Costing a Green Future

Abound Solar is setting up manufacturing facilities with loan guarantees provided by the federal government. The Recovery Act provides funding for construction to several firms which produce solar cells on a large scale. According to the governor of Colorado, the manufacturing plant locations are in Lakewood, Colorado as well as Tipton, Indiana. The Tipton site uses a factory which was originally built to supply parts for Chrysler vehicles.

Abound Solar claims several important efficiency improvements over rival firms which produce solar panels. According to Abound, these panels will last for 25 years and are considered stable. The company claims low costs compared to traditional silicon solar panels, helping the solar panels to be competitive with other types of energy production. Abound claims that these solar panels have an energy payback period of five months. Energy payback periods are different from economic payback periods. An energy payback period for a solar panel is the amount of time the solar panel needs to generate energy to return the amount of power used to construct the solar panel in the factory. Abound claims that silicon solar modules have an energy payback period which is about five times longer, which is around twenty five months. These modules use cadmium telluride coated over glass panels in their construction.

Indiana is supporting construction of the manufacturing plants and is providing tax benefits to Abound. The state of Indiana is offering up to $11.85 million in tax credits and $250,000 in training grants for the facility at the Tipton location. The county of Tipton is also offering additional tax abatement benefits.

This project receives $400 million in loan guarantees from the federal government, as well as any additional tax benefits which the plant is eligible to receive. Senator Mark Udall claims that this project will initially produce panels which provide 840 megawatts of power each year, and potentially 1100 megawatts in the future.

Cadmium telluride has major advantages over silicon solar panels. According to the Department of Energy,
cadmium telluride has a bandgap which closely matches the spectrum of the sun, so panels constructed with cadmium telluride are much more efficient than other materials. EERE claims it can reach an efficiency of 16.5%, and Abound claims up to 13% efficiency with potential to improve in the future. EERE also states that cadmium telluride solar cells are lower cost than traditional silicon solar cells.

Carbon capture using solar power can now potentially remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, using a process, STEP, which the scientist Dr. Stuart Licht describes in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. This journal isn’t available to the public but supporting information is available under open access.

Lithium is not the only material which can be used in these cells. According to Green Car Congress, the lithium carbonate cell used in this process provided a more energy efficient alternative to cells which use sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate. The problem is that sodium and potassium are extremely common and cheap, and lithium is much more rare. There is also high demand for lithium because of its other uses, which include batteries, renewable energy systems, and medicine. Lithium deposits in Afghanistan provide a potential source of this metal in the future.

There are really two main questions here. If this process is scaled up enough it can reduce carbon dioxide to preindustrial levels, eliminating the global warming issue. The question is how much lithium would be necessary to accomplish this task. It is also not clear whether the cells using the other materials are effective at removing carbon dioxide and just less effective than lithium, or whether the other cells were not able to remove carbon dioxide from the air at all. Because sodium and potassium are not subject to the same supply constraints, less efficient cells which still remove carbon dioxide from the air may be a cheaper alternative and conserve a metal which is available in limited supply.

As with the other carbon capture methods, this process also extracts carbon which can be recycled for fuel use at a later time. The carbon dioxide will be emitted when this material is burned, although the electrolysis cells can simply capture it again. The electrolysis cells draw their own power from solar cells, so this process does not require carbon sources to operate, although mining the metals and manufacturing the cells themselves will likely use carbon dioxide. The tradeoff is worthwhile if the cells are durable and stable for a long time, and stability of the cells is an issue with this process.

Algae does not require lithium or any other rare metals, and neither do trees. Algae also does not have the other impacts such as mining damage to the environment. The main issue with algae carbon sequestration is the space it requires. A combination of several methods should be an effective method to deal with lithium supply issues. Also, a physical chemist knows how to make many types of electrolysis cells so there is good potential for substituting alternative metals. The cell also uses Gallium and Indium, which are rare and expensive, as well as Arsenic. Lithium is not a rare earth metal, although batteries that use lithium do use it along with rare earth metals.

Algae already have a vital role in the ecosystem since they can produce oxygen from carbon dioxide in the air through photosynthesis. Algae at a power plant provide the flexibility to capture carbon at the source and reduce the carbon emissions before these emissions reach the atmosphere. As with other plant materials, algae can also be dried or converted into methane to store fuel for later usage.

