Several kinds of good news on solar....

Today's post: Wednesday, 7-27-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects.

And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 3 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post:

Several kinds of good news on solar....

1. For years now, the Germans have done the world’s best job on adding solar capacity. And they are now out to double that to help replace using even less nuclear power.

2. As we posted on last week, China is beginning to add significant solar capacity & the CEO we posted on then of Suntech Solar said that China was on its way to becoming one of the two largest solar markets.

3. He also said that the United States is also on its way to becoming one of the two largest solar markets.

For example, in California, where there is lots of sun, a lot of innovation driven companies, and a lot of voters who value renewable energy, three good things are happening.

Now that no upfront money needed financing is available to add solar, the number of homeowners adding solar to their homes has already about doubled since before that happened.

Solar City and Sungevity are two of the strongest players in that market; but there are many more.

Second and third, California Governor, Jerry Brown just announced a plan to also add about 12% of the state’s future electricity in medium to small sized solar locations near existing transmission lines (and near where people will use the electricity are living.) Nanosolar is a thin film solar company specializing in serving this market at lowest cost and fastest deployment. They have already been installing such systems in Germany.

The other part of his plan is to add large solar farms both photovoltaic and thermal in locations where there is room to put them and lots of sun to add another 10% of the states future electricity. Many of those projects also got federal support and are already being built.

There are three pieces of good news in this.

California is a state that because of its innovations is often copied by other states when the innovations work.

The cash going into solar companies that supply California will cause them to grow and gradually drive prices down so the day is near when solar is one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity per watt.

And, since almost all of Mexico has multiple times the solar potential of the sunniest part of California, Mexico will begin to copy California and initially buy from solar companies in the United States.

4. Many major corporations in the world are also increasing their investment in solar products.

Just this week DuPont bought Innovalight, a Silicon Valley company, that makes specialty inks that can increase the electricity produced in a solar cell or installation in a given area.

I also heard an ad on the radio a few days ago sponsored by Sharp Solar, a Japanese technology company. They were advertising adding their panels with a solar lease program to the people in our area.

Applied Materials in the United States is a large technology company in the Silicon Valley and already has millions of dollars a year in sales from its thin film solar related products.

5. And, this is the tip of the iceberg. The events I’m reporting here may be as little as a ninth or tenth of what is happening in real solar progress that I haven’t yet learned about.

Global warming related costs are already going up and the world wide recession and rising health care costs are still with us.

But in solar, there is increasingly good news!