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Sun Volt Solar

earth, the final frontier

Clean Energy, Clean Environment

We are at a cross roads in human history, we can choose to continue on as we have been, or we can make a change to improve our future and quite possibly the future for several generations to come. We are here to promote energy independence, a better environment, a secure future and a higher return on investment for your hard earned dollar. It is what I believe in, it is why I am in the solar business.

The New York Solar Industry and Jobs act (S. 7093b A. 11004a)

11 Jul 10 | Commentary, Incentives

I have stated before, renewable energy needs to compete head to head with fossil fuels based energy in order for it to thrive.  At the current time, that does not seem likely because of all the corporate welfare being doled out to the big oil, coal and gas companies in the form of tax breaks and subsides.  Those subsides are a hidden cost that we all pay in our income taxes.  The real way to get people to reduce or stop using oil is to raise the prices.  Cutting subsides would do exactly that and lead to reduced government spending at the same time.

In New York State, a move is afoot to increase the RPS standard by increasing an already existing surcharge on all publicly traded NY based electric utilities.  As the report indicates, it would cost the average utility costumer about $0.39 per month additional.  For this amount, it is estimated that 22,000 jobs will be created in the solar power sector and $20 billion in additional economic output will be realized.

I normally cast a jaundiced eye toward job creation claims in pending legislation, those claims are usually highly optimistic and never fully pan out.  Even so, if this proposed bill produced even half the estimated jobs, it would be a good thing.  Further still, when all the publicly traded utility companies in NY ban together in strong opposition of said bill, it is worthy of a second look.  Things that highly agitate the utility companies are likely good for the consumer.

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11 Jul 10 | Commentary, Incentives | Comment (1)

Gulf oil spill and our energy future

30 May 10 | Commentary

There is not much that I can add to the online discussion about the Gulf oil spill.  It is disheartening to say the lest, the oil spill will have environmental impacts for decades if not generations.  I have been gathering information from several websites, the most informed from an oil production standpoint seems to be The Oil Drum.  There, based on pressures and volumes of mud used in the failed top kill attempt, they have estimated the oil flow to be about 17,000 barrels (715,000 gallons) per day.  On this, the thirtieth day of May, that equates to 680,000 barrels (28,560,000 gallons) of oil spilled.  Add to this the hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemical dispersant and the picture in the Gulf becomes bleak to put it mildly.

In all likelihood, this will continue until the relief well is completed in August.  By that time 1.7 million barrels (71.4 million gallons) of oil will have been released into the Gulf.

There are a few things to keep in mind:

  1. Oil breaks down naturally in sunlight into mostly CO2 and water.  A great majority of oil formed in the past eons has seeped to the surface to evaporate and be broken down by the sun.  Only oil trapped under impermeable rock has formed reservoirs.  This is less than 5% of the hydrocarbons created.  The oil released into the Gulf will go the same course, over time.
  2. The US alone burns 19,498,000 barrels of oil per day.  To give some perspective 29 Gulf oil spills will be needed to equal one day of oil consumption in the US.
  3. An active Hurricane season may hasten the breaking up of oil globs and cause it to break down faster, so long as the storm surge does not push large amounts of oil inland and contaminate shore side marshes.

The bad news is that as the oil breaks down, especially the underwater oil plumes, they will rob oxygen from the surrounding water creating huge dead zones.  There will also be deposits of residual chemicals such as sulfur and heavy compounds that will settle to the bottom of the sea.  No one really knows what effect the chemical dispersant will have on life in the Gulf, but one can hazard a guess that it will not be positive.

So, what effects has this had on the energy discussion in the US?  Sadly, not much.  There are a number of outraged persons demonstrating in front of BP gas stations, that is true.  Unfortunately, unless members of congress can be swayed, nothing bad will happen to BP or the oil industry in general.  I would expect the oil lobby to contribute handily to many re-election campaigns this year, ’cause thats how business is done.  Once the spill is capped, everyone will calm down and it will be business as usual for the oil business.

As an energy and environmentally conscious individual, all I can do is turn inward and make sure that I and my family do everything possible to reduce our own use of fossil fuels.  That is all any of us can do.

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30 May 10 | Commentary | Comments (0)

Energy and the Federal Budget

02 Feb 10 | Commentary

I remain convinced that subsidizing oil, gas and coal companies to produce cheap energy is the wrong thing to do.  The President seems to agree with this position as the 2011 budget has removed about 2.7 Billion Dollars in subsides for those sectors.  Some people disagree:

This is the industry pulling in billions of dollars in profits. It is best placed to come up with ways to reduce the carbon intensity of fossil fuels and discover breakthrough technologies.