Researchers at Indiana University are using algae to capture carbon emissions from a power plant on the campus. According to the university, the power plant uses coal, and the more expensive natural gas when its budget allows. Using algae reduces the impact of the fossil fuel usage, although completely capturing all of the carbon from a standard coal plant would require more than a hundred acres of algae ponds. Obviously this is not feasible in many locations, although a power plant at a university in a rural location might be able to successfully set up this type of system.

The University of Illinois is also working on demonstration projects to use algae for carbon capture. According to the University of Illinois, the main advantage of algae is their rapid growth, which requires them to absorb carbon much faster than other plants. Trees and bushes can not match an algal reproduction rate that can double the size of a clump of algae in four hours. The flue gas from the coal plant does first have to be scrubbed of pollutants such as sulfur dioxide which can kill algae, and reduced in temperature to a level that the algae can handle.

Projects in Southern California provide a demonstration of carbon sequestration using algae. A joint project from several research institutions in San Diego, including UCSD, SDSU, and associated research labs, are setting up carbon capture projects in the deserts of Imperial Valley. The algae ponds will require a large amount of space, and the coastal region of San Diego is densely populated and most nearby cities have high land values, but some nearby desert areas are nearly empty because of the extreme heat. Some of the desert regions in this area are part of national parks or military facilities, so the approval process for setting up algae ponds may not always move quickly.

Buildings consume large amounts of heat every year to ensure that their internal temperature stays at a comfortable level. Air conditioning cools down rooms, while heaters increase the temperature. Ice and water based systems are well known to provide cooling effects and many building designs already incorporate their use. Designing a heating system which can operate without using additional fuels is more difficult.

Heating systems can be operated using solar power. The main issue with solar power is that in extreme latitudes near the North and South poles, the reduction in heat from the sun also means that there is less energy for solar panels to collect. Some locations are warm throughout the year, although transporting electricity over long distances is a significant issue if petroleum fuels are ruled out.

Heat storage systems are one way to get around this problem. A system which can absorb and store large quantities of heat energy during the summer can release it during the winter, without requiring great amounts of additional energy usage. Directly storing heat requires good insulation, although it is still an alternative to batteries since storing large amounts of energies with batteries is expensive. Underground heat storage systems have advantages because the earth acts as an insulator.

Researchers in Poland provide several methods of long term heat capture and storage. The two main materials which capture the heat are soil and water. Water tanks and aquifers can capture large amounts of heat. Rocks and soil can capture and store heat, especially if boreholes are added. Water has a very high heat capacity compared to most other materials, so it can store a large amount of heat with lower space requirements than other materials. For example, if you place a pot on the stove, it will heat up and glow red hot very quickly if there is no water in the pot, and it will take several minutes for water to boil if the pot is full of water.

A greenhouse also provides methods of heat storage. The greenhouse has to allow light through its windows so that the plants can grow. Insulation is necessary so that the plants do not overheat. It is also very desirable to grow plants throughout the year, as many plants have a limited growing season if grown outside. By using a heat pump, a greenhouse can capture and remove excess heat during the summer and store it. The heat pumps can reverse during the winter, transferring the heat from the water or rocks back inside the greenhouse and allow plants to grow during winter without requiring additional power usage.

Electric cars are a sustainable alternative to petroleum powered cars, since electric cars do not need a constant supply of gasoline or diesel to fuel them. One of the major issues with powering electric cars is the sustainability of their power supply, as charging an electric vehicle from a wall socket likely means that the car is using electricity generated by coal plants or other nonrenewable sources. In addition, electric generator stations are not available in many locations.

A partnership between the solar company Solar City and Rabobank provides solar power to many California residents. Rabobank is assisting in two ways, it is financing construction of solar power generation facilities, and it is setting up electric power charging stations at bank branches. Many banks offer their customers pens, I don’t know of any that offer their customers a place to refuel their cars. The Rabobank locations offering power generation are in locations such as Atascadero and Salinas, along the coast and inland area following Highway 101 in Central California. Central California includes many long stretches of highway where cities and gas stations are rare and it could be 30 miles before reaching the next station, so this is very useful to drivers of electric vehicles which may have a shorter range than gas powered vehicles. There are plenty of electric charging stations in Los Angeles and San Francisco, so providing a charging station halfway between the cities is the logical step. According to Rabobank, there will be six power generation stations in Central California producing a combined 200 kilowatts of solar power to charge electric cars’ batteries.

