Two Billion Households Could Have Solar Power By 2025

[jpak]

http://www.carbonfree.co.uk/cf/news/wk37-0005.htm

Two billion households worldwide could realistically be powered by solar energy by 2025, according to a joint report launched today by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) and Greenpeace. The report concludes that thanks to advances in technology, increasing competition and investment in production facilities, solar power has now become a serious contender in the electricity market; able to provide low-cost, clean, CO2 emission free energy.

The report also concludes that the global photovoltaic (PV) industry could potentially create more than 2 million jobs by 2040 plus a cut in annual CO2 emissions of 350 million tonnes - equivalent to 140 coal power plants – by 2025, and become the energy of choice for consumers.

“In the past consumers have had little or no choice about their source of energy. They have had to stand on the sidelines, watching their energy bills escalate as their utility companies invest profits into the very fuels that are causing energy prices to rise in the first place,” said Sven Teske, Greenpeace International Climate & Energy Campaigner. ”This report proves that solar power is a real option for consumers, offering freedom from rising energy costs and most importantly, electricity generated without the CO2 emissions. The day you install a solar generator on your roof, is independence day from your energy bill.”

Competition amongst the major manufacturers has become inúcreasingly intense, with new players entering the market as the potential for photovoltaics (PV) opens up. The worldwide PV industry, particularly in Europe and Japan, is investing heavily in new production facilities and technologies. At the same time, politiúcal support for the development of solar electricity has led to far-reaching promotion frameworks being put in place in a number of countries, notably Germany, Japan, the United States and China. However, more investment is needed if solar is to fulfil its potential of providing 16% of the world’s energy demand by 2040.

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[MichiganVote]

1. I've said for years solar and wind are the way to go

[suziedemocrat]

2. K & R

[4dsc]

3. HOW??

How will they be able to create anything if the worlds oil production is half of what it is now??

[Dead_Parrot]

4. Shhhh!

Every time someone says that, a bright young college undergrad dies. Or graduates, it's the same thing. Now repeat after me:
I do believe in Greenpeace,
I do believe in Greenpeace,
I do believe in Greenpeace,
I do believe in Greenpeace...

[jpak]

5. I do believe the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA)

I do believe the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA)

I do, I do, I do...

Photovoltaic modules are produced from the two most abundant elements in the Earth's crust: aluminum (frames) and silicon (cells and glazing) - with the exception of a thin film of EVA, there is very little petroleum used (IIRC Shott currently produces PV modules that don't use EVA at all).

Much of the aluminum produced today is smelted using hydro-power - and Iceland is gearing up to use its massive geothermal resources to smelt large quantities of Al.

You can use renewable electricity (or biomass) to produce glass and wood chips to smelt PV-grade Si.

Al (and latex or biomass-derived products) can be used for wiring.

All very doable and eminently sustainable.

No Fairy Greenpeace Godmothers required.

[Boomer]

6. No petroleum?

Okay, I'm no expert, so please feel free to refute my wariness.

No mining, no manufacturing, no distribution?

Currently, all those stages of producing almost anything involve large amounts of petroleum to run machinery. Machinery to mine, trucks to deliver the metal to plants, using more machinery to create things like frames, then transport them to whoever is using them. Removing smelting from the equation is not enough to remove oil from the equation.

So, sure, if you can pick an aluminum frame up off the ground, within walking distance of your house, then turn it into a photovoltaic module and mount it on your house -- no oil!

But if someone needs to buy parts, assemble the module out of those parts, then ship that module to you -- lots of oil is involved.

[Dead_Parrot]

8. The same is true of most things, though.

The oil needs to be replaced or we'll wind up back in the medieval period. We seem to have several options, however...

[Boomer]

11. How's your olde English?

I keep hearing about new technological options that will save our bacon, but these optimistic scenarios never seem to take "softer" issues into consideration.

Technology grows in tandem with social, cultural and physical institutions and infrastructures. The longer these elements co-exist, the more complex and intricate is their symbiosis. Introducing new technologies -- no matter how brilliant -- is difficult if these innovations don't fit into the existing paradigm. You can scream and shout and shove all you want, but creating a sea change in our conventional approach is exceedingly difficult as long as the original infrastructure still exists.

So, I expect that new, innovative technologies won't make a meaningful impact until the oil-based infrastructure collapses. And we run the significant risk that we won't be capable of using those new technologies under the conditions of social and economic chaos that will ensue from that collapse.

