Progress

stoveguy2esw said:

now if the factories making these panels were located in WV and KY so the people who are living there could have the jobs created to replace the jobs lost by the conversion it would be perfect

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Coal went down due to the fracking boom and the huge drop in NG prices. Accordingly, coal is making a comeback with gas becoming more expensive. Renewables on the other hand are still a far cry from replacing fossil fuels for electricity generation. http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11391

begreen said:

It looks like the number of workers in the solar industry has surpassed those working in the coal industry. Based on local activity this growth continues unabated. The company that installed our system had 4 full time worker when they installed it a bit over 2 years ago. They now have 35 employees and are booked solid.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-has-more-solar-workers-than-coal-miners-2014-7

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Wind workers passed coal miners a few years ago. Solar is rapidly catching up to wind in terms of scale, with a higher growth rate and ultimate potential.

The growth of solar electricity has been a very smooth exponential function for more than a decade, and its recently been doubling every 2 years or so (globally). In contrast, agencies like EIA have been doing linear projections on the future growth of solar for more than a decade now, and revising them dramatically upward every year without comment.

A back of the envelope calculation: Since solar PV currently provides ~0.25% of worldwide energy (not just electricity), we would need only 8 doublings to get to 100%, this is only 16 years or ~2030.

Of course, nothing is ever that simple, if it were, around 2100 the earth would be a ball of solar panels expanding into space at the speed of light.

The question is, where does the exponential growth stop?

1) If growth is fueled by public subsidies, these can run out, or be capped (leading to linear growth). Example: Italy has more PV than the US, but growth is currently flatlined.

I claim that we are hitting the point where PV growth does not rely on subsidies. The European case pays folks $$ per year for years after installation, which creates an entrenched constituency that defends the subsidy, and makes the future budget look terrible and politically untenable.

I think the current growth of PV in the US and China are organic, and would continue w/o subsidies.

2) We can run out raw materials....fortunately silicon and aluminum are 27% and 7% of the earths crust, so no worries there.

3) We can run out of space. Nope. There is plenty of unused open space to install enough PV to run 100% of human needs.

4) We can run out of money.....world GDP is $71T/year. The last year of our 'growth to 100% and then stop scenario': we would need to add ~50% of world energy production (15 TW) in the form of PV during the last year. Assuming 25% capacity factor for PV, comes in as 30 TW(rating) of PV panels around year 2030. If we think installed PV prices settle down to $0.50/W by then, that would be $15T or 25% of world GDP.

Realistically, we would switch to linear growth for the last few years to avoid overbuilding factories and training too many workers (almost all of which would be obsolete when 100% was reached). In this scenario ~5% of world GDP for 5 years could finish the job, say, around 2035. Note that this 5% would be scored as 'growth' in the economy in the late 2020s, not a tax or cost.

5) Some folks claim we don't have enough energy to build out PV, reducing Al and Si from their oxide form is very energy intensive....Energy payback on solar PV is ~1 year at favorable sites. So making the panels in those last five years (enough to yield 50% of world energy) would require 10% of world energy for the final 5 years. Doesn't seem impossible at all (given that PV would already be providing >50% of world energy at that point).

So there you have it, solar PV can produce enough energy to power essentially 100% of the global economy, using a much smaller fraction of the earths surface than agriculture does currently, and can be built out via something called free enterprise using existing, familiar PV tech, by about 2035.

Of course, many holes can be poked in the above. But the point is that if/when solar PV gets cheaper than fossil fuels (currently true in nearly all markets when external costs are factored, many markets even when they are not) then free enterprise will drive solar growth that leads lead to jobs and economic activity and growth. Realizing this transition will require new utility business models, new grid infrastructure, new long-range grid transmission, heat pumps for home heat and DHW, cheap electric storage, electrified rail for cargo and EVs for residential use. But all the necessary tech exists and is currently under intensive development, mostly by industry leaders that see the future coming.

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For the record, 20-30 year energy use projections by the EIA and the oil majors assume a nearly linear growth model for solar. Or an exponential growth followed by a flatline at a penetration level they simply make up. Our current politicians are happily battling over setting CO2 thresholds to meet in 2030 or 2050 without reference to the emerging solar reality being created by private enterprise. Mostly they will just need to get out of the way.