Because the fossil fuel industry has a record of clean energy investment, oh no wait… Because they strongly believe in climate change, thus have every intention of reducing their own product demand, no, no… Okay, I got it, they have been strongly advocating for the renewable energy sector in congress… Hmmm, I can’t really place my finger on it, perhaps because it is a bunch of BS.

The fossil fuels industries are the last group that a) need a subside, the first sentence from the block quote ably demonstrates that, and b) will do anything to hurt their market share in the US energy market.

I have opined here before, I’d like to see all energy subsides, including solar and wind go away.  Let everyone compete in an open market place, let consumers know the real value of the energy they are using.  This would greatly increase conservation efforts and spur on the development of renewable energy.

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02 Feb 10 | Commentary | Comments (0)

A right to the Sun?

04 Jan 10 | Commentary

Solar Energy Industries Association thinks so. They are sponsoring an online petition called the Solar Bill of Rights© to call attention to various law makers throughout the country to:

We declare these rights not on behalf of our companies, but on behalf of our customers and our country. We seek no more than the freedom to compete on equal terms and no more than the liberty for consumers to choose the energy source they think best.

Here is a brief list of items this petition hopes to define:

  1. Americans have the right to put solar on their homes or businesses
  2. Americans have the right to connect their solar energy system to the grid with uniform national standards
  3. Americans have the right to Net Meter and be compensated at the very least with full retail electricity rates
  4. The solar industry has the right to a fair competitive environment
  5. The solar industry has the right to equal access to public lands
  6. The solar industry has the right to sell its power across a new, 21st century transmission grid
  7. Americans have the right to buy solar electricity from their utility
  8. Americans have the right to – and should expect – the highest ethical treatment from the solar industry

Sounds good to me. Items 1,2, 4, and 8 are of particular interest to me. Some sort of national solar policy might better define how to accomplish those.

Item 2 is tricky because regulation of the utility companies has been a states issue. Many, if not most states still regulate power companies in the “Natural Monopoly” system. That is to say the state and the utility company recognize the utility is a monoploy and regulate it in such a way the the public benifits (mostly) from the existance of the utility company. Each state has somewhat different circumstances due to there location and the various conditions on the ground. Putting the feds in charge would likely create many new problems and layers of bureaucracy. Which, I don’t know about you, but I like to keep my bureaucracies on the small side.

Via: Clean Technica

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04 Jan 10 | Commentary | Comments (0)

Carbon Dioxide; cap and trade, sequestration, climate change

02 Dec 09 | Commentary

I have been reading with interest the debate on the evils of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and various proposed methods to reduce its presence in the atmosphere.

First a few basic facts:

  1. Carbon Dioxide is a product of combustion, all combustion of any organic material creates heat and carbon dioxide.
  2. Carbon Dioxide is a know green house gas.  It traps heat in the atmosphere by reflecting long wavelength IR back to the surface of the earth
  3. Carbon Dioxide is an extremely resilient molecule because of the energy in the carbon – oxygen bond.  It does not readily break down in the atmosphere as other green house gases do.  The best proven way to break it down is by plants using photosynthesis.
Carbon Dioxide Molecule

Carbon Dioxide Molecule

The only sure fire method of reducing carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere is to reduce combustion.  Some fuels produce less CO2 than others, say natural gas over coal, for example.  However, the differences are not that significant, burning natural gas still releases tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each second of every day.

Cap and trade is a polution reducing scheme that was put in place by the first President Bush to reduce acid rain.  It was designed to reduce Nitric and Sulfur emissions from various industry types, most notably electric generating facilities.  Since both nitrogen and sulfur, particularly sulfur, can be remove from the combustion process before the fuel is burned and after with smoke stack scrubbers, it was a good incentive for polluters to clean up their act.  CO2 on the other hand, cannot be removed from the combustion process, it is like saying you are going to remove the wet from water.  Cap and trade would then have to be based on the type of fuel burned, since natural gas produces less CO2 per BTU than coal or oil, most electrical power plant operators would be forced to convert to natural gas.  That would be hugely expensive and in the long run, net little result in reduction of CO2.

CO2 sequestration is an even sillier idea.  In order to store CO2 in the ground, it would have to be liquified, which requires reducing the temperature to -70° F and keeping it there.  Underground temperatures at oil well depth are generally 150° F and higher, thus it would be difficult to keep the CO2 underground.  A leak from a CO2 storage facility could potentially displace the Oxygen in the surrounding area, creating a hazard for those living and working nearby.  Further, storing vast quantities of CO2 under ground could lead to things like atmospheric Oxygen depletion.