This charging station project is also operating with the assistance of Tesla Motors, an electric vehicle manufacturer. According to Tesla Motors, Solar City already builds electric chargers for home charging of Tesla Motors cars. The partnership ensures that these charging stations are designed to operate with existing electric vehicles available on the California market. Although Tesla mentions that these stations are in populated locations, most of these towns are extremely small compared to the densely populated Southern California and Northern California locations. Adding locations in Goleta, Watsonville, Salinas, and a few other cities cuts the distance between charging stations to around 60 miles as far as I can tell which should provide plenty of leeway. It would be interesting to see charging stations on the northern section of 101 up to Portland. Although much of the area is heavily forested, people up there are environmentally conscious enough to make it work. Arcata has an electric charging system already, so chargers in the Mendocino region would be the most helpful.

Wind turbines can produce power cheaply after their installation. The question is whether it is cost effective to install them in the first place. Tax credits and other government subsidies reduce the cost of wind power. The larger scale the wind turbine is, the more efficient it is. According to Iowa State University, smaller scale systems can cost up to $3000 per kilowatt, while mid scale systems range from around $1500 to $2500, and the largest scale utility wind farms cost $1000 to $2000 a kilowatt.

As with all payback periods, borrowing money increases the payback period. Loans at a higher interest rate over longer periods of times greatly increase the payback period, although the calculation also includes the tax benefits of deducting interest expense paid on the loan to build the wind turbine. The wind turbine owner may also depreciate the cost of the wind turbine for federal and state tax purposes, including using accelerated depreciation methods such as MACRS. Penn State University provides an example of a turbine owner using a 5 year MACRS depreciation scheme. Wind turbines usually last longer than five years, although the IRS does allow machines to be depreciated for tax purposes over a shorter period than their actual lifespan. The government can also allow accelerated depreciation as a method of providing a subsidy. Wind turbines may be eligible for other federal benefits such as the REPI Credit and the Federal Production Tax Credit.

Battery storage greatly increases the cost per kilowatt hour for wind power, as it does with solar power and other intermittent sources of renewable energy. According to Iowa State, using battery storage can increase cost to $5000 a kilowatt, since a large battery can cost thousands of dollars. Grid redesign for utility power systems reduces these costs for large projects. A utility also uses several sources of power, likely including nonrenewable energy sources, so it may be able to use all of the wind power without purchasing extra storage equipment at the time of generation. If other factors are not considered the cost directly corresponds to the cost per kilowatt of the system. A system that costs twice as much per kilowatt will take twice as long to pay off.

Some projects that use wind power are not as time sensitive as other projects. Powering appliances in the home usually requires electricity at all times. A project such as using wind power to pump water for cattle does not need constant power, as long as the wind provides enough energy to fill up a tank that holds enough water for several days. Charging a battery can be performed over night, so the wind may vary in strength over night and still provide sufficient power.

Other expenses should be considered when calculating the payback period. According to Iowa State, an annual insurance premium is an important expense to include, since the turbines are valuable enough to require expenses. 2 or 3 percent of the purchase cost in maintenance expenses should also be part of the budget.

Since wind power is intermittent, some users may purchase turbines with a greater capacity than they can use at one time. Having twice or even three times as much maximum power for the same cost may be favorable to purchasing batteries. This setup requires a connection with the utility power grid for two reasons. The turbine owner will have the option of purchasing backup power when there is no wind. Some utilities also allow the turbine owner to sell power back to the utility. Not all utilities allow this and the turbine owner will have to purchase an inverter to use this method. Selling power back to the utility does generate income, so it should be considered when calculating the payback period.

The Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy are creating a project to install wind turbines along the East Coast. This project primarily focuses on wind energy, and the consortium also plans to establish solar plants and other renewable energy sources such as wave power and ocean thermal.

Offshore wind energy has the potential to supply a great amount of power. According to the State of Massachusetts, 900,000 Megawatts of energy are available for capture offshore, which is equivalent to the total amount of energy that all current power plants in the United States produce. Wind power alone has the capability to remove the dependence on fossil fuel for power plants in the United States.

Wind turbine installations are currently only present on land in the United States, according to the State of Massachusetts. There are large wind turbine installations in the United States right now, some of the well known ones are in Oregon, California, and Texas. An offshore wind turbine installation also provides a way for a smaller state to produce power and sell it to utility users in other states, without the large land area that inland installations often require.

