The Future Of Energy Part 3: Solar Power

In part 1 of this series, I made a case for reducing our dependance on fossil fuels as much, and as soon, as possible. In the rest of this series I'll be looking at ways this might be done.

In part 2 I looked at wind power, this time round I'll be talking about the role solar power might play.....



Current State Of Play
Solar energy is a very fast moving area of technology, with new developments coming through all the time. However, there are, broadly speaking, 2 ways solar is used to generate electric: Photovoltaic (PV) e.g. solar panels; and concentrated solar power (csp) which typically involves an array of tracking mirrors (heliostats) that concentrate light on a central tower to boil water and drive turbines (See photo).

Concentrated Solar Power

CSP has been around since the 1980s. The largest power station is currently in Mojave desert, California (354MW). The world's CSP power stations are largely split between the US and Spain. These 'Solar power towers' are more cost effective than PV, offer higher efficiency and better energy storage capability (Storage will be the subject of a later post).

Germany has the largest PV station (80+ MW) in the world with Canada close behind. Other leaders are Spain, Portugal and Czech.

PV makes up less than 1% of the world's energy. There are many competing technologies but, as yet, no clear winner. This fierce competition is leading to rapid improvements in the efficiency of solar cells and driving down costs.

Home PV: Germany led in this until recently with 4,150 MW installed (Thanks to government incentives). Spain then took over, using a similar scheme, and now have 45% of the world's domestic PV. France, Italy, South Korea and the US are also seeing rapid growth. Globally, the market could reach 16GW this year. As a result of all this, PV production has grown by an average of 40% every year since 2000 and seems likely to go on growing strongly.



Pros and Cons
The pros and cons are very similar to those for wind: Solar energy is plentiful, clean, renewable, available almost everywhere, and creates no greenhouse gases.

Like wind, it is currently more expensive than the other, established methods of generating electric. But, of course, coal powered stations were also costly when they first appeared. This is what happens with all new technology: It starts out very expensive and gets cheaper as time goes by.

The real drawback is that solar energy is intermittent e.g. It dips when there's cloud cover and stops altogether over night. So there need to be other, more constant, energy sources available to fill the gap. Fortunately, grid operators are used to matching supply to demand, so it's no big deal at present. But, as intermittent renewables like solar and wind reach 20% of the overall total, it'll begin to get trickier. That's still a few years away though and there are likely to be a number of solutions available when that day finally comes.


The Future
It's been worked out that if just a small percentage of the planet's deserts were used for generating solar power, it would be enough to provide all the world's electric for the foreseeable future. Earlier this year a plan was presented to Australia by a group of scientists, engineers, and economists that offered them a 100% renewable energy economy by 2020 (See here) and that included a lot of CSP. So there's huge potential for solar power.

However, fulfilling that potential will depend a lot on the willingness of governments, both national and local, to make it happen. Some countries, like Germany and Spain, are going all-out for renewables generally, whilst others seem to be dragging their feet.

Solar Updraft Tower

Keeping that in mind, home PV seems likely to continue growing rapidly if governments continue to offer incentives. CSP is a revolution waiting to happen in the tropics and sub-tropics.

Other stuff waiting to take off includes solar paint (which promises solar at a third of the usual cost), solar thin film (which offers such applications as solar windows), concentrated PV which concentrates energy on a single cell for cheaper PV, and, my personal favourite, solar updraft towers which combines 3 well known effects to produce a really novel design.

All very exciting but will it actually happen.....?

-- oOo -- 

More about solar power here.

More about CSP here.

Chinese Whispers

There are rumours going round that China are working on something big concerning carbon emissions. Whatever it is, isn't likely to be finalised for 2 or 3 months but there's a possibility of an announcement at the Cancun Climate Conference that starts next week.

If, as the rumours suggest, the Chinese are planning to put their Copenhagen Accord pledge (to cut CO2 emissions by 40-45% against 2005 levels by 2020) into law, that could be a major boost for the conference and may trigger a whole series of similar commitments.