And to what end?  The roll that CO2 is playing in climate change is still debatable.  The best way to reduce CO2 and all other emissions that come from burning fossil fuels is to install renewable energy systems.  Wind, Solar, Hydro, Wave power and even Nuclear Power (although nuclear is not a renewable energy source) have zero CO2 emissions.  Zero emissions is far better than any “clean coal” technology (which doesn’t exist), Cap and trade schemes for CO2 (which will not work) and CO2 squestration (which seems dangerous).

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02 Dec 09 | Commentary | Comments (0)

Photovoltaic panels manufactured at Federal Penitentiary

18 Nov 09 | Commentary, Solar Electric

I had a very interesting conversation with a gentleman from the Department of Justice the other day. He was describing to me how the inmates at Otisville Federal Corrections Institute manufactured 24 MW of PV panels last year.  These panels cannot be sold to the general public for private use, however, they can be transferred to other branches of the government for installation at federal buildings and facilities.

In 2010, the Federal Correction Institute, Sheridan, Oregon is coming on line with a 50 MW/year PV panel manufacturing facility.  What this all means is there will likely be several large PV arrays coming on line at various federal facilities, such as penitentiaries, national parks, military bases, office buildings and the like.  There are several positives to this:

  1. It gives the inmates a marketable manufacturing skill which will be needed as more companies seek to manufacture PV products.
  2. Inmates are being productive.
  3. The government gets inexpensive PV panels for installation on its facilities.
  4. The money spent manufacturing PV panels is offset by the savings in electrical energy since the panels stay within the federal government system.
  5. It stimulates the economy because the balance of system components are still supplied from outside non-government sources.
  6. It reduces the overall energy consumption in the US, which is good for many reasons; lowers pollution, fosters energy independence, enhances national security, etc.

This is a smart use of taxpayer dollars.

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18 Nov 09 | Commentary, Solar Electric | Comments (0)

This is Solar Power, Part III

04 Nov 09 | Commentary, Environment

A review off all the energy systems powered by our sun, either directly or indirectly.

Part III: Liquid Bio Fuels

Renewable: Yes
Environmental impact: Moderate
EROEI: Low
Cost: Low to High
Maintenance cost: Depends

Corn Field prior to harvest

Corn Field prior to harvest

Bio fuels and bio mass can be anything that was grown for the purpose of conversion to a fuel.  A wood lot use to provide fuel for a wood stove to heat a house can be considered bio fuel.  For our purposes, however, I will limit the discussion to liquid fuels mostly used to replace fossil fuels in the transportation sector.

Plants convert sunlight and CO2 into starches, complex sugars and O2 via photosynthesis.  The process of photosynthesis is not fully understood and has not been replicated in a non-living organism.  Some plants, such as corn, sugar beets, sugar cane are good feed stocks for ethanol production.  Other plants, such as soy, corn, palms are good feed stocks for vegetable oils, which can be burned in their raw state, or turned into bio diesel.

The advantages are mainly that these fuels can be used in existing cars and trucks with little or no modifications.  They are lower carbon emitters than conventional fossil fuels because the feed stocks remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  They also produce less non-carbon pollutants such as sulfuric acid, sulfuric oxides and nitric oxides.

The intrinsic value of liquid fuels is high for the transportation sector.  Liquid fuels are easily shipped, stored and transferred between storage and use facilities using existing infrastructure.  Liquid fuels are the densest form of conventional energy and are easily converted to both heat and mechanical motion.  For that reason, many are viable even with low EROEI numbers.  It would be extremely difficult to power a car or truck on solid bio mass such as wood or switch grass.

The down side, especially for corn based ethanol is it increases food costs for two reasons.  Corn used as feed grain is diverted to the energy sector, and farmers who might grow wheat or some other crop end up growing corn because the government subsides are better.

There is also some very serious questions about bio fuels being able to meet the demands for especially the transportation sector

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04 Nov 09 | Commentary, Environment | Comments (0)

The role of utility companies in a green economy

16 Aug 09 | Commentary, General, Solar Electric

I have been watching with interest the ongoing petition by our local utility company, Central Hudson Gas and Electric for rate increases.  This is the second request in as many years.

They have been not making as much money as in previous years.  Meanwhile, Xcel Energy has come right out and said it:  Customers who have PV panels installed are getting a free ride.  They would like to charge those customers for energy that they might use, which in the face of things sounds a little off to me.

So what is the role of a utility company for those customers who choose to install renewable energy systems?  Are they a giant battery, ready to give and receive power at the whim of a customer?  Can they charge for goods and services that might or might not be used?

This leads to several questions about the way we distribute electrical power in this country.  The customer who invests thousands of dollars to generate a portion of his own power should not be penalized because he doesn’t use utility company power.  On the other hand, utility companies incur significant expenses maintaining the distribution grid.

