Six Reasons for Cloudy Skies on the Solar Energy Industry
While solar energy panel wattage has and will continue to grow at a rate of about 40% per year, I don't see a beautiful sunrise on the eastern horizon. There are 6 issues that I've outlined below:
- With oil at $60 a barrel, who cares about alternative energy? It's a short sighted view, but with the credit market crunch, who can get a loan to build solar plants anyway?
- The high price of oil in the past year was a catalyst for development in other alternative energy sources, not just solar. Advances in wind, geothermal, and hydropower energy are reducing the cost of wind power to a point at which it is becoming competitive with traditional energy sources. Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb. Among these alternative energy sources, hydropower and nuclear have the lowest carbon footprints (carbon dioxide produced during operation).
- Spain, a huge buyer of solar, reduced its incentive program to aid buyers in 2009. In California, a seemingly green state, Prop. 7 was defeated in the November election with a whopping 65% of the voters saying NO. One reason: electricity consumers would pay 10% above market rates for renewable power forever.
- The spot market price of 6-inch solar-grade wafers have fallen to $9 from a high of $12.50 in September. This bodes poorly for thin film makers and equipment suppliers. The thin film solar panel market and hence the equipment market grew strongly because of the shortage of polysilicon. Now that polysilicon is abundant and lower priced, why make thin film panels with 8% efficiency when you get 16+% efficiency with silicon wafers?
- Utilization is at only 56%. Our analysis of 103 solar manufacturers shows that panel production capacity in 2009 will be 15 GW whereas only 8.3 GW will be sold.
- The dollar has appreciated strongly against the euro by nearly 25%. Germany is the world's largest PV market. US solar companies have had to adjust selling prices to generate sales, reducing profit margins.
The increased production capacity of polysilicon will reduce demand for amorphous silicon thin films with efficiencies of less than 8%. This will impact equipment companies such as Applied Materials (AMAT) in the US and Oerlikon (OERLF.PK) in Europe. It will also affect the gas companies that sell chemicals for deposition of thin film silicon, such as Air Products (APD) and Air Liquide (AIQUY.PK). Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) is entering the market at too late a date to compete. These equipment vendors have been working on developing micromorph structures to get higher efficiencies, but that is a few years away. They could focus on CdTe like First Solar (FSLR), but there is limited supplies of the raw materials. They could work on CIGS, but vacuum techniques are much more expensive than ink-jet printing.
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This article has 13 comments:
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User 290556
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3 Comments
Nov 18 10:46 AMand yet "While solar energy panel wattage has and will continue to grow at a rate of about 40% per year"
Show me any other sectors that continue to grow 40% per year that are not seeing BEAUTIFUL SUNSHIRE??
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Peter Bermel
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1 Comment
My Website
Nov 18 12:10 PMFirst of all, oil is still at fairly high levels by historical standards (compare prices hovering around $20 / bbl for most of the '90s).
Second, random statements by scientists about nuclear sheds by themselves don't represent a comprehensive energy solution that excludes solar. There is no product available for sale, and there are no statements about costs, feedstocks, operational safety, or waste disposal.
Third, while Spain has capped it's subsidy program, it may be extended later, and many other countries, including Italy and the US, are considering more subsidies.
Fourth, a slight drop in 6" wafer costs hardly means that thin films are uneconomical. Note that at $9 per 6" wafer, the wafer costs ALONE would be $3.29 per watt at 15% efficiency. That's much more expensive than First Solar's total cost of sales -- around $1.25 per watt.
Fifth, the utilization numbers are extremely speculative and don't reflect the current state of the market, which corresponds to strong utilization and pricing reflective of a seller's market (see, e.g., solarbuzz.com 's solar PV module retail price survey).
Sixth, the argument can be turned the other way to argue that US and Japanese consumers can buy solar more cheaply than before -- is there a reason why only Europeans would buy such cells? The current sales data doesn't support such a hypothesis.
In conclusion, I would encourage everyone to look at this industry carefully and avoid knee-jerk reactions to isolated headlines.
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frflyer
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134 Comments
My Website
Nov 18 02:05 PMYeah, I want a few of those in my back yard. Let's spread the availability of fissionable materials and nuclear waste around the world where everyone who wants some can get their hands on it.
Will we have curbside pick up of the radioactive waste too?
Are you nuts?
Nuclear power does NOT have a small carbon footprint. The only time that is true is after the fuel rods are in place and producing power. Every single step in the process is carbon intensive.
Read the Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy.
www.theleaneconomyconn...
and this:
www.cleanwisconsin.org...
It isn't sustainable in any way. How about peak uranium in ten years or so.
Nuclear power requires enormous amounts of water for cooling. In a world facing water problems in the future, we don't need that.
Nuclear power doesn't give us energy independence. We import 65% of our oil and 90% of our uranium. And now Russia is being lined up as a future source of 20% of our uranium.
Nuclear power is not safe. According to Argonne National Laboratory, an airliner crashing into a nuclear power plant could cause a complete meltdown, even if the containment building isn't compromised. Think the twin towers disaster was bad?