Fingers crossed.

More background here.

Hydrogen Cars Headed For Leicester

A UK company called Riversimple are preparing to pilot their 2-seater hydrogen powered car in Leicester come 2012.

They will be working with the local council to rent 30 of their vehicles out as car-shares, company cars, and for private use. The scheme will run for 12 months. If successful, Riversimple hope to go into production in 2013.

Interestingly, they want to challenge everything about personal transport, from the design of the car to ownership. For example, instead of just selling their cars, they want to offer a number of "service packages", rather like mobile phones. So you might rent your car for a period, then either return it or extend the rental at a reduced price. The aim would be to reward people for using a vehicle for longer (which would lower Riversimple's costs).

See a video of the car here.

UK Companies Want Government To Prepare For Peak Oil

A group of leading UK businesses has called on the government to make plans to protect the country in the event of Peak Oil.

Peak oil will be that moment when worldwide oil production reaches it's absolute maximum, after which it will begin to decline. It is of major importance because, with demand for oil set to increase for the foreseeable future, Peak Oil, or even the prospect of it, would trigger massive, worldwide, inflationary effects. It has the potential to cripple nations, especially those dependant on oil.

Little wonder then that these companies, which include Kingfisher, Stagecoach and the Virgin Group, are concerned that the government has some sort of plan. They have produced this recent report in the wake of the Gulf oil spill, warning that it may have brought forward Peak Oil and we could all be feeling the effects as early as 2015. They say we should speed up our switch to more sustainable fuels as a matter urgency.

Hydrogen Planes?

I came across this BBC report recently that suggests that the aviation industry has now given up on switching from kerosene to hydrogen as a fuel.

Excuse me? Did I read that right? Apparently, yes. For the past 10 years, the whole industry has been seriously looking for ways of moving away from fossil fuels to hydrogen.

Ironically, it appears they've had to shelve the idea because the process of creating hydrogen - hydrolysis - emits too much CO2. There was nothing wrong with the hydrogen itself, and they were quite prepared to re-design jets to accomodate the larger volume of fuel (we might have seen jets looking like Thunderbird 2), it's just it requires a lot of electricity to produce and, at the moment, that's mainly from coal.

So, the search is now on for a biofuel that a) comes from a sustainable source, and b) doesn't require the use of land being used for food.

The underlying reason for this search is not so much about battling climate change as it is looking after aviation's interests. The industry realises it's future is too dependant on a fast depleting fuel and needs to protect itself from, firstly, volatile fuel prices, then rising prices and finally, the effective end of oil.

Unilever Aims For Sustainability

UK giant Unilever, the second biggest consumer goods producer in the world, has announced it intends to halve it's impact on the environment by 2020, whilst doubling it's sales.

The company, who produce such familiar brands as Persil, Walls, Ben & Jerry's, Knorr, Liptons tea, and Hellmanns, announced a number of targets:

• cut by 50% the environmental impact of its products in terms of water, waste and greenhouse gases.

• source 100% of its agricultural supplies from sustainable sources.

• improve the health and well-being of one billion people across the world.

• double its use of renewables to 40% of total energy use.

• reduce water consumption by 65%  and waste by 70% on 1995 levels. 

They will publish annual reports to show their progress towards these targets.

Their chief exec explained that they see their new approach as "the only way to do business long term", and their plan spells out their reasons quite clearly.

Let's hope they're just the first of many to take this route.

More detail here.

Global Warming May Cause Colder Winters

According to some new research done using computer models, global warming may actually cause colder Winters in the northern hemisphere.

It's been common knowledge in the scientific community that climate change will cause some strange local effects but this tops them all.

More details here.

8th Warmest October On Record

The combined global land and ocean temperatures for October 2010 made it the 8th warmest on record, 0.54C above the 20th Century average.

The period January to October 2010 was equal warmest on record (despite the cooling effect of La Niña).

More here.

The Future Of Energy Part 2: Wind Power

In part 1 of this series, I made a case for reducing our dependance on fossil fuels as much, and as soon, as possible. In the rest of this series I'll be looking at ways this might be done.