Then there are the power generators supplying the grid.  Those companies have to anticipate load demand and start or stop entire generating facilities to meet that demand.  Power plants cannot be simply switched on and off, it takes a good deal of effort to get some of these facilities on line.

Clearly some type of working arrangement needs to be implimented between small renewable energy generators and traditional utility companies.  Most of the PV systems being installed today, at least in my area, are grid interactive.  Take the grid away and the system shuts down.  Perhaps some small fee for storing the renewable enery system’s excess kWh until they are used would be fair.  After all, if not grid interactive, the other option is to install a battery storage system, which is expensive and maintenance intensive.   The utility grid is not free for the utility company, they should get something for providing a storage service.

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16 Aug 09 | Commentary, General, Solar Electric | Comments (0)

This is Solar Power, Part II

02 Aug 09 | Commentary, Micro Hydro Power

A review off all the energy systems powered by our sun, either directly or indirectly.

Part II: Hydro Energy

Renewable: Yes
Environmental impact: Moderate to high
EIER: High
Cost: Moderate
Maintenance cost: Low

Hydro energy occurs when the sun heats the earth’s surface causing water to vaporize.  The water vapor is lighter than air so it rises.  Water consists of H2O, which has a standard atomic weight of  18 versus air which is about 80% nitrogen (N2) and 20% oxygen (O2) and have a standard atomic weights of 28 and 32 respectively.

When water vapor rises in the atmosphere, it begins to cool and condense into water droplets.  These droplets form clouds which then become saturated and precipitate.  The water vapor can travel hundreds or thousands of miles from its evaporation point to its precipitation point.  Water falling on higher elevation flows down to sea level (or below) releasing potential energy along the way.

Water wheels and other water powered mechanical devices have been used for over 6,000 years to grind grains, make paper, pump water, etc.  World production of hydro-electric power totaled 2341.1 TWh in 2008.

This is a picture of a small hydro generating station owned by Central Hudson Gas and Electric company located on the Rondout Creek in High Falls, NY.  It was constructed in 1986 and generates approximately 3.2 MW of electricity.  This is enough power to supply about 1400 homes in the Hudson Valley Region.

High Falls hydro generating house

High Falls hydro generating house

The generating house is to the right, the penstock starts at the weir gate (upper middle of picture between the trees) and goes underground to the generating house where it spins the generating equipment.

Picture of the trash grate over weir gate at entrance of penstock.  The trash grate keeps junk from getting into the penstock and turbines causing damage.  Penstock is a fancy name for pipe.

trash grate High Falls, NY hydro power plant

Trash grate High Falls, NY hydro power plant

The water then outflows from the base of the generating house and returns to the creek.

High Falls NY hydroplant outfolw

High Falls NY hydro plant outflow

The energy converted by a hydro-electric plant depends on the height of the water above the generator, commonly called head, and the rate of flow.  Higher head means more pressure and higher generator speeds which translates to voltage.  Higher flow means stronger more reliable mechanical energy which translates to current.

High Falls, NY hydro dam

High Falls, NY hydro dam

This site has been generating power of one form or another for nearly three hundred years.  Prior to this hydro electric plant, it was the sight of several mills.

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02 Aug 09 | Commentary, Micro Hydro Power | Comment (1)

Oil 101

11 Jul 09 | Commentary, Environment, General, General Business

Back in the mid 1980’s, there was a book that was all the rage called The Art of War, which had been written in china around the 6th century BCE by Sun Tzu.  It might aptly be subtitled “Common sense for the military strategist.”  One of the chapters deals with knowing your rival better than you know yourself.

oil-101

To that end I purchased a book called Oil 101.  It is, indeed, a fascinating book that details the complexity of our current energy structure.  The book is an excellent primer on the oil industry, it is well written and easy to understand.  Anyone who drives a car, uses oil to heat their house, uses plastics or any other petroleum product should read this book.  That is to say, everybody should read this book.

What strikes me is how much effort is put into exploration, extraction, refining and shipping.  We take all of this for granted in this country, but any failure in any one of those steps would create a disaster of epic proportions.  Think Hurricane Katrina for the whole county.  The fact that so much of this energy depends on technology, specialized methods, and huge capital outlays should be at least slightly alarming.  That, and our entire economy is build on the availability of cheap energy.  As we have just seen, economic down turns can really put a damper on large cumbersome corporate operations.

It may seem natural to be angry at the oil companies when gas is $4.25 a gallon and electricity is $.20 a kWh.  However, when I read about all of the work and investment these companies have to make, all of the variables from bad weather to bad governments they have to deal with, it also makes me respect the oil companies for all that they do.

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11 Jul 09 | Commentary, Environment, General, General Business | Comments (0)
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