electricity.
3. Government money to ensure success. The government’s role in all three projects was to provide the funding. But, given the public’s lack of support, the huge amounts of money required, and the fiscal shape in which governments at all levels find themselves, governments today are in no position to fund this entire project.
What To Do?
In order to adopt solar power on a large scale today we must confront four problems associated with the technology.
1. The sun is a relatively low density energy source. Even in a sunny place like Arizona, it delivers only about 200 W/sq m over an average day[ee].
2. Today’s PV panels are inefficient at converting this energy to electricity. A typical low-cost PV panel will convert only 15-20% of the sun’s energy to electricity.
3. Intermittency. The sun shines for only about half of the 24 hour day, and is often obscured by clouds.
4. Cost. The construction cost of a solar PV facility is about $3.50/W vs about $1.00/W for a gas-fired power plant[ff]. Furthermore, whereas a gas-fired plant produces electricity 24/7 rain or shine, a solar plant produces electricity only during the daylight hours.
The efficiency of PV panels continues to improve, and panels with 20% efficiency are coming onto the market[gg], but the theoretical limit of the PV technology in use today is 31%[hh], and getting there has been agonizingly slow. More research is required to improve the efficiency of PV panels and any other technology that converts the sun’s energy to electricity.
The sun’s intermittency issue requires development of grid scale electricity storage systems that are sufficient (in this example) to power the entire economy during the night. Many new technologies are currently under development. As with PV panel efficiency, more research is required to develop these new technologies for electricity storage.
The capital cost of PV power plants is falling as the cost of PV panels drops. Today, PV panels cost about $.74/W, one one-hundredth of the cost in 1977[ii]! But the PV panel is only one component of the total cost of a complete solar power plant. The so-called “non-module” costs, e.g. inverters, mounting hardware, labor, permitting and fees, overhead, taxes, installer profit, etc, now make up at least two thirds of the total installed cost[jj]. Further reductions in total cost will require significant reductions in non-module costs. The total cost of a PV power plant today is still about four times the cost of a gas-fired equivalent, and it generates electricity for only half the day.
Finally, as with any energy plan, we must continue to work on energy efficiency. The chart above shows that of the 70 quads of energy supplied to the economy, about 47%[kk] of them are “rejected”, i.e. lost. Improving energy efficiency (BTU/$ GDP) is a must, regardless of the way forward.
A Final Comment
The intent of this exercise is to arrive at a ballpark estimate of what it would take to stop burning carbon and “Capture the Sun”. There is obviously a large margin of error, plus or minus, in all of it. One thing is certain. Eventually we homo sapiens will consume all of the planet’s supply of carbon. Long before that time we must develop an alternative to burning that carbon.
It’s a good bet that solar will eventually be a major part of our energy equation. The good news about the sun is that it is:
1. For all practical purposes an inexhaustible source of energy.
2. Free.
3. Available to everyone. No country can seize control of the sun and deny it to others.
But, it is also true that solar power today supplies only about two tenths of one percent of the energy to run the U.S. economyb. It is easy to see why when we compare the economics of solar with other options. In the exercise above I estimate the cost of building a system to power today’s economy with energy from the sun at about $65 trillion. Doing the same thing with gas-fired technology would cost about $4 trillion[ll], about 6% of the cost of solar.
Remember that this whole exercise has used today’s technology and today’s costs. Both of these should improve over time, but until they do the business case for a major push into solar does not look good.
