[I made a really big error in this post, in that I misread the specs page for the Clarian panels and thought the $799 price applied to the 1,000W model, which it clearly doesn’t. I will leave this post and the comments pointing out my error intact.]

If you follow the energy and climate news as obsessively as I suspect at least some of you do, you’ve no doubt seen the recent articles about the coming plug-and-play, home handyperson level solar PV panel that’s coming out soon from Clarian Technologies. A typical example is the piece, Yale Environment 360: Low-Cost Solar Array Developed for Residential Installation:

A Seattle-based company says that it has developed an inexpensive do-it-yourself solar power technology that will enable homeowners to install solar panels on their roofs and then connect them to their power supply by simply plugging a cord into a regular electrical outlet. The company, Clarian Power, is touting its Sunfish system — with prices beginning at $799 — as a major advance in reducing
the high cost of installing home solar power systems, which typically start at $10,000. Clarian says its Sunfish system does not require a dedicated control panel and has built-in circuit protection, and thus does not require an electrician for installation. Users would mount up to five solar panels anywhere on the house, and plug the device into any outlet. The system is Wi-Fi enabled, enabling users to monitor the performance with online software such as the Google PowerMeter. The largest module will be able to generate 150 kilowatt hours per month, company officials say, so it would take five to six modules to produce the roughly 900 kilowatts used by an average American home. Clarian officials say their goal is not to enable homeowners to generate excess electrical capacity, but rather to reduce their monthly energy use and lower their utility bills.

OK, this sounds like a cool idea, and a good way to get a lot of interested consumers over the “hassle hump” of home (or small business) solar PV. No contractors and their bids to deal with, no major work on your house to install it, etc. Of course, we’re talking about a much smaller unit that the typical home PV installation (about 4kW), but as long as the price/kWh generated is reasonable, that’s not too big a deal. (Pop quiz: How many homes in your neighborhood have PV panels today? How much better for everyone would it be if even a third or half of them had a small PV setup turning sunlight into a few hundred Watts? And how much better yet would it be if that became the norm for homes in most parts of the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia, etc.?)

Oh yeah — cost per unit of energy produced. A quick look at the Clarian web site finds this page with some specs on the panels involved. Said page says:

• There will be two sizes of module, 200W and 1,000W.
• Expected prices are $599 to $799. (I’m assuming these are the prices for the 200W and 1,000W models, respectively; the web site is a bit vague. See link below.)
• The 200W unit produces 30kWh of energy per month, while the larger model is good for 150kWh/month.
• The units will have a “payback in 3-4 years or less”.

The big model produces five times the output of the smaller one and costs only one third more? That actually makes a certain amount of sense, when you think about the fact that you’re buying a lot more than just a bare solar panel. The stuff to invert the current (turn DC into what you want, which is AC), and tie it in to you house system, frame/mounting hardware, etc. is likely very similar, if not identical, between the units, and that fixed cost portion greatly reduces the cost ratio from 5:1 to something much lower.

The claimed outputs are reasonable, and represent 5 hours of full capacity generation/day on average. Some days you’ll do much better, some days much worse, but 5 hours seems reasonable.

The payback period is, however, a whole different sphere of bee stuff.

If you pay 12 cents/kWh for your utility electricity, then ignoring the lost opportunity or interest costs of the initial investment, and assuming you really do install it yourself, then 30kWh/month is $3.60/month in avoided electricity costs, or $43.20/year. At a purchase price of $599, that’s a payback period of 13.8 years, quite a bit more than the claimed “3-4 years or less”.

For the 1,000W model, that works out to $18/month, $216/year, and 3.7 years to pay back a $799 initial investment. So the 1,000W model clearly meets their claimed payback.

I don’t know what the tax rebate situation is for these panels, but if you assume a one-third kickback, then your payback periods shrink to about 9.1 years for the 200W model, and a scant 2.4 years for the 1,000W unit.