This time round I'll be talking about the role wind power might play.....

Current State Of Play
By the end of 2009, wind produced 2% of the world's electric, double what it was just 3 years earlier.

It provided 20% of the electricity in Denmark, 14% in Ireland and Portugal, 11% in Spain,  8% in Germany, 3% in the UK (with plans to have 15% by 2020), and 2.4% in the U.S.

Worldwide the 5 biggest producers are, in descending order, the United States, China, Germany, Spain, and India.

Ironically, Texas, the oil state, is also the U.S.'s leading state for wind power. It has more than double the UK's output, and if it were a country, it would rank 6th in the world!

Currently, the world's biggest offshore windfarm is off Kent, UK, with 100 turbines. This will soon be dwarfed by 'farms being built and planned elsewhere.

Offshore windfarms are costlier to build than land based, but the extra cost is offset by an improved supply.

Worldwide, the rate of growth in wind power is accelerating with dozens of countries investing heavily in the technology. However, because fossil fuel demand is also growing, wind may only provide 8% of all electric by 2018.


Pros and Cons
Wind energy is plentiful, clean, renewable, available almost everywhere, and creates no greenhouse gases.

However, it is currently more expensive than other, more established ways of generating electric. Well, it is new technology, and like all new tech, the cost is still coming down steadily. So the comparison isn't particularly fair.

Another issue is that you don't have control of the supply: The wind may drop off when you need it most, or be blowing a gale when you don't want it. But electric grid operators are used to meeting varying demand for electric on a round-the-clock basis. So they don't consider varying supply to be a problem, as long as it's part of a balanced mix of sources and wind makes up no more than 20% of the overall supply.


The Future
As I've said, costs are coming down steadily and wind will become increasingly competitive compared to the established technologies. I'd hope that this will mean that wind will be contributing more than the forecasted 8% of the world's electric by 2018.

However, there's that 20% upper limit to consider - Since wind energy is so intermittent, it may be uneconomical to manage beyond this point - So wind could only ever be part of the overall solution.

Looking further into the future, high altitude wind power (HAWP) shows promise. It is based on the fact that, the higher you go, the stronger, steadier and more persistent the wind gets. Traditional turbines wouldn't be able to exploit this, but things like tethered kites and balloons could. That might sound a bit....low tech, but there's some serious money chasing this one and, it's claimed, HAWP can out perform the current generation of turbines, both in terms of cost and output.

Early MARS Prototype From Mageen

There are several companies developing HAWP, including Joby, Mageen, Drachen, KiteGens, and Makani. Most seem to be at the concept or prototyping stage but Mageen are looking to roll out their MARS rotary balloon system to remote rural villages in India next year. Commercial applications still seem to be a few years away but we appear to be seeing the beginnings of a revolution.

                                  -- oOo --

More information about wind power here.

More about HAWP here.

Leading Businesses Want Low Carbon Economy

A report from business leaders in the UK and India has recommended that the two countries work together to build low carbon economies.

The companies involved include Rolls Royce, HSBC, and Marks & Spencer. They believe - based on their own experiences - that businesses can be sustainable and profitable. If this were extended to entire enonomies it would help to "combat the impacts of rising energy prices, enhance energy security and reduce the risk of human induced global climate change" and it "increases resource efficiency, productivity and competitiveness, and leads to the creation of high quality jobs across a range of sectors".

So there you have it: Hard-nosed CEOs saying that we can cut carbon, be sustainable, and not ruin the economy!

The report was aimed at the UK and Indian governments, and both have reacted very positively, recognising the huge potential for jobs, growth, and environmental protection. The UK Environment Minister Greg Barker saw such a bilateral collaboration as a means to demonstrate to the rest of the world that moving to a low carbon economy was "compatible with continued economic growth". In his opinion, that was the only real issue holding back the success of climate talks.

Well, what are you waiting for, Mr Barker? Time to get things rolling.

More background here.