REFERENCES:
[a] ”Solar Energy, A New Day Dawning?”, Nature 443, 19-22 (7 September 2006) doi:10.1038/443019a; Published online 6 September 2006
[b] Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – https://missions.llnl.gov/energy/analysis/energy-informatics
[c] 70 x 1015 BTU/yr = 1.9 x 1014 BTU/day = 56 x 1012 Wh/day = 56 TWh/day
[d] http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-state-sunshine.php
[e] PV Panel Capacity
Desired output = 56 TWh/day
50% safety factor raises this to 83 TWh/day
[f] Power Plant Footprint
Nellis Powerplant (Nevada) = 30 GWh/yr on 140 acres = 150 Wh/day per sq meter, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellis_Solar_Power_Plant
Beneixama (Spain) = 30 GWh/yr on 500,000 sq m = 160 Wh/day per sq meter, http://www.solarserver.com/solarmagazin/solar-report_0109_e.html
Serpa (Portugal) = 20 GWh/yr on 600,000 sq m = 90 Wh/day per sq meter, http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_48.shtml p48
Solarpark Mühlhausen (Bavaria) = 17,000 kWh/day on 25 hectacre = 68 Wh/day per sq meter, http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_48.shtml p41
Kagoshima Nanatsujima (Japan) = 22,000 households @ 3,600 kWh/household on 1.3 million sq m = 170 Wh/day-sq m http://global.kyocera.com/news/2013/1101_nnms.html
[g] Required output = 83 TWh/day so this divided by 150 Wh/day-sq m = 210,000 sq mi
[h] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroelectric_power_stations
[j] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectric_power_in_the_United_States#Pumped_storage
[k] http://www.consumersenergy.com/content.aspx?id=6985
Ludington Pumped Storage Plant, Ludington, MI
[l] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station
[m] Some examples of pumped storage facilities. All can be found in Wikipedia:
[n] The equation here is Capital Cost at time of construction x adjustment for inflation ÷ Capacity
For Bath = $1,600 mil x 2.6 ÷ 3,000 MW = $1.38 /W (inflation adjustment is for the period 1981 – 2014)
For Ludington = $315 mil x 5.8 ÷ 1,872 MW = $0.98 /W (inflation adjustment is for the period 1971 – 2014)
For inflation adjustment use this site: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
[o] The equation here is Capacity x Time to Empty Upper Reservoir
For Bath = 3,000 MW x 14.3 hours = 43.0 GWh
For Ludington = 1,872 MW x 13.6 hours = 25.5 GWh
[p] The equation here is Demand ÷ Stored Energy
For Bath = 41 TWh ÷ 43.0 GWh = 953 or about 1,000 “Bath-like” facilities
[q] 1,640 x 1,000 acres x 0.0016 sq mi/acre = 2,600 sq mi
[r] 1,000 x 820 acres x 0.0016 sq mi/acre = 1,300 sq mi
[s] http://www.hydro.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/NHA_PumpedStorage_071212b1.pdf
[t] http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/11/27/the-installed-price-of-solar-photovoltaic-systems-in-the-u-s-continues-to-decline-at-a-rapid-pace/
Original Source is: Tracking the Sun, an annual PV cost-tracking report produced by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
[u] http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech_cap_factor.html
According to this chart, the capacity factor for solar power plants installed so far in the U.S. is about 20%. Therefore, the Capacity of a solar plant to power America would be = electricity demand/day ÷ 24 hrs/day ÷ 20% capacity factor
= 83 TWh/day ÷ 24 h/day ÷ 0.2 = 17 TW
[v] Capacity of pumped storage = night time demand ÷ 12 hrs = 41 TWh ÷ 12 h = 3.4 TW
Capital cost for Bath = $1.40/W, so Bath option CapEx = 3.4 TW x $1.40 ≈ $4.8 trillion
Capital cost for Ludington = $0.98/W, so Ludington option CapEx = 3.4 TW x $0.98 ≈ $3.3 trillion
[w] An estimate from Google Maps
[x] NV+AZ+NM+TX+OK+LA+MS+AL+GA+SC+FL ≈ 1 million sq mi according to Wikipedia
[y] US Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr11-20.pdf
[z] http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm
[aa] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project
[bb] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Apollo#Program_cost
[cc] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
[dd] Analysis in this section is based on this article by Deborah D. Stine, PhD, now at Carnegie Mellon University: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34645.pdf
[ee] MacKay, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, p46
[ff] U.S. Energy Information Administration, Updated Capital Cost Estimates for Utility Scale Electricity Generating Plants”, April 12, 2013, http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/capitalcost/, Table 1
[gg] http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/20/idUS110444863620110620
[hh] Shockley-Queisser limit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley%E2%80%93Queisser_limit
[ii] http://www.economist.com/news/21566414-alternative-energy-will-no-longer-be-alternative-sunny-uplands
[jj] http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/LBNL-5919e.pdf, graph on p14
[kk] From the chart on page 1:
Total energy to drive the U.S. economy (in the box) = 69.5 quads
Total energy input = total energy output
Total energy output = rejected energy + energy services = 32.5 quads + 37.0 quads
Therefore rejected energy = 32.5 / 69.5 = 46.8%
[ll] 83 TWh/day required to run the economy
Assume the capacity factor for these gas-fired plants = 90%
Then capacity = 83 ÷ 24 ÷ 0.9 = 3.8 TW
Cost to build = 3.8 TW x $1/W ≈ $ 4 trillion
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Why hasn’t that no-pain cutback happened in the pioneering countries like Germany or Spain or the UK?