What’s that you say? You electricity costs more or less than 12 cents/kWh? You can then rerun the numbers, or simply multiply the payback periods I calculated by (12/(your electricity cost in cents/kWh)). I used 12 cents/kWh because it’s what I pay and it’s pretty close to the US national residential average.

And, as some of the reports have been quick to point out, you can take the panel with you when you move, making it a viable option for those expecting to change addresses in just a few years.

Bottom line: This seems to be a very interesting product aimed at nearly all homeowners. There are some obvious questions, of course. Will the pricing and availability be what the company is currently talking about? Will the quality and performance of the units be good enough? Will there be any zoning or other legal issues that crop up over people wiring these things into their home?[1][2]

So far, it sounds like something to keep an eye on.

[1] Some descriptions I’ve seen say installing one of these is about the same as replacing an electrical outlet. That puts it squarely in the home handyperson category and out of the realm of pure plug and play, which is something of a barrier to entry, but not much. I’d certainly be comfortable installing one of these in my own home, but I can think of some neighbors that I wouldn’t want to see try it.

[2] This is not to disparage Clarian, but a not-yet-available product from any company should be viewed with at least a pinch of caution.

Stephen E. Koonin gave a presentation last October, Addressing America’s Energy Challenges. Koonin is Under Secretary for Science of Energy at the US Dept. of Energy, and he pulled together a lot of information and presented it in an excellent, and sometimes quite enlightening way.

The presentation is available here [36 page PDF].

The most interesting slides are:

• 15: Greenhouse gas emissions in 2000 by source, which shows a detailed breakout of worldwide emissions. (The slide doesn’t actually say that it’s worldwide and not US emissions, but it gives a 2000 figure of 42 billion tons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases, which is clearly a worldwide figure.)
• 20 and 21: The relationship between yearly emissions and the overall level of CO2 in the atmosphere. This graphically depicts one of the nastiest details in our current energy and environmental predicament: The long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere.
• 23: CO2 emissions, OECD and non-OECD, from 1865-2005, which has a couple of call-out boxes that neatly delineate the biggest single point of contention between “developed” and “developing” countires, namely who emitted what when.
• 30: Renewable electricity costs. Let the hair-splitting and food fight begin!
• 31: Cost of CO2 reductions. This could be the best single graph I’ve seen on the topic to date.

Why, you might well ask, don’t I just reproduce these slides here? Because I want you to click through to the presentatoin and look at it all, of course.

When I gave a presentation on the challenges of electricity generation to 10 classes of local middle school students a while back, one of the things I stressed to them was how we were entering an age of localized energy. I didn’t mean generating electricity local to the end users (that’s decentralization, and we’ll see plenty of that, as well), but local to the energy source. You erect wind turbines where there’s a lot of wind (including coastal areas, like my beloved Great Lakes), solar plants where it’s sunny, geothermal where you have hot rocks, and wave and tidal generators where you have, well, waves and tides. Instead of exploiting very energy dense fossil fuels, we’ll shift to a model of collecting and concentrating renewable energy.[1]

The first problem with that Utopian view is that the “Big Two” of renewables–wind and solar–have that blasted intermittancy problem. This can be overcome, but at added cost. Instead of solar PV, you can use solar thermal with heat storage for non-sunny times (read: night), and wind power can use a similar system or pumped storage or be linked into a much larger supergrid to exploit the fact that “the wind might not blow all the time in any one place, but it’s always blowing somewhere”, as so many others have observed.

The second problem is getting the electrons from those windy plains, sunny deserts, coastal areas, etc. to the consumers who would like to, you know, consume those electrons.

As with any economic decision, the number one thing investors fear is uncertainty. But the growing realization that the climate chaos mess is far more serious than many thought, even just a couple of years ago, seems to be convincing some of the right people that there will be a steady market for pricier electrons for decades to come. In other words, investing a huge amount of money upfront in, say, a series of massive solar generators in North Africa to feed electrons to Europe, looks far less risky now than it did fairly recently. This shift in perception (which is based in reality, albeit via a tardy recognition of such), is a good example of how schemes like this can transmute from bad science fiction into good business in a hurry.