The transportation of radioactive waste from all over the country to Yucca Mt. is potentially dangerous, as well as expensive
There is no accountability with nuclear power. The Price-Anderson Act places most of the liability for nuclear accidents on the backs of taxpayers, not the nuclear power industry.
A nuclear power plant costs about $4,000 per kilowatt hour to build, compared with $1,400 per KWH for wind energy.
Wind and solar are much quicker to get up and running than nuclear or coal. And both can start generating power before large wind or solar farms are completed, because they are modular in design
Nuclear power is heavily subsidized. According to Earthtrack, Federal subsidies to new nuclear power plants are likely between 4 and 8 cents per kWh (levelized).
Every nuclear power plant will require at least $500 million to dismantlet, when it has outlived it's useful life. This adds to the nuclear waste disposal problem.
from the Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy
""The world’s endowment of uranium ore is now so depleted that the nuclear industry will never, from its own resources, be able to generate the energy it needs to clear up its own backlog of waste."
"Shortages of uranium – and the lack of realistic alternatives –leading to interruptions in supply, can be expected to start in the middle years of the decade 2010-2019, and to deepen thereafter."
"Every stage in the nuclear process, except fission, produces carbon dioxide. As the richest ores are used up, emissions will rise."
"Nuclear energy certainly has disadvantages, quite apart from the clincher problem of the depletion of its fuel. It is a source of low-level radiation which may be more dangerous than was previously thought. It is a source of high-level waste which has to be sequestered. Every stage in the process produces lethal waste, including the mining and leaching processes, the milling, the enrichment and the decommissioning. It is very expensive. It is a terrorist target and its enrichment processes are stepping stones to the production of nuclear weapons."
And the more we use up the low hanging fruit, the more radioactive tailings there will be as we try to squeeze a few ounces out of more and more tons of earth.
Now they tell us we can get uranium from sea water. sounds good until you find out we would have to filter 40,000 cubic miles of sea water every year to supply 200 reactors. How much energy would that take, if it were possible?
And nowhere do you mention solar thermal power plants which should be the kingpin of a clean energy grid. They can operate day and night and be used as base load, follow on, or peaker plants, exactly fitting their output to the daily energy demand cycle.
We could power the whole country with these, using less land than we now use for coal plants and coal mines. And they will compete head on with fossil fuel plants cost wise.
www.salon.com/news/fea...
Excellent article on solar thermal.
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Christojones
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1 Comment
Nov 18 02:50 PMDumb.
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smurphny
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31 Comments
Nov 18 04:24 PM-
widicusf
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43 Comments
Nov 18 05:29 PM-
mdmrjsds
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94 Comments
Nov 18 08:19 PMOn Nov 18 02:05 PM frflyer wrote:
[snip]
>
>
> It isn't sustainable in any way. How about peak uranium in ten years
> or so.
> Nuclear power requires enormous amounts of water for cooling. In
> a world facing water problems in the future, we don't need that.
>
> Nuclear power doesn't give us energy independence. We import 65%
> of our oil and 90% of our uranium. And now Russia is being lined
> up as a future source of 20% of our uranium.
>
[snip]
>
> from the Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy
> ""The world’s endowment of uranium ore is now so depleted that the
> nuclear industry will never, from its own resources, be able to generate
> the energy it needs to clear up its own backlog of waste."
> "Shortages of uranium – and the lack of realistic alternatives –leading
> to interruptions in supply, can be expected to start in the middle
> years of the decade 2010-2019, and to deepen thereafter."
> "Every stage in the nuclear process, except fission, produces carbon
> dioxide. As the richest ores are used up, emissions will rise."
I went to the first link I found www.world-nuclear.org/...
on world uranium supply and found this.
* The world's known uranium resources increased 15% in two years to 2007 due to increased mineral exploration.
...Current usage is about 65,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium (5.5 Mt) in the cost category somewhat below present spot prices and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for over 80 years. This represents a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. ...
You do your argument a disservice by using exageration. If you are so far off in this, what about any of your arguments?
I have nothing against solar. I only want my lights to come on when I turn on the switch, and my AC to run when it's hot. And I want to pay a reasonable price to have that happen. As soon as solar has a payback period less than 20 years I will probably install it (nanosolar is talking $1/watt, but that is probably vaporware).
It sounds like for you it is a religion or a crusade.
>
>We could power the whole country with these, using less land than we >now use for coal plants and coal mines. And they will compete head on >with fossil fuel plants cost wise.
>salon.com/news/fea...
>Excellent article on solar thermal.
Here is a response to the article at the link you give above that gives a saner viewpoint.
... More Engineers please...
Can we get an Engineer to write one of these articles sometimes instead of someone who has seen many presentations?
"must provide thousands of gigawatts of power..."
Yes, we have a word for this - terawatts. Reminds me of Once Upon a Time in the West - "thousands of thousands!" "They've got a word for that - million".
A 92milex92mile CSP array will also be unfeasibly vast (around 8,400 square miles).