Was that actually produced, or only theoretically? I.e., I suspect that’s based on “nameplate” capacity figures, which are about 25% of actual production.
Apologies if I have missed an earlier comment, but a sample scan of responses didn’t bring it up.
1) The concept makes the assumption that (once built) there is no “consumption” of resources to obtain the power. This overlooks the construction costs and resources required. But, even with that overlooked, the concept makes the assumption that solar cells have an eternal life at their rated efficiency. This is untrue. It is closer to say that a solar cell has a maximum number of joules/area it can generate before replacement. (Long term heat will cause molecular migration of the dopants used in the silicon to establish the photo-electric layers.) Not to mention the costs in time, labor, and other resources to keep the PV panels in repair and cleaned of dirt. According to this “once-we-build-it” argument, we should expect hydroelectric dams to have no annual costs once constructed, but indeed they do.
2) From a military standpoint, this creates the greatest single vulnerability a nation could have: a fragile, exposed, concentrated system that is absolutely vital to the entire national economy. Nuclear weapons would impose electromagnetic pulse and air blast, to take out huge chunks and probably render the rest of it crippled. Complete destruction would not be necessary. A crippled economy cannot prosecute a war.
3) Beware hailstorms! Snowstorms! Rain! Dust! Earthquakes! Bird droppings! Sharknadoes!
4) And who knows what trivial and heretofore neglected animal or plant life will find the wiring insulation or support structure delectible to its taste or procreation?
This is a solution to a non-problem, which may really have been the point of its presentation.
Allow my to add one more issue with solar energy to all the well-documented ones presented here so far: sandstorms in the desert southwest.
Sandstorm barrels down on Phoenix:
If I had a vested interest in a solar farm in the desert southwest, I doubt if I would even want to know what would happen to it if and when a sandstorm goes barreling through. And this isn’t even considering how sand and dirt can probably be kicked up and blown onto the panels on a daily basis just from everyday winds. Nightmarish to think about.
Sun Song
Is this a misprint? Carbon is an element. Burning fossil fuels does not consume any carbon. I seriously doubt we will ever consume all the planet’s supply of fossil fuels, either.
“I seriously doubt we will ever consume all the planet’s supply of fossil fuels, either.””
But we will consume easily accessible fossil fuel.
simple-touriste:
No, we will not “consume easily accessible fossil fuel”. That is not an economic possibility.
But I suppose it was inevitable that a ‘peak oiler’ would use this thread as an excuse to promote their error.
Richard
Two items not in the paper. First, what will the cost of the energy be with repair and depreciation expenses compared fossil fuels? 60 T seems like something only a few times the world’s economic product and of course that cannot be dealt with by inflation so it truly has to have that much capital. Also, what is the maintenance and repair and replacement costs for the stuff? Finally, on a different note, how much albedo reduction and added heat not related to the use of the generated power will be present and what will that do to the general region in and surrounding our gargantuan solar farm?
solar NEVER should have been thought of as large scale item, it should have been researched as small scale consumer sized to augment and lower the homeowners usage/bill while not affecting their quality of living.
here in Maine (I thank the many for mentioning the issues we have up here) I could benefit for a few months of the year but once snow starts in Oct/Nov time frame until last storms in April/May they are a loss. And I also would have to deal with the 2-3 ft of snow on top of them throughout Jan-March.