Always impressed with your posts, woodgeek. Very thoughtful, and very informed.

begreen said:

Good plan but distribution and storage of solar energy is still a major roadblock to 100% adoption. Half the world is either in the dark or in winter all the time. Would fusion energy may have more promise with the same amount of development and finances?

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Given that energy positive fusion energy has not yet been demonstrated after 50 years of effort, I would say its too late, even if it is technically possible.

Solar PV is mostly done with 'development', its currently in an exponential rollout, and it looks to a lot of folks like printing money. All that we have to do now is write the relevant permits, laws and adapt existing tech to it. Even if there was another suitable tech (like non-Silicon PV) that had the potential to generate all the needed energy at a competing price, PV is looking pretty hard to catch.

US Milestones/Timeline:

Phase #1: Extend current residential and utility-scale grid-tie until PV output hits ~100% of daytime demand. Use existing business model, and set up curtailment agreements with industrial PV generators, to allow somewhat higher penetration. No storage is required.
When: This happens when solar hits 20% electrical energy penetration. In CA, energy penetration is currently running about 5%, it should hit this limit in two doublings, or about 4 years. Other US markets will follow, many other states have current penetration rates above 0.5%, they will all get there in three more doublings, or within 12 years from now.

Phase #2: In this phase, grid storage gets deployed, consisting of utility owned equipment and equipment managed by industrial scale PV farms. Residential use gets time of day rates, with cheaper rates during the day, and night rates capped at day rates + storage costs. Once daytime rates + storage compete with fossil electricity (date??) PV penetration continues to expand toward 100% of electricity, which takes 2.5 more doublings or 5 more years. During this time folks may build affordable residential off-grid systems with grid backup, but economies of scale may allow grid power to be cheaper. CA is experimenting with grid storage now, as it will need it in 4 years.

Storage systems have about 10 years to get affordable before Phase 1 is done in much of the US. Mr. Musk expects Li-ion EV batteries to be $100/kWh capacity by then, or 5-10 cents per kWh per cycle. He is also planning on building stationary power systems. Different (cheaper) chemistries, or flow battery tech, presumably is possible, unconstrained by volume and weight. If storage does get to pennies/kWh/cycle within 10 years, then there is no reason for PV's exponential growth to slow. It will keep going to 100% electricity, getting there in many markets by the late 2020s.

Phase #3: Electrify much of the remaining fossil powered economy. Current trends in the use of Heat Pumps for space heating and DHW will have advanced over the next 15 years to swell electircity demand (met by solar) at the expense of residential gas and propane consumption. EVs and PHEVs (together, called 'plug ins') will likely cross 1% of US car sales later this year. With improved 2nd generation versions of the Volt and Leaf due in the next couple years, as well as the low cost Tesla Model 3 and 16 other current models for sale, 'plug ins' could continue their current exponential growth (doubling every two years also), reaching about 50% of sales and 10% of the car fleet in 15 years. After 50% of sales are crossed, 50% of the car fleet will be plug-ins five years later, i.e. by 2035. US total gasoline consumption peaked more than 7 years ago, in 2007. It is currently down about 5% since then. With increases in mpg standards and EVs rolling into the fleet, the historical US gasoline peak may never be exceeded.

Where's a super-conductor power grid when you need one? The wind is blowing, the sun is shining, or there is water flowing somewhere, most of the time.

Flipping through an antique Popular Science a few weeks ago after googling the term hydroelectric power, I came across a pre-world war II concept of harnessing the tides and using the excess energy to move sea water to a higher elevation so that it could fall through a hydroelectric generator during the stack tide events.

begreen said:

Optimistic for sure. Our railroads and big trucks are probably not going to run on sun and batteries any time soon though.

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Well maybe not directly but we may harness the sun to produce algae- and other biomass-based biofuels to fuel these vehicles.

The point was that I do not see ANY major technical impediments to going to a nearly 100% PV+wind (Renewable Energy) powered economy. All the needed technology is currently in mass production, and most of it is already demonstrated at low enough cost (with the exception of grid storage, which is getting close) to make the conversion negative cost to the economy as a whole.

to try to take a more sober view....