There is no "silver bullet". There is no magical technology, like a plug-in hybrid, that will solve everything (as an engineer working on hybrid vehicles, I have quite a good insight into the difficulties getting them mass produced and into public hands). What we need is a good, diverse mix of technologies - yes, there are large CSP arrays in Spain and other areas of Europe, for instance, but this is diversified with other technologies including nuclear (fast-breeder reactors, very safe and very efficient), photovoltaic, hydroelectric (using various types of generator, not encased solely in huge dams). Likewise, for vehicles, hybrid vehicles operating on a mix of fossil/bio-fuel generators with supplemental "green" mains supply (plug-in, to use the popular phrase) are the most pressing solution at the present, along with a transition to fewer vehicles and more comprehensive public transport network (difficult for some in the US to comprehend). Hydrogen vehicle technology presents an important development, but Honda's FCX-demonstrators aside, this will not be practicable or cheap for the intermediate future.
Fewer random people who read stuff and view presentations writing articles like this please, and more from engineers and scientists working in the field. ...
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Kiisu
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15 Comments
Nov 19 03:28 AMHowever, if I recall correctly, there are alternative engineering solutions to current commercial reactor technology... breeder reactors being one that comes immediately to mind (a properly designed breeder can produce more "fuel" than it "burns"; it is "old" technology; and breeders can be designed to use the more plentiful Thorium instead of Uranium).
And as I recall, some radioactive waste is "waste" for political, not-technical, reasons. With proper reprocessing, that waste can be reused in properly designed plants.
And to throw a bit more gasoline on the fire, I've thought US commercial reactor design to be a bit backward in an engineering-economic sense... instead of building and debugging a series of one-off designs, I've thought the better approach would be to create a small set of standardized power plant designs. As lessons are learned, the standardized design set would be updated. Once debugged, major system components could be mass-produced... thereby reducing the plant unit-cost.
Just a few bits of trivia to sidetrack an interesting discussion.
--Kiisu
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john s. gordon
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695 Comments
Nov 19 09:01 AMreprocessing of high-level spent fuel in the u.s died in the 1970's with the missing material @ the kerr-mcgee plant. why was karen silkwood murdered? she knew too much? have there been accidents @ the U.K. and japanese reprocessing facilities?
D2O moderated reactors burning thorium (or unenriched U) can be purchased from AECL.
> jack
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Robert Castellano
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6 Comments
My Website
Nov 19 10:59 AMSecondly, you will see less subsidies for alternative energy in the near future, not more, as many states have budget problems and the euro region is only now getting into a recession. Who has $25K to put solar on their roofs these days. I mention Germany, but it is the entire euro region (and UK) that is affected by the strong dollar.
Third, the run-up in oil was a catalyst for other alternative energy technologies. They did not sit still in technology, marketing, and expansion during these times. Now, solar has to compete with a number of other technologies such as wind and Pickens. And go to Wikipedia and look up carbon footprint and compare different technologies.
Fourth, I mentioned capacity. There is indeed a 55% utilization rate out there. Go to each of the 103 solar companies I compiled and see what their capacity is. Total it, and then see how much solar panels will be purchased in 2008 and 2009. The numbers speak for themselves.
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Carlibra
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10 Comments
Nov 19 12:01 PMI support the alternatives because it's "clean" and that's the direction we must be headed to save this planet from the devastating affects of global warming.
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Road Runner
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129 Comments
Nov 19 12:05 PMFirst, There is a real oil crisis now and not an artificial one created by the Arab oil cartel. In the 1970s there were no emerging markets with billions of people expanding at 10%/year. Also, we have burned 30 years worth of oil since then and exhausted almost all of the "cheap" oil in the world. Oil prices will not drop back to low prices for many years like they did in the 1980s. I just heard an oil analysts say that oil below $70/barrel is destructive to developing new oil, which could lead to a sharp price increase when normal demand returns.
Second, we have progressed greatly with solar technology since the 1970s. We CAN see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to grid parity. There is no new technology that needs to be developed like there was in the 1970s. It’s just a matter of manufacturing and installation innovation, and production scale. Solar will be at grid parity before any of these “backyard”, “vaporware” nuclear power plants come on line.
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TinyTim
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168 Comments
Nov 29 04:12 PM"Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos"
Obviously, they haven't been on a supercarrier or in a sub lately.
Military technology like this should be spun off.
Having been thru reactors since Indian Point to Palo Verde (which is in the middle of the desert and cooled with reclaimed sewage), I wonder why there is no standardization to reduce cost. BTW every reactor I've been thru claims the containment building can withstand a direct hit from a 747 (or equivalent). Never been able to substantiate this, but looking at cross sections, it certainly seems likely.
Nuclear material (waste and otherwise) is on the rails and roads daily. Sorry if there's no DOT plaque advertising this. Much of the fuel used lately were weapons in the USSR. As mentioned above, high level waste is not really waste, just awaiting reprocessing. Breeder reactors close the fuel cycle. It's amazingly short sighted that worries about proliferation in the 70's have still prevented even one from being built 35 years later.
Most peaking plants today are fired by natural gas. We need to use all the alternatives to fossil fuels we can find in a safe and environmentally sensitive manner.