If I had a module I could snap into a bracket in the roof in June and safely remove and store in Oct I could benefit.
If I had a small vertical wind generator I could mount on roof I could use it all year.
I got a [275] gallon oil tank (house heat) full of #2 and 2 100 gallon LPG pigs here for heat in outbuildings and hotwater here in house.
oil works. its simple, easy to transport and store, and can also run the diesel tractors nearby if needed to plow road.
I prefer this analysis:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
Of the battery requirements.
He also did an article on pumped storage.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/?s=pumped+storage&submit=Search
Well worth a look and far less optimistic than what is presented here — imo.
Good post and comments – Thanks all!
————————————————–
John Slayton says:
July 31, 2014 at 7:08 am
“ … from Celilo, Washington . . .”
Hi John,
Not quite:
From north to south …
Celilo vineyard (on the Columbia River bluff, in Wash.)
Celilo Falls (in the River, or was)
Celilo Converter Station (1.84 miles from being in the Great State of WA)
Google Earth 45.595841, -121.110594
***
Hi to you and Nancy – I’ve been doing some trail work in the Cascades. My Nancy is still fiddling at rehab & senior homes.
There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that, may-be already in a few years from now, a new generation solar panels will be on the market, that will produce twice as much, or even more, energy than the present solar panels. For that reason people who really believe in the future of solar panels advice other people NOT to buy the solar panels that are now in the market.
That would be stupid, so they say, because long before the investment in solar panels of the present generation is paid back, new and more energy-efficient solar panels will already be in the market.
But now for the bad news: As we all know, except for the gullible who still believe in man(n) made global warming, we are entering a new little ice age. One of the problems that this little ice age creates is that giant hail will be falling from the skies than in the past.
http://novayagazeta-ug.ru/sites/default/files/styles/body_main_img_720/public/news/07-2014/grad_1.jpg?itok=de-W1xcY
http://novayagazeta-ug.ru/news/u4979/2014/07/31/69704
This is a huge problem for the future of solar panels. Solar panels are expensive and fragile.
Hail as big as tennis balls coming down at more than a hundred kilometers an hour destructs not only greenhouses, crops in the fields, cars, windows and roofs of buildings, but it certainly destructs solar panels. Now one might say: we can pay assure our solar panels for the risk of hail damage. That will not be cheap, but it is possible in the present. But when it becomes clear that hail risk is becoming greater and greater in the little ice age that just has started, the insurance companies will refuse to insure that risk, or they will ask premiums that are so high that it will not
be profitable any more to insure your solar panels. You might consider to take the risk yourself.
If you are lucky and no hail damages your solar panels, you might have a profit. If you would pay very high insurance premiums, you will never make a profit. And when the hail strikes there is the chance the insurance company will not be able to pay your damage because it has gone broke. In this worst case scenario you pay so much premiums that you never get a profit out of your solar panels and when you get a lot of damage, you won’t receive a nickle because they can’t or won’t pay your damage claim.
Cost is not the problem; that can be cured with the stroke of the pen.
Simply put a BIG tax on oil and gas (and coal); I suggest starting at $1M per barrel equivalent. Then use that money to buy solar panels, and other hardware.
There; cost problem completely solved.
Only part I can’t seem to get around, is that solar panels run/ran around $4 per peak electrical Watt.
With oil around $100 per barrel, it seems you can make about 25 Watt of solar panels, with the energy in a barrel of oil, or equivalent.
With oil at $1,000,100 per barrel, your solar panels will run you about $40,000 per Watt.
Every time I do this calculation, I get to the same conclusion. It takes too much damn energy to make solar panels; doesn’t have anything to do with cost.