Why pick Africa solar power as an example? TreeHugger tells us about Huge Solar Power in the Sahara Project Moving Forward:

Utilizing the vast solar power potential of the Sahara has been a twinkle in the eye of many a European politician for a while now. Even though the logistics of building huge solar power arrays in the desert and then transmitting that electricity back across the Mediterranean isn’t exactly simple, to say the least. Well, a consortium of German companies wants to turn that dream into reality and is raising money to make it happen:

AFP reports that about 20 companies will band together and attempt to raise €400 billion ($554 billion) to finance the Desertec project.

The plan is place solar power arrays in various countries in the region, concentrating on those which are most politically stable. Taken together all the individual solar power plants of Desetec could generate about 15% of Europe’s electricity. But probably not for some time; the first electricity won’t be transmitted until perhaps 2019.

…

Perhaps the biggest challenge is actually getting the electricity back to Europe, though not from a technical perspective. Speaking last March in Copenhagen, Anthony Patt of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis pointed out that Europe’s electricity distribution system is really a collection of 27 different systems. Until these are more fully integrated, distributing the Sahara’s electricity could be difficult.

This obviously won’t happen as soon as we’d like, and it’s clear from the last graf above that Europe, often viewed as a monolithic block from over here in the US, has at least as many issues with a fragmented market as we do.

But this too shall be solved once enough people realize where reality insists we must go, namely to vastly cleaner methods of doing practically everything, and the markets that creates or supports. Never forget Lou’s First Law of Computers (and Life in General): A sufficiently large economic incentive beats a royal flush.[2]

[1] Very few of them had the raised-eyebrow epiphany I was hoping for at this point. Perhaps I should have draw some sort of analogy to American Idol or Jon and Kate plus 8.

[2] To which I feel obligated to add: Lou’s Second Law of Computers: The typos will get you every tiem.

The US Dept. of Energy/EIA has released the 2007 edition of Renewable Energy Trends:

The report, Renewable Energy Trends in Consumption and Electricity, 2007, provides an overview and tables with historical data spanning as far back as 1989 through 2007 on renewable energy consumption and electricity.

As always, you can download the whole report from the above page in one PDF or grab individual chapters, data in Excel spreadsheets, etc.

Report: Four Key Clean Energy Markets Increased 40% in 2007:

Solar photovoltaic products, wind power, biofuels, and fuel cells collectively experienced a 40% growth in revenues in 2007, according to a new report from Clean Edge, Inc. Global revenues for the four clean energy markets increased from $55 billion in 2006 to $77.3 billion in 2007. And although the fuel cell and distributed hydrogen market remains relatively immature, with revenues of $1.5 billion in 2007, the three other renewable markets each exceeded $20 billion in revenue. Of the four energy markets, wind power earned the highest revenue, at $30.1 billion. In terms of production, the biofuels industry produced 13 billion gallons of ethanol throughout the world, as well as 2 billion gallons of biodiesel, while solar photovoltaic system installations fell just short of 3,000 megawatts.

The Clean Energy Trends 2008 report looks ahead ten years and predicts that global installed solar photovoltaic capacity will increase eightfold, to 22,760 megawatts, global wind power capacity will nearly quadruple, to 75,781 megawatts, and biofuel production will nearly triple, to 45.9 billion gallons. It also projects a tripling of the three clean energy markets over the next ten years, with the largest growth rate in the nascent fuel cell and distributed hydrogen market, which grows more than tenfold to $16 billion. But for biofuels, wind power, and solar photovoltaic products, the projection actually represents slower growth compared to recent years. For instance, the solar photovoltaic increased fivefold in the past four years and is projected to increase by a factor of 3.6 over the next ten years. That’s a 13.8% average annual growth in the coming decade, compared to 50% average annual growth over the past four years. See the Clean Edge press release, report summary, and full report (PDF 1.9 MB).

