Solar and Wind

[chaosiscash]

A) That picture is photoshopped. B) Most of that "smoke" is steam from the cooling towers!

A) I know this one isn't (ash spill in Knoxville TN)...

That was in Kingston, not Knoxville.

 

[Supe]

A) That picture is photoshopped. B) Most of that "smoke" is steam from the cooling towers!

A) I know this one isn't (ash spill in Knoxville TN)...

B) I know that it's steam, still doesn't make it look any more "pretty"

My whole argument is that I find it annoying when people talk about how "ugly" the wind farms are, but you don't hear a peep from anyone concerning the existing coal plants...

Oh, common. That'll buff right out.

Apples to oranges. One or two stacks and a boiler with sheet metal siding, or an entire landscape full of windmills.

 

[Flyer_PE]

The boiler also has the advantage that it will produce enough energy to pay for itself before it requires replacement. The last analysis I saw indicated windmills weren't even close.

 

[Master slacker]

A) That picture is photoshopped. B) Most of that "smoke" is steam from the cooling towers!

A) I know this one isn't (ash spill in Knoxville TN)...

B) I know that it's steam, still doesn't make it look any more "pretty"

My whole argument is that I find it annoying when people talk about how "ugly" the wind farms are, but you don't hear a peep from anyone concerning the existing coal plants...

Oh, common. That'll buff right out.

Apples to oranges. One or two stacks and a boiler with sheet metal siding, or an entire landscape full of windmills.

But windmills are pretty.

 

[csb]

Pretty like an ugly hat

 

[Exception Collection]

Pretty like an ugly hat

Depends on the windmill, probably. Ocean-based ones? I can see those being very beautiful looking in the first year, and decaying quickly after that.

Personally, I prefer the single facility (or limited facilities) view for almost everything. Solar, sure - panels, in my opinion, look nice. But wind farms generally require too much area to be useful without being ugly.

I prefer nuclear energy. If only there wasn't such a nasty public opinion of it.

 

[Master slacker]

Pretty like an ugly hat

I see what you did there.

 

[pbrme]

I had an idea like this back in college:

http://www.gizmag.com/piezoelectric-road-h...ctricity/10568/

 

[Master slacker]

Hey!!! This "wind energy" thing can produce gobs more energy than that!

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Evergreen Solar Inc., once a darling of the U.S. solar industry, filed for bankruptcy protection this week, saying it couldn't compete with Chinese competitors without a reorganization—a sign of the difficulty in creating "green" U.S. manufacturing jobs amid bruising competition across the globe.
The market for solar panels is expanding world-wide. But the key thing driving demand is increasingly lower prices, which is forcing U.S. firms into a cutthroat cost-cutting war with rivals in China and elsewhere.

"When margins are getting squeezed, pennies count," says Pavel Molchanov, a solar analyst with Raymond James Financial. "Quite frankly, as a solar manufacturer, it is a lot better to pay workers $1 an hour in China than workers $15 an hour in Massachusetts."

The average price of solar modules has fallen 30% this year, after declining steeply last year, he said...

Earlier this year, Evergreen closed its Massachusetts factory, a $450 million facility that opened in 2007 with support from state and local subsidies and employed about 800 workers. One of its largest creditors is MassDevelopment, a state agency, according to the bankruptcy filing.

Evergreen began to manufacture panels in Wuhan, China, last year. Other U.S.-based solar companies have already moved their production overseas: SunPower Corp. to the Philippines and First Solar Inc. to Malaysia.

In its Chapter 11 filing, Evergreen cited the difficulty in competing against Chinese solar companies that "receive considerable government and financial support."

It also blamed reductions in European subsidies for solar installations and what it called the U.S.'s failure to adopt supportive policies.

But while low-cost Chinese competition may have accelerated the collapse of the company's balance sheet, Evergreen also bet on the wrong technology.

Evergreen developed a technology that uses less polysilicon —a material housing small silicon crystals—than its competitors. When the cost of this raw material reached $400 per kilogram in 2008, Evergreen's solar panels were competitive...

Since then, polysilicon prices have plummeted to about $55 a kilogram. This has stripped away Evergreen's competitive edge and left it with a higher-cost manufacturing process...

"As polysilicon got cheaper, this company could not compete with standard technology, which is getting cheaper weekly," says Jesse Pichel, global head of cleantech research at Jefferies & Co.