The sun is the problem; far to weak (power density) to rely on for energy.
By the way.
Nice effort there Phillip ; shows the scale of the lunacy.
I wouldn’t be surprised, if human laborers (at minimum wage) couldn’t generate more electricity in a given space (30,000 sq. miles or whatever, riding stationary bicycles driving alternators.
30,000 sq. miles is 19.2 million acres, which just happens to be the exact size of the entire Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, in Alaska (ANWR).
Very good article and research. One problem with trying to implement the battery solution is that the area best for this type of pump storage would be in mountain valleys. The area that I live in has a great number of unpopulated valleys and river courses but the greens have been fighting any development in this area. There have been a number of proposals for smaller hydro projects but the red tape and legal challenges from the greens have just about shutdown any new power projects. The scale of the proposed pump up batteries would have to encompass some area’s that the greens would be willing to fight over, there by driving up the costs. The last hydro project to be proposed in our area has reached close to 150 million dollars in engineering and studies to satisfy those opposed to the installation. You should maybe add a number to your estimate for the legal wrangling that would come from the project to satisfy the greens if that is even possible.
correction, I have 275 tank not 500.
sorry could not edit. if a mod sees this would appreciate it if they would edit my last post.
From above:
.
And, a bit further down …
But, sunshine literally, only can be collected 6 hours per day. That is, the sun is only high enough above the horizon (on an average day) between 9:00 AM and 15:00 PM (local solar time.) Before 9:00 AM, it is too low to generate heat, power, or useable energy. After 3:00 (15:00 hours) it is too low to generate power.
Thus, you MUST generate all 24 hours of the needed power in only 6 hours.
Worse, You must CONVERT and then STORE 18 hours of power (NOT 12!) of your average day’s worth of power in only 6 hours while you generate energy for the daily maximum use of power that day.
Thus, at the same time as you are generating 24 hours of power in only 6 hours, you must GENERATE, STORE, and PROVIDE continuous power to the east coast (+2 hours solar time), central (+1 hours solar time), and Pacific coasts (-1 hours solar time) during the same time that you are GENERATING, CONVERTING, and STORING the 18 hours of power you will need the next afternoon, evening, and night!
You MUST use the energy needed each hour of the day for
(1) the worst day of the year for generating solar energy (probably Dec 22, the day of the lowest hourly solar elevation angle)
(2) the worst total heat energy need per day of the year (This time, probably the coldest day of the year (mid-February maybe ??)
(3) and the worst electric power need of the year (with air conditioning, that day might be late July or early August each year)
(4) then compare those with the worst weather of the year in your solar collection area
to get the worst requirement to determine that total solar acreage for a single day’s required collection area. It might be substantially more than a simple average year energy need divided by an average solar collection yearly generator efficiency!
Then …
Figure out the energy needed each hour of the worst day of the year.
Generate enough power for the 6 hours of solar collection time. (You have an advantage here: In mid-summer in the real-world US, AC needs are high in summer but solar collections are MORE than just 6 hours per day, and each hour’s collection angles are higher in the sky, so the solar collection efficiencies are higher than in mid-winter. BUT (there had to be a “but” didn’t there?) the highest energy demand is NOT at noon, but later in the day between 3 and 7 PM each afternoon.
Then you need to figure out the afternoon, evening, nighttime, and morning energy demands.
Assume a collection efficiency from solar energy to electricity, a conversion efficiency from electricity to storage, and conversion from storage back to electricity. THEN, you can figure out the area required for storage, the total power needed to be stored, and the solar collector area required for generating that stored energy.
You must build (design) a solar plant big enough to power the nation’s entire immediate power needs (plus a margin for repairs and shutdowns), storms, sand and dust erosion, replacement parts, and emergencies …. PLUS the area needed to power the “storage battery” you just calculated.
And find a way to pump Lake Michigan up 200 feet into in the middle of New Mexico each afternoon from a second Lake Michigan in Arizona.