The report anticipates continued revenue growth in 2008, and highlights five major trends: the growing participation of overseas companies in the U.S. wind power market; a renaissance for geothermal energy; the launch of new electric vehicles by relatively small startup companies, rather than the large automakers; the use of new, clean technologies for oceangoing ships; and the design and construction of entirely new sustainable cities.

Drought Could Force Nuke-Plant Shutdowns:

Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.

Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn’t result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region’s utilities could be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.

Already, there has been one brief, drought-related shutdown, at a reactor in Alabama over the summer.

“Water is the nuclear industry’s Achilles’ heel,” said Jim Warren, executive director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. “You need a lot of water to operate nuclear plants.” He added: “This is becoming a crisis.”

An Associated Press analysis of the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors found that 24 are in areas experiencing the most severe levels of drought. All but two are built on the shores of lakes and rivers and rely on submerged intake pipes to draw billions of gallons of water for use in cooling and condensing steam after it has turned the plants’ turbines.

Because of the yearlong dry spell gripping the region, the water levels on those lakes and rivers are getting close to the minimums set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Over the next several months, the water could drop below the intake pipes altogether. Or the shallow water could become too hot under the sun to use as coolant.

…

An estimated 3 million customers of the four commercial utilities with reactors in the drought zone get their power from nuclear energy. Also, the quasi-governmental Tennessee Valley Authority, which sells electricity to 8.7 million people in seven states through a network of distributors, generates 30 percent of its power at nuclear plants.

While rain and some snow fell recently, water levels across the region are still well below normal. Most of the severely affected area would need more than a foot of rain in the next three months — an unusually large amount — to ease the drought and relieve pressure on the nuclear plants. And the long-term forecast calls for more dry weather.

At Progress Energy Inc., which operates four reactors in the drought zone, officials warned in November that the drought could force it to shut down its Harris reactor near Raleigh, according to documents obtained by the AP. The water in Harris Lake stands at 218.5 feet — just 3 1/2 feet above the limit set in the plant’s license.

Lake Norman near Charlotte is down to 93.7 feet — less than a foot above the minimum set in the license for Duke Energy Corp.’s McGuire nuclear plant. The lake was at 98.2 feet just a year ago.

…

“Currently, nuclear power costs between $5 to $7 to produce a megawatt hour,” said Daniele Seitz, an energy analyst with New York-based Dahlman Rose & Co. “It would cost 10 times that amount that if you had to buy replacement power — especially during the summer.”

At a nuclear plant, water is also used to cool the reactor core and to create the steam that drives the electricity-generating turbines. But those are comparatively small amounts of water, circulating in what are known as closed systems — that is, the water is constantly reused. Water for those two purposes is not threatened by the drought.

Instead, the drought could choke off the billions of gallons of water that pass through the region’s reactors every day to cool used steam. Water sucked from lakes and rivers passes through pipes, which act as a condenser, turning the steam back into water. The outside water never comes into direct contact with the steam or any nuclear material.

…

Nuclear plants are subject to restrictions on the temperature of the discharged coolant, because hot water can kill fish or plants or otherwise disrupt the environment. Those restrictions, coupled with the drought, led to the one-day shutdown Aug. 16 of a TVA reactor at Browns Ferry in Alabama.

The water was low on the Tennessee River and had become warmer than usual under the hot sun. By the time it had been pumped through the Browns Ferry plant, it had become hotter still — too hot to release back into the river, according to the TVA. So the utility shut down a reactor.

It really is this simple: The climate changes triggered by global warming amount to a massive rewriting of the rules that governed how society does everything, and in particular will have profound effects on our production and consumption of energy.