All you have to do to is look at the ruins of Roman cities that once had a highly developed culture, architecture and technology -- all lost when the empire collapsed. Complex systems are hard to alter, and even more difficult to replace.

Some people call this kind of grim prediction doom-mongering, but if you don't look at the future with a certain hard-eyed pragmatism, you're going to be caught unawares when things take a turn for the worse. History is littered with the ruins of collapsed empires and lost knowledge. It's the height of hubris to think we're immune to that fate.

[jpak]

9. Two (or three) words

Biodiesel

Ethanol

Hydrogen

Electric cargo transport (trains using wind, hydro, tidal, geothermal, biomass, solar electricity).

Sails (to propel bauxite ore/PV module transport ships).

Lots of ways to significantly reduce (or eliminate) petroleum from the equation.

[bhikkhu]

10. Some of these are not looking so good...

Biodiesel, ethanol, and hydrogen are all fairly energy intensive to produce and have some drawback or other, particularly considering the scale of "the problem" - replacing the fuel we use for transportation and industry.

But not to be entirely negative, there is a new solar panel manufacturing process that looks genuinely feasible and economical. Look at:

http://nanosolar.com/index.html

Having been fooled over the years by so many promises of cheap unlimited energy, it is hard to hope again, but this does look promising.

[Dead_Parrot]

7. Possibly...

If the EPIA has produced the paper in conjuction with the ITRE (the European Committee on Industry, Research and Energy) I might have believed it. Sadly they teamed up with Greenpeace, so I'll take it with a pinch of fairy-dust...

Incidentally, it's two billion people, not households. Minor niggle... :)

Edit: Make that one billion people. It's like chinese whispers...

Here's the actual report: http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/solargen3.pdf. Warning - 4MB...

[mainegreen]

22. That's it. I'm moving to Iceland!

They've got thier act together. Except for the whaling thing.

[Dogmudgeon]

12. Why, yes, they could

But let's take a look at how much solar (and wind, and tidal, etc.) power has been installed since 2000, around the time energy re-emerged as a public issue.

That figure is ... damned low. I think that only about 2% of our (USA) energy is "alt"; 10% is nuclear, and that figure, likewise, has been stuck for some time. Even if you oppose nuclear energy generation, the problem remains -- the money is going into carbon-source combustion. Period.

Energy technology is not really the problem. There will always be plenty of room for improvement, but the fundamental development is done. What we now must solve is how to "retire" petroleum and coal. Only the smallest trickle of money is being spent for construction, investment, and infrastructure. We have the technology to switch over to cheaper, safer, highly energy-efficient electric "microcars" or "smart cars", but we're still making and buying big, heavy, gasoline-burning jalopies. Almost two-thirds of the energy produced is wasted in line and heat loses and efficiency-killing lack of maintenace. And we have no long-term strategy to decouple our economy from mandatory energy consumption increases (the "no growth equals collapse" model).

Many of us are frustrated when a new source of energy is announced, and it's immediately pulled down as being "not the answer". Others of us are just as frustrated when we hear that by using X, Y, or Z, we would have enough energy for a thousand years. The frustration on both sides is understandable, and has a common source. As long as we lack the taste for long-term planning and investment, our reliance on seriously flawed energy and economic models will drive us toward inevitable crisis. Whether that crisis is due to hit in 2007 or 2070 or even 2700, the ideal time to deal with it is now -- which is something we just aren't doing.

--p!

[Boomer]

13. Answers cost money

I'm fortunate enough to own my house, be mortgage-free, and have money in the bank. If there is ever a solar energy solution that is allowed in my state (so far not), and I can find someone local to install it (so far not), then I can probably afford to jump on the new tech bandwagon.

But I'm probably the ONLY person on my block -- a blue-collar working class neighborhood -- who could do that. Everyone else is living so close to the bone, or is renting, that when oil technology "retires", they'll simply have to do without. Period.

These are people who scrape together enough money to buy a $300 used car to get them through the rest of the year, that get hand-me-down refrigerators from their in-laws, who can barely meet their electric bill without letting another bill slide. These are not people who can afford to retrofit their old, frame houses with the latest technology or buy an electric car.

And it astounds me how blithely these people are ignored when discussing the promising future of green technology in this country. SOME people can take advantage of that option, but millions of people who are poor, or who live in areas of poverty, will not have access to this technology even if they could afford it.