Ground Area of the solar panels.
The US is in the northern hemisphere – fairly far north in the northern hemisphere. The effect gets WORSE as you go further north, thus, again, the need to put all of the solar panels in the clearer skies of the desert (low humidity, lower cloud cover of the CA-AZ-NM deserts. Texas? Not so good because clouds increase rapidly.
A little bit of this is covered in the article by multiplying the the “existing total acreage” for the solar projects being used as a baseline. This is good – rarely done, in fact.
See, a “real solar facility” either with aimed panel (VERY EXPENSIVE controls and hydraulics and sensors and motors and tracking devices and arms and actuators) or a flat panel (cheapest) or a angled panel facing south, you need access between the rows of panels for a truck/washer system to keep them clean. (Plus a permanent supply of pure water to wash the panels off with!), plus a crew and supplies, etc.)
Each panel “row” is built on the ground, which is rarely ever “flat” – and, if it is flat, it is either already a farm or ranch, or is a enviro-restricted area! If “flat” then the ground area actually needed is proportional to the solar receiver area divided by the cosine of the solar elevation angle (or latitude, for estimating purposes) at the lowest elevation angle of the year: December 22. A HIGH electric heating period!
The further from the southern border each solar array is, the greater the area you need buy to avoid shading each array by the shadow of its next neighbor to the south. If your chosen area is not perfectly “flat” then you must ADD additional area – and each additional area requires its own Cosine (latitude) factor to avoid sloped hillside and mountain and valley shadow zones.
Sure, a few of the potential areas are on a south-facing slope. And for every square meter of south facing slope, you get 1 acre of west-facing slope, 1 acre of north-facing slope, and 1 acre of east-facing slope. For each array you put on a favorable east-facing slope or mountainside, you LOSE that acre as soon as the sun crosses noon!
Bloke down the pub says:
July 31, 2014 at 4:16 am
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Been there done that, but at 40 below C, nothing is “neutral”.
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Danny V. says:
July 31, 2014 at 4:55 am
@ur momisugly bloke – And it would take 200+, if ever, years to convert the existing house inventory to passive house design. Good thought, but will never be a player for a long time.
I am planning a rural home and have looked at the heating options in depth. With reliability and cost in mind, I keep coming back to propane and wood for heat,
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Went through this in 2002 building a new farm house. Ended up with high density high efficiency concrete wood burning fireplace as the primary source of heat, water to water heat pump that can use ground source, well water circulated to another well or to fish pond, secondary Franklin Fireplace in the basement, and propane water heat for summer and in floor heating back up, super insulated, including basement floor, inside walls etc. , insulated curtains, gravity air circulation and so on. Most of my heat is from wood off my land, the heat pump provides hot water and in floor back up heat in the winter. I looked at both solar and wind, and there was no way that either can heat a house as economically as wood, propane or electricity. (I have a relative in the solar business.) I use solar around the farm for various things but it was/is not economic large scale at my latitude (53 40 N, 114 48 W) and weather conditions. There isn’t even enough wind to aerate my fish pond. Solar works for aeration only on sunny days and you have to keep the panels clean or the pump slows to a crawl. Solar fencers work well in the summer, but same thing, clean off the dust and snow or they quit … and the batteries don’t do well at 40 below.
Looks to me like solar only works in southern latitudes and in states with a large subsidy. I carry a couple of solar panels when I travel down south with my horses, so they have their place, but I think it will be some time before they work well on a house in my climate.
I keep looking at solar as my power bills have more than doubled since I built, but it still isn’t economic; in fact my propane back up generator is more economic than solar but still not as cheap as the grid especially when propane doubled in cost last winter. (A back up generator is a necessity where I live as winter and storm power outages are common – a few hours usually but sometimes 2 or 3 days.)
Philip Dowd – Thanks for spelling out so well and so thoroughly the scale of the problem. A couple of thoughts (I haven’t tried to work out how significant they are in the overall picture):
A solar panel that allowed some sun through (like a shadecloth) might in desert areas increase the productivity of the land below.