Chinese solar manufacturers enjoy extensive support from government industrial policy. They benefit from inexpensive capital, low-cost electricity and real estate, as well as less-expensive labor, says Mr. Pichel.

The global solar industry is growing quickly, in part because of government subsidies to promote clean-energy production and because of falling panel prices.

The annual production of solar photovoltaic cells reached 24 gigawatts in 2010, more than double the figure for 2009, according to Ren21, an international, government-supported institute that supports renewable-energy development.

The Obama administration has also supported "green" jobs as a future economic engine and has highlighted the solar industry.

Solyndra, a California-based solar-products maker, received a $535 million federal loan guarantee in 2009, but in late 2010 it announced plans to shutter an older plant and lay off workers.

Evergreen listed $424.5 million in assets in its filing with the bankruptcy court in Delaware, and debt of $485.6 million.

It said it intended to close its facility in Midland, Mich., in the "near future." It also plans to lay off 83 workers in Massachusetts and Michigan, retaining 50 employees to help with the bankruptcy and reorganization.

The company plans to reorganize operations with an emphasis on building up its China-based manufacturing facility.

More: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000142405...article_onespot

 

[wilheldp_PE]

I keep up on silver investing news since I have some. I read an interesting article saying that the price of silver might explode in the next year or so due to the number of solar panels going into production in China. They have already almost monopolized the buying of silicon and solar PV components. Now that they are about to start assembling all of the panels, they are going to need a shload of silver. Are they setting up a bunch of solar "farms," or are they just incentivizing people to install PV panels on their homes?

 

[Capt Worley PE]

They, who? The Chinese? I doubt it...I think they're just providing cheap PV panels for global markets (mostly Europe). Way I understand it, they're pretty heavily into coal generated electricity.

 

[Exception Collection]

I keep up on silver investing news since I have some. I read an interesting article saying that the price of silver might explode in the next year or so due to the number of solar panels going into production in China. They have already almost monopolized the buying of silicon and solar PV components. Now that they are about to start assembling all of the panels, they are going to need a shload of silver. Are they setting up a bunch of solar "farms," or are they just incentivizing people to install PV panels on their homes?

Personally, I think standard PV panel usage in farms (by which I assume you mean dedicated swaths of land) and homes are both (largely) a waste of energy. We have so many warehouses that can install them, or office buildings that can install vertical-ish ones, that it seems pointless to me to waste that much land area on standard PV panels. Now, if you're talking about higher-efficiency panels with setups to redirect light, or something along those lines, that's different. Homes are a little different, but quite frankly most of them (from what I've been told, regarding local houses) are better served by making them more passive (requiring the solar energy to heat) than by adding PV panels to power the electronics inside. A shed or porch roof is different, but too small for an effective system.

 

[snickerd3]

we don't have power out to the shed, but we are looking at some form of solar power for lighting out there when we replace it this fall.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

we don't have power out to the shed, but we are looking at some form of solar power for lighting out there when we replace it this fall.

Look into 12V lighting components from RV and boat outlets. Solves a lot of converter issues and you can run straight off common deep cycle batteries.

 

[csb]

They, who? The Chinese? I doubt it...I think they're just providing cheap PV panels for global markets (mostly Europe). Way I understand it, they're pretty heavily into coal generated electricity.

We had a discussion just today about how we anticipate at some point much of our coal will be transported up in to Canada and then over to China.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

They, who? The Chinese? I doubt it...I think they're just providing cheap PV panels for global markets (mostly Europe). Way I understand it, they're pretty heavily into coal generated electricity.

We had a discussion just today about how we anticipate at some point much of our coal will be transported up in to Canada and then over to China.

Well the coal companies will have to find someone to buy it after Obama makes coal pretty much illegal for use in the US.

But China has HUGE coal resources. that's really the only energy source they have, from what I learned from Chinee grad students.

 

[csb]

My in-laws house is coal-heated. They have an actual coal burning furnace and just huck a few chunks in every so often. So crazy.

 

[snickerd3]

^ so do they have the chute on the side of the house for coal deliveries?

 

[csb]

Nope. The house was built in the 1970s. They have one of those trailers that used to be a truck bed. They go, get the load, and then just park it in the garage/basement.