[jpak]

14. Not so

There are many many programs underway to bring solar/wind electricity to rural poor in the so-called Third World (and eliminate kerosene lamps).

A few minutes Googling about would change your perspective.

Low-cost lamps brighten the future of rural India

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0103/p01s02-wosc.html?s=t5

KHADAKWADI, INDIA – Until just three months ago, life in this humble village without electricity would come to a grinding halt after sunset. Inside his mud-and-clay home, Ganpat Jadhav's three children used to study in the dim, smoky glow of a kerosene lamp. And when their monthly fuel quota of four liters dried up in just a fortnight, they had to strain their eyes using the light from a cooking fire.

That all changed with the installation of low-cost, energy-efficient lamps that are powered entirely by the sun.

The innovative lights were installed by the Grameen Surya Bijli Foundation (GSBF), a Bombay-based nongovernmental organization focused on bringing light to rural India. Some 100,000 Indian villages do not yet have electricity. The GSBF lamps use LEDs - light emitting diodes - that are four times more efficient than an incandescent bulb. After a $55 installation cost, solar energy lights the lamp free of charge.

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Lighting a Path to Distribute Renewable Power to the Third World

http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue31/lightingapath.html

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A small nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., has set out to solve this facet of the world's energy equation. The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) doesn't just dispense photovoltaic power systems in poor countries. It's also shaping a model of entrepreneurial, self-financing power distribution that can work with any decentralized energy source.

In its early projects, SELF used funds donated by the World Bank, private philanthropies, or loans from development agencies, to buy home-size photovoltaic systems in bulk on the open market, usually enough for one small village at a time. It then sold the systems at slim mark-ups to villagers in developing areas, usually forming a partnership with an in-country nonprofit agency. Each participating household made a 20% down payment on a system and paid off the balance--usually between $300 and $400--over several years. The buyers' payments were pooled in a local revolving loan fund from which their neighbors could borrow to buy their own solar power gear. SELF used a portion of the mark-ups on the equipment to establish a local dealership and trained local residents as solar installers and technicians.

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Photovoltaics and LEDs will bring electrification to the world's poor - not the centralized nuclear/fossil grid.

[Boomer]

15. You're not addressing the same issues

Third-world poverty hasn't been built around oil-rich infrastructures; and the aid you describe involves development grants that don't exist in our country.

I'm talking about poor U.S. citizens who are heavily invested in a cheap oil infrastructure: cars that take them to work and school and stores, refrigerators, TVs, heating systems, lawn mowers, food trucked in from a 1,000 miles away, etc. etc.

Where are the grants to help these people buy an electric car or install solar? They don't exist. We need those programs NOW, not when our infrastructure is already collapsing.

[jpak]

17. What is your specific proposal(s)???

No snark intended - would appreciate your thoughts.

[Boomer]

20. New Deal for energy

IF we had a visionary like FDR, and an older form of democratic government now long gone, we could make this work. Changing our country's infrastructure takes a massive Federal effort, with cooperation at every level of city, state and local government, as well as stiff penalties for resistance to change.

This requires massive training and education for workers, grants or big tax breaks to small homeowners, and wide-spread propaganda to mobilize the population. It requires changes in building codes, a closing off of old technology and powerful incentives for acquiring the new technology.

We should approach this the way we approached fighting World War II, a collective effort for the good of the country.

Do you see even a ghost of that kind of mobilizing effort?

We no longer have a representative democracy; we are a corporate state. Unless the corporation gives its nod of approval, the state does not act.

A grass-roots movement could work -- if we had the time. But we do not have time. Within just a few decades the chaos and turmoil brought by global climate change will collide with the strains of supporting an oil-based infrastructure.

Things are going to get mighty ugly.

[jpak]

16. Also - puzzled by this statement

"If there is ever a solar energy solution that is allowed in my state (so far not), and I can find someone local to install it (so far not), then I can probably afford to jump on the new tech bandwagon."

What solar energy solution is "not allowed" in your state????

I don't think that's correct.

Even if your state has no solar rebate program, there's a 30% federal tax credit on domestic PV systems.

Also, there are affordable PV systems that any electrician can install in 30 minutes...

http://www.bluelinksolar.net/fmain.html

The Bluelink 480 system costs $4650 before any tax credit/rebate.

After the federal tax credit, the cost is $3255.

It will produce $80-120 of electricity each year.