The Department of Energy provided a grant of $20 million to an offshore wind project in Maine. The team, led by researchers at the University of Maine, has already found several promising locations to set up the offshore wind generation systems. This system will include a network of floating wind turbines, which are currently rare worldwide. According to the State of Maine, criteria necessary to set up the floating wind turbines successfully include at least 17 mph average wind speed throughout the year and a depth of at least 60 meters. The turbines do float freely in the water in an area selected for high winds, so it is also important that the state controls the entire body of water and there are no rocks, oil platforms, or other obstacles nearby.

New Jersey’s electricity provider, PSE&G, is involved in many renewable energy projects. This large utility formed as a merger of many smaller utilities and provides a large portion of the power supply of New Jersey. Installing solar panels on electrical poles is only one initiative, this company has a lot of solar and wind projects under construction, and is repairing the damage caused by power generation from nonrenewable fuels.

Street lights are receiving some major upgrades. The older street lights use a mercury vapor process to produce light, and the newer systems will replace these lights with fluorescent installations. According to PSE&G it is the first utility in the entire United States to install these new fluorescent inductment lights.

PSE&G is the recipient of a 2005 Smart Growth Award. PSE&G is cleaning up the pollution caused by oil and gas power generation, including groundwater and soil remediation, according to New Jersey Future. There are a lot of sites in New Jersey where petroleum based power generation has caused lots of damage. This utility plans to clean up 38 manufactured gas plant locations, in partnership with the New Jersey government.

PSE&G is in partnership with other companies to set up renewable energy projects. The utility is working with Deepwater Wind to set up offshore wind turbines. Deepwater Wind specializes in wind farms and is working on other East Coast projects that include the Block Island Wind Farm and the Rhode Island Sound Wind Farm. The Rhode Island wind farm is slightly larger than the Garden State Offshore Energy wind farm, with a maximum capacity of 385 MW compared to the 350 MW size of the New Jersey project. The Block Island wind farm is much smaller at 28.8 MW, according to Deepwater Wind.

I’m wondering about how environmental surfing is right now. I live in Ventura where a lot of my friends are surfers and are also interested in protecting the local coast. Since a surfboard really isn’t optional, it should be the first item to look at when making this a sustainable sport.

There are two types of surfboards which are popular, according to Wet Sand Surf Shop. One type, which is older, is a combination of polyurethane foam and polyester resin. Most of these types of boards will be petroleum based. It’s probably possible to use corn or other crops to create a replacement source of these hydrocarbons, although oil is currently the main source of these materials. Epoxy foam, the other alternative, is made of polystyrene, again from petroleum sources.

It’s possible to use a wood surfboard and those have been used for much longer than petroleum based boards. The main issue with a wood surfboard is whether growing the trees is sustainable. According to Surfshot, the main woods used are balsa and bamboo, which are two of the lightest woods available. Bamboo commonly grows like a weed around Ventura, and it grows in many locations around the world, so it is not at any risk of being endangered. This is a great material for making a surfboard. Balsa is lighter than Bamboo although it is native to more environmentally sensitive areas. According to Balsa Surfboards Riley, balsa trees grow extremely fast, so it is possible to commercially farm them and use their wood for surfboards.

As the war continues the Pentagon is now releasing information about the mineral reserves in Afghanistan. There have been rumors about these minerals for some time and now we are receiving estimates about the actual size of these deposits.

The $1 trillion estimate for the mineral deposits is now widely publicized. According to the Department of Defense, this figure does not include lithium and petroleum, and only estimates the deposits of other minerals. Lithium is important for many types of batteries, which are important for a switch away from petroleum. The urgency of the energy problem requires immediate energy storage systems for solar and wind power and lithium based batteries are one of the major methods of storing energy.

The US Geological Survey is performing studies to detect the minerals present in Afghanistan. They specifically mention the presence of precious gems such as lapis lazuli, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies. These gems are not only useful for decorative purposes, they can also concentrate light for use in lasers. The scientist Steven Peters says that the minerals are distributed through all the provinces of Afghanistan.

The United States Geological Survey even has a map of the mineral deposits in Afghanistan. They quote the source Abdullah and Chmyriov from 1977, showing that knowledge about Afghanistan’s mineral wealth has been available for quite a long time. 1977 was before I was born. There are rumors that the Soviets knew all along about Afghanistan’s mineral wealth. The major 2010 news event is that defense agencies are providing a quantitative estimate of the value of these minerals.