The Future Of Energy Part 1: Fossil Fuels

We are hooked on fossil fuels.

We currently consume around 4 billion tonnes of coal, and 3000 billion cubic metres of natural gas annually, and 86 million barrels of oil per day. The result is around 30 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.

Furthermore, demand for all 3 is predicted to increase by around 2% per year until 2030. So, in the absence of a worldwide climate change agreement, carbon emissions are set to increase by about 40% over the next 2 decades.

Of course, all this assumes supply continues to meet demand. And, in the case of oil and gas, this is by no means certain. If demand for oil did outstrip supply, it would be disastrous for the world economy because we are completely dependant on a cheap, plentiful supply.

Then there's the matter of energy security. Countries need to protect themselves from sudden price hikes caused by natural disaster (e.g. Hurrican Katrina), political instability (e.g. in South America, Middle-East or Russia), and profiteering from the likes of OPEC.

Finally, there's the looming problem of climate change. The world is getting warmer (See here) and, whether you believe we're the cause or not, adding these vast quatities of known greenhouse gases to atmosphere can't be helping matters.

So, for all these reasons, we need to urgently increase our efforts to find replacements and get them scaled up in time to meet those challenges.

We also need to stop subsidising oil and coal, and improve energy efficiency.

The ultimate aim is for the demand curve for fossil fuels to first level off then fall steadily to more acceptable levels. The sooner we can do that, the better.

Time To Stop Subsidising Fossil Fuels

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has called for governments to stop subsidising the price of fossil fuels.

It said in it's report that some $312bn are being spent this way, most of it from developing nations. This doesn't even include the subsidies to the oil companies themselves (estimated at another $100bn).

If we did away with them, the IEA say, the rise in fuel prices would result in global emissions cuts of around 5.8%. The subsidies undermine the competitiveness of renewables, hold back more fuel efficient technologies, and speed up the depletion of scarce resources.

Some of the developing countries involved claim that it makes energy more affordable but, the report says, very few schemes actually benefit the poor. In fact, the subsidies have "traditionally been granted to politically-connected industries with close links to politicians".

Time to stop this practise and use the money elsewhere. Renewables for instance.

More here.

Free Solar Panels - Things To Consider

Whilst looking around on the web for reviews of companies offering free solar panels, I came across this.

It's a consumer guide to micro-generation. It's particularly useful for anyone thinking of having free solar panels installed, including a check-list of things you should be asking. It's written for the UK (by Consumer Focus) but it might be worth a look by those outside the UK as some of the points it raises would apply almost anywhere.

Climate Change: The Geological Society Chips In

As a geology graduate, I've long been aware that there's much to be learnt from the geological record about climate change. The wealth of evidence not only allows geologists to work out what's happened in the past (and why), but, by comparison, it also lets them figure out what could be in store for us in the coming decades.


This report, which is only 7 pages long (plus 6 pages of references and recommended reading), summarises the Geological Society's position on climate change in layman's terms. Well worth reading.

Success At Nagoya

Good news at last! Two weeks of biodiversity talks in Japan have just ended in success. It was touch and go for a while but, after the timely intervention of Japanese government, agreement was finally reached between 190+ countries. 

The agreement covers 20 goals to be achieved by 2020 and include:

• Cut the rate of loss of natural habitats, including forests, by at least half
• Increase terrestrial nature reserves from 13% to 17% of the world’s land area
• Increase marine and coastal nature reserves from 1% to 10% of the world’s seas
• Restore at least 15% of the areas where biodiversity is classed as ‘degraded’
• Safeguard at least 75% of threatened plant species in collections

If they're fully implemented it would be a big step towards us handing over a viable planet to future generations. That's a big "if" though. So far we've not had a good record on these sort of agreements: All the Kyoto signatories are likely to miss their carbon cutting targets come 2012 (some by miles); and the 2010 biodiversity targets have been failed miserably.

So, all we can hope is that the world's governments have finally got the idea. This is no longer simply a 'green issue'. This is way bigger than that.