If you replaced an older inefficient refrigerator ($1500 kWh per year) with a Energy Star fridge (<400 kWh per year, cost $500) would save you ~$100 a year.

Combined, a Bluelink 480 and a Energy Star fridge would cost (after tax credit) $3755.

Combined, they would save ~$180 a year in electricity costs.

If you paid it off over a 5 year period, your payments would be ~$70 a month - after that, you'd be running your fridge for free (and adding value to your home).

[suziedemocrat]

18. I also wondered what state "doesn't allow" solar power.

I believe we will hit a tipping point where energy change will come rapidly and as solar-panels and roof-top wind turbines, and geo-thermal heat-pumps, and structural insulated panels, etc. become more common, they will also become more affordable, and as they become more affordable they will become more common, and around and around until they are ubiquitous. I mean, even though I work in IT, I had never been on the "world wide web" in early 1996 (partly because I had been living in Europe maybe - I had used e-mail at work, just never surfed the web). I became a contractor and I worked for an Internet focused consulting firm, and I remember saying: "this will never catch on, look how long it takes to load a page, who has that much time?" Guess I was wrong, eh? Now even "blue collar, poor people" have computers and web access. People told Henry Ford that cars would never catch on because of the huge infrastructure they would require; paved roads, gas stations everywhere. People told Ted Turner that people don't want news 24 hours a day. But, they dreamed it and their dreams became our reality. Thanks God for the few dreamers he sprinkles in with the rest of us mortals!!

[Boomer]

19. West Virginia is not "solar friendly"

Our local electric utility would not even reply to my inquiries about solar energy, but according to the nearest solar energy installation company (in the next state), you can't hook solar up to the grid in West Virginia. You're welcome to install solar if you're going completely OFF the grid, but there's no (legal) way to work with your utility company.

Meanwhile, turns out we're the ONLY household in our city to even ASK the city engineer about the possibility of installing solar in our home. So there are no provisions in local building codes or permit procedures for such a venture. We'd be the first to even try to get such a request through the city bureaucracy, assuming we could find an out-of-state vendor to do the job.

Added to that, my home was recently zoned for "historic district" and we can't get any answers as to what possible restrictions that might have on visible solar panels. Again, nobody has ever raised the subject, so no one is willing to give us a definitive answer about whether we can or can't do this.

We've given up. I'm not about to sink thousands of dollars of my money into a project that may be stalled at every turn, in a neighborhood where I could never get my money back when I sold the house. Better to just pull up stakes and try again, in another state.

So, forgive my skepticism about the ease and speed in which this country could convert to solar energy. Such a transition requires government SUPPORT, if nothing else simply in changing the bureaucracy. And if that doesn't make you break out in a cold sweat, nothing will.

[suziedemocrat]

21. Don't worry, more progressive areas will probably lead the change.

And the rest of us will follow. That's the way it always happens. Plus, maybe since West Virginia is such a big coal state, no one is all that interested in solar. That figures. But the people leading the change are also the ones who pay the high prices for not-ready-for-prime-time technology. I'd give it 5 years. I know, we don't have time to wait, but some of us might have to. Hopefully we'll have a big enough change just in time to avoid the worst of the consequences of relying on big oil.

[Boomer]

25. Five years, eh?

I'd give it a lot longer than that.

A town not too far from here (in Virginia), just recently passed a water/sewage treatment bill that requires residents to install indoor plumbing instead of using outhouses. The bill provides $10,000 grants toward renovating houses, payable from any proceeds from the eventual sale of the house.

And many people voted AGAINST this bill.

So innovation, no matter how necessary, can be a very hard sell in more rural areas of the country.

If it takes nearly a 100 years to persuade people that indoor plumbing is a good thing, solar is going to take more than 5 years. 50 might be pushing it.

And, of course, we simply don't have 50 years to dawdle.

[jpak]

23. My apologies - ouch!

Does sound bad.

Any chance they will enact a net metering law in WV anytime soon?

[Boomer]

24. I certainly hope so.

But meanwhile this is another strike against staying in this area. I'm here because I have a good job, and we love our house, but the lack of green technology/sympathies is really galling.

My partner and I would love to move somewhere that would support our efforts, and we have our eye on Athens, Ohio. But there's that whole employment thang -- I love my job, it pays well, and I simply don't know if I could find equivalent employment in a much smaller town.

I make a much better computer programmer than I would an organic farmer. I just don't have a green thumb!