Phase #1

The near exponential rollout of RE to 20-30% electricity nationwide in the near future is basically a lock, with low cost SiPV panels and wind turbines being mature tech that companies can just buy today in any desired volume and generate ROI. Utility business models will change during this period, a reasonable guess is that many will look like current California utility models.... profitable grid-tie deals in effect and time of use (TOU) rates becoming almost universal. Overall kWh rates will likely stay the same or fall....on-shore wind penetration has been found to correlate with rate reductions, and cheap PV, aligned as it is with peak demand periods (due to AC), seem likely to do the same or better.

As peak PV output approaches 100% midday demand, TOU rates midday may start to drop, cutting into grid-tie profits for PV owners and grid operators (who earn their 'transmission fee' per kWh for free). At this point predictions get more murky....

Low TOU rates midday would shift a lot of loads to midday, propping the rates up somewhat and allowing higher PV penetration.

Late PV adopters can opt to put panels facing E and W, to make $$ when others arrays are not at peak, but BG is correct, without grid storage, the PV industry sees a wall at 20-25% electricity penetration, and can't get beyond 50% or so even with E/W arrays and load shifting to midday and curtailment.

Since all this tech, and these business models already exist, at low cost, i don't see a problem with the exponential growth of PV continuing up to this 'stable point', where PV is scary cheap compared to today, but the grid-tie TOU rates you get selling the electricity are low enough to make it look like a marginal investment. Simple math shows CA hitting this wall in a few years, much of the rest of the country in 10 or so years. Places like NJ and MA that are PV early adopters due to subsidies....will get there a couple years ahead of their neighboring states. States that try to ban RE development....could hold out a long time perhaps, but even they may end up buying cheap power midday from neighbors.

But absent cheap storage...after hitting the wall at 20-25% penetration, PV growth would slow and only asymptotically approach a 40-50% figure as folks retool their appliances for midday TOU, E/W PV arrays get filled in, etc.

All the above is serious as a heart attack. Every utility operator in the US currently takes the above as a given, with the penny having dropped in the last couple years. It is the accepted part of the coming PV revolution and it ends at 25-50% solar penetration.

Phase #2

This projected endpoint, in play in CA within 5 years, and the rest of the US within 15 creates a HUGE market opportunity to buy and store cheap PV power midday, and sell it back to the grid at nighttime rates (set by FF+wind+hydro prices in 2025). This market does not currently exist anywhere on the planet, but in 10 years it will exist nearly everywhere. If nighttime power stays cheap (go wind and frack gas), and/or PV daytime rates stay high (entrenched constituency, as in germany) or storage stays too expensive (tech development hurdle) then Phase 2 (going to 100% RE eletricity with grid storage) does not happen. Conversely, any sort of carbon tax or storage subsidy would likely propel it forward.

This is a glass half full/ half empty thing. It depends on your guesses about the FF energy market, and AGW public policy sphere 10-15 years hence. I am an optimist, in that I think public policy and high-ish FF prices will drive this forward, but its still a WAG.

Phase #3

This is really about the broad adoption of increasingly efficient electrical appliances (including vehicles) to replace much less efficient FF powered equipment. Frankly, in a world with 15 cent/kWh elec and $100 oil, this transition has been moving forward since 2007. Seven years after the oil price signal, there are 19 different models of plug in cars available for sale in the US, from all the major automakers and one flashy startup. The growth of these cars sales is also exponential, currently near 1% market share and seems to have no reason to stop until significant penetration occurs, provided existing successful products can be incrementally improved. The current $7500 fed rebate runs out with maybe a million plug-ins on the road (having cost $7.5B to taxpayers). Will it be extended? Will plug-ins get cheap enough to survive the loss of the rebate in the US? Answer: the global market is as big as the US one. Right now 40% (!) of new cars sold in Norway are plug-ins, due to generous subsidies and tax incentives. Even if the US market sneezes, the global EV market will not catch a cold.

Simple projections show significant market penetration for sales in 5-10 years. An 11 year median age car fleet will take another decade to roll over. So EVs will take nibbles out of US petroleum usage in the 2020s and bites in the 2030s. This EV revolution happens independently and in parallel with the PV revolution, and bears fruit on a slightly later timeframe, just when (under favorable grid storage conditions) there is a lot of extra RE ready to be soaked up.

