[GPSCC-chat] advances in solar power

[Jim Doyle]

This from http://www.juancole.com/


    In Race against Carbon Catastrophe,
    <http://www.juancole.com/2012/05/21355.html>


    Solar Power is Making Strides
    <http://www.juancole.com/2012/05/21355.html>



Then there are responsible countries, like Germany and Portugal,
who are investing in renewables in a big way.

On last Friday afternoon, because of clear skies and good weather,
Germany was at one point producing 22 gigawatts of solar power 
<http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article106380460/Solaranlagen-schaffen-jetzt-Leistung-von-20-AKWs.html>, 

a new record. Today (Monday) is a holiday in Germany, and electricity
needs will be only a third of normal. So, for a couple hours this 
afternoon, *
all* Germany’s electrical power needs will be supplied by renewable 
energy 
<http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article106381000/100-Prozent-Oekostrom-aber-nur-fuer-ein-paar-Stunden.html>. 
T
hat must be a first for an industrialized, G8 country.

Germany has
defied the predictions of those who said that mothballing its nuclear 
plants would cause it to produce more CO2 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/may/23/energy-nuclear-power-germany?newsfeed=true>. 

Its carbon dioxide production was down 2% in the past year. It replaced 60%
of its formerly nuclear-generated electricity production with 
renewables, and
became 5% more efficient in using energy.

Germany’s achievement is owing in part to the influence in the 1990s of the
Green Party on energy policy in that country. But soon investing in 
solar energy
will no longer be high-minded, it will just be economic common sense. By 
2017,
even if you don’t count all the damage hydrocarbons do to the atmosphere,
solar power will reach grid parity with them 
<http://www.altenergymag.com/news/2012/05/24/cost-of-solar-energy-generation-to-compete-with-traditional-sources-as-us-and-china-reach-grid-parity-by-2017/24794>. 

That is, it will be economically competitive to put in a solar plant 
instead of a coal one.
(In some areas of the US, solar grid parity will be reached in 2014). Of 
course if you
factor in the health and climate damage caused by CO2 and other dirty 
emissions,
solar is already much cheaper than hydrocarbons.

Japanese firms, with the Fukushima nuclear disaster/tsunami in mind, are 
going into
solar energy in a big way.
Kyocera is planning the world’s largest solar power farm in the south of 
the country <http://designbuildsource.com.au/japan-largest-solar-plant>,
which will generate 70 megawatts. If Japanese technical innovation and 
scientific
ingenuity is turned, as it seems like to be, to renewable energy, they 
may well
rejuvenate their lagging economy and become a big player in the 
burgeoning solar
and wind turbine markets. The Japanese public has turned against nuclear 
pretty
decisively, as have most companies there. They have lost a lot of trust 
in their
government and in the Tepco firm that managed Fukushima.

The Indian government is likewise planning to put in a fresh 10 
gigawatts 
<http://www.pv-tech.org/news/india_proposes_10gw_of_solar_energy_between_2012_and_2017> 

of solar energy production by 2017.

There are daily new technological breakthroughs both in wind turbines 
and solar
cells that will make them more efficient and more competitive over time. 
The world
is on the right track. It is just a day late and a dollar short. The US 
and China aren’t
accomplishing what Germany is. Not to mention the rest of the world. We 
can’t get
back to 350 ppm at this rate. We are going toward 450 ppm of CO2 in the 
atmosphere,
which climate scientists such as James Hansen now warn is probably 
catastrophic 
<http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0912/full/climate.2009.124.html>
for the earth and for human beings.