The energy impacts will take three forms:

• Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. As global warming has an ever larger impact on human beings, we’ll be forced to take increasingly drastic steps to reduce GHG emissions, which are largely CO2 from burning fossil fuels. This will change transportation, electricity generation, and on-site/stationary fuel consumption.
• Reductions in the geographical locations where nuclear power plants and other thermoelectric generation are viable, due to drought conditions, as mentioned in the above article. The US has a fresh water draw of about 14 billion gallons every day for thermoelectric generation, almost exactly the same as agricultural use. (The two uses combine for about 80% of US fresh water draw.) And in many places that water simply isn’t available in the quantities and temperatures required.
• Increases in the demand for electricity for space cooling and transportation. Warmer weather = higher demand for air conditioning. To some extent this can be offset by better building design and more efficient air conditioning hardware, but those changes take a long time to come into play across an economy; if you thought the rolling stock of vehicles turns over slowly, think about buildings, even with refurbishing and retrofits factored in. And as for transportation, the shift to plug-ins will be so painless and quick that it will startle everyone who isn’t paying attention or who underestimates the willingness of consumers to do one simple thing–plug in a car at night–to save 70 to 80% on their per-mile fuel cost (for the battery-only part of their driving).

The electricity generating part of this mess is especially vexing, and I’m not sure how we get out of it, short of building dozens of thin film solar PV plants (with government loans, if needed) and flooding the market with dirt cheap solar panels, plus building wind, wave, and tidal plants at rates vastly higher than anything we’ve seen to date. It’s almost enough to make one, oh, I don’t know, write a book about it.

…you run the risk of reaching unsupportable conclusions.

As most of you probably realize by now, there’s a post over at The Oil Drum that is an attempt to take a long term view of our energy situation. The posting is Chris Clugston’s When Is “Global Peak Energy?” According to Publicly Available Data, Probably Sooner Than You Think.

To say that I have some misgivings about this post would be a decided understatement.

The basic notion of predicting what energy supplies will do out to the year 2200 is deeply flawed. If there’s one thing I learned in both economic and computer systems modeling (analytic as well as simulation), it’s that you have to be exceedingly careful of plunging too far into the unknown and reaching that point where any set of assumptions, no matter how accurate and predictive it may be in the short run, breaks down. Hell, I wouldn’t want to put together a projection more than 10 years out with the apparent precision of this one, let alone reaching all the way to 2200.

But that’s not even the biggest issue with the post at hand. The core problem, as with virtually any projection that looks beyond the immediate short term, is the assumptions that are made. Get those right, and you’re a hero. Get them wrong, and you’re in deep trouble in a hurry.

Clugston provides a couple of tables (”conservative” and “optimistic” scenarios) detailing his assumptions about the supply of various individual energy sources. If you look at his optimistic scenario, he sees all renewable energy sources (biomass, hydro, biofuels, solar, geothermal, wind, and “waves and tides”) growing very slowly and then peaking 2050.

How slowly? The low is hydro at 0.9%/year from 2025 to 2050, and the high is solar at 6% from now until 2050. Wind, which is currently growing very quickly worldwide, is assumed to grow at 5% until 2025 and then 2.5% from 2025 until its peak in 2050. Nuclear doesn’t escape the same treatment, as it’s projected to grow at 1.4%/year until it peaks in 2040. And again, this the “optimistic” scenario. The conservative scenario assume that renewables will peak sooner and then actually decline at 1% to 2%/year starting in 2050 for most sources. (Biomass is the exception, as it peaks in 2050 and then holds steady.)

As you can imagine, with these assumptions and the very safe conclusion that fossil fuels will peak and decline a great deal in the next 193 years, some dire conclusions are reached.

Let’s look at these assumptions just a bit. Wind, wave, tidal, solar, and geothermal will all peak in 2050? Even at or past the time when we’re seeing (according to Clugston) fossil fuels peak? Really? We’ll just march in lock-step off that cliff and not continue to build out these renewable energy sources? This has to be one of the most egregious examples of linear extrapolation I’ve seen.

I’ll leave it as exercise for the reader to find other items worth discussing in that post.

Someone made the comment in the discussion thread over on TOD that this was a case of “garbage in, garbage out”. I couldn’t agree more. There’s a reason why computer geeks use that cliche so often that they refer to it by the well worn acronym GIGO; it’s very easy to fall into the trap of making superficially reasonable assumptions and then getting useless results by relying too much on them. In this case, I honestly can’t see how the assumptions meet even the narrowest of examinations.