Another suitable place for solar panels is rooftops.
rogerknights says:
July 31, 2014 at 12:42 pm
“Why hasn’t that no-pain cutback happened in the pioneering countries like Germany or Spain or the UK?”
Actually, electricity consumption per capita in Germany IS declining slightly – due to the high tariffs; which are on par with other global centres of lunacy – California, and Melbourne.
Col Mosby ,ggm, Bruce Cobb, Robert of Ottawa, brockway32, Murray Duffin, L.E. Joiner, Leonard Weinstein, Canman, Greg, Jimbo, Gary Pearse — all lauded nuclear power in their comments above.
Nuclear power is not a viable source of electric power due to very high costs to construct, it is unsafe as clearly demonstrated, and leaves extremely toxic byproducts (plutonium) behind for future generations to deal with.
All these points, and many more, are clearly shown in the 28 articles published to day on Truth About Nuclear Power. The TANP series shows that no matter how the plants are designed, even fusion, small modular reactors, and thorium are not economic nor safe. One can start with the post on Thorium nuclear power, and work backwards:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part-28.html
Also for Robert of Ottawa, who stated coal is inexhaustible, it might be interesting to note that coal is depleted by 2070, at which time the world must find an alternative for the power it presently provides.
rgbatduke @5:46 a.m.
Well thought out and useful analysis of the practicalities of the situation.
I think a more practical solution would be to invade Central America and the northern parts of South America and put the PV cells there. All the people want to relocate here anyway. Just replace their homes and farms with PV and let them all come to live in the US and Canada. (Sarc?)
Time for a Andrea Rossi E-Cat update, call it another speculative energy project.
The focus remains semi-patiently waiting for the report on the multi-month third-party experiment with the “Hot-Cat.” That may be out in the September timeframe and apparently will be peer reviewed. “Progress” is being tracked at http://www.e-catworld.com/2014/07/19/e-cat-report-watch-thread/
Also, Industrial Heat, the North Carolina company that bought development rights, is working on a 1 MW system for a US company. It’s believed to be a lot like the one Rossi built in Italy, but people will not have much to say about it until after the third party report is out.
Here’s what I’ve added to my house in Seattle that’s enabled me to avoid energy-intensive air conditioning:
1. An exhaust fan at one end of the attic. It draws air in the other end of the attic and down from rooftop vents. It’s controlled by an in-line thermostat. Weighted louvers on the outside automatically cover the fan when not in operation. All three items are sold inexpensively (about $160 total) at Amazon and big box hardware stores.
2. Fiberglass insulation in the rafters.
3. Blown-in wall insulation.
4. Huge awnings high on the sunny sides of the house that keep the sun off the windows and walls. I retract them in the cooler & stormy months. (The ones I bought from Sunsetter are relatively cheap ($1600 for both) and can be installed by oneself and a helper.)
5. Lexan (or Plexiglas) outer-window-covering. I had these and their mounting channels cut to size by a supplier, but I did the installation. (They also protect against burglary & vandalism.)
6. An in-wall exhaust fan in the dormer.
7. A rooftop deck over my shed-type dormer roof, which had the unintended side-effect of shading the dormer from the sun, considerably reducing its temperature in the summer.
Some preliminary comments pending much more study of the posting and other comments.
1. There’s no magic bullet. As of 2013, we have three major electric generation sources (coal, methane, uranium — 86%), two minor sources (hydro, wind — 11%), and four trivial sources (geothermal, “biomass,” petroleum, solar). The mix will change a bit over the next 20 years (less coal, more methane, more wind, more solar) but not in a big way other than coal-to-methane.)
2. “Alternative energy” (wind, solar) depend critically on cost-effective storage. Pumped storage is not cost effective. Unless cheap, grid-scale batteries and invented and commercialized, the “alternatives” will remain sideshows.
3. For any kind of scale, at least in the U.S., wind is far more economical than solar, but only if cost-effective storage comes online. That’s a very big “if” at the moment.