Of course we will still have FF-fueled jets, maybe diesel powered heavy trucks, freight trains and farm equipment (or maybe not), but the above scenario bodes well for AGW issues despite those smaller end uses. As well as benefits for US energy security, balance of trade, and oil scarcity concerns (10 or 20 years hence).

Note that neither the PV nor EV revolutions requires a political revolution. IMHO I happen to think that we are gearing up for a major shift in US politics, driven by the millenials...gay marriage and pot legalization are just the (unthinkable 10 years ago) opening shots. However that shakes out, I think the younger generation will ram home these virtuous cycles with favorable public policy, speeding these two revolutions forward. Even if they don't, I think the PV and EV revolutions are baked in at this point, simply because there is money to be made.

begreen said:

What I suspect will happen will be more at the state and community level. Our federal system is gridlocked. Change is going to have to happen from the grassroots up. Hopefully these communities will network and become stronger.

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Geez... you're starting to sound like a true Republican, begreen!

A distributed government with very minimal oversight at the federal level, is a founding principal of the Republican party. Unfortunately, almost everyone running that party today seems to forget that fact, once they reach a position of power.

begreen said:

Wish you were my neighbor Woodgeek, I'd have you over frequently for some long chats. I like the vision and I agree there is a shift in politics coming about, but I doubt it is going to be smooth. Desperate men will do desperate things to hold onto power. With the current wealth inequality and total ownership of media, they are not going to let go easily. Then we need to factor in the disruption of society by rising waters, stronger storms, crop shortages and drought. What I suspect will happen will be more at the state and community level. Our federal system is gridlocked. Change is going to have to happen from the grassroots up. Hopefully these communities will network and become stronger.

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Ditto. If I thought immediate govt action was required to overcome the challenges the future has in store for us, I would not be as optimistic as I am.

I have long asserted that the good deeds of the righteous are never enough to make the world work...there aren't enough of them...its the good deeds of the wicked and the greedy (myself included) that put us just over the top.

As for politics, I think both parties are in for some surprises re what the young folks are going to want. I was getting tired of the same old 'politics of the 60s' for my entire life (I'm 46). I'll just be relieved to get some new issues debated.

My kids now refer to the period of my youth simply as 'the 1900s'.

if ever a reason to bring back the can here it is. a bunch of guys who agree with every thing said. . great points made from one side, easy to enjoy the company of ones neighbor you always agree with. I've enjoyed the subject discussion here but then comes the bs. a mod brings in all the other stuff he thinks go with it. in my opinion, turns it political. not allowed here or so I've been told. enjoy your discussion, glad you all agree with each other

Sorry Doug, I brought up politics, but did try to keep it to a minimum.

I'm just one grid user with a grid-tie PV system that is making me an un-customer of utility power. My utility is fixed on "coal is forever." Kind of like the star struck potential partner who thinks diamonds are forever and the other half of the partnership already has moved on.

Doug MacIVER said:

if ever a reason to bring back the can here it is. a bunch of guys who agree with every thing said. . great points made from one side, easy to enjoy the company of ones neighbor you always agree with. I've enjoyed the subject discussion here...

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What's your idea of 'progress' in the Green Room?

as I said I enjoyed the read, points well made and sensible. as I've also said in other threads, i'm not a big subsidy fan. if the shoe industry was propped up like solar and wind I'd still have customers. i have a great dislike for the cape wind subsidy which amounts to $.1825 kw to the rate payer. that is before distribution charges. they also can raise this after one to two years. how'd you like that with your choice in home heat and cooling. let them survive on what the competition dictates and live on the tax breaks I get in my business. that is where politics arrive. your going to pay for it because(fill in the blank)

then bg adds the other, sea level(minimal),stronger storms( check ace and tornado #'s),crop shortages( checkout continual rise in production on any chart), drought(checkout connection to pdo, west coast assumption here). change from grass roots, alot the change on this topic is heavily gov't dictated.

great respect for those trying on their own to improve what they perceive as a threat, me I usually look at the economic gain in this household. electric car here used when more affordable, led lights now that they are cheaper, same thought on solar. of course the road tax will be coming our way, can't be having you guys using the roads for free have a day and even a better weekend