Concentrated Sun Energy.

The Solution in Search of More Problems:
Climate Change

(I didn't like the way this posting developed and intend to change it. Meanwhile this will have to make do.)

There is increasing concern about unusually abrupt climate change, specifically global warming, based on a variety of observations worldwide. After long being called controversial, it is generally accepted now: even that it results (mainly) from growing releases of greenhouse gases which obstruct the dissipation into space of solar energy absorbed and converted to higher wavelength heat energy. The warming trend correlates with the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) since coal, then oil, was first burned on a large scale. Remaining "skepticism" about this human contribution should wane when the nuclear interests, tied to, often identical with, the oil companies are satisfied that solar competition cannot raise its (pretty) head.

The current sense of serious imminent danger need never have been reached. The solar radiation reaching earth continuously can provide all the energy needed by mankind; forever, easily. Solar power is popular. People (like roses) love sunshine. They do not like ozone in smog, cancer from radioactivity, climate changes or soot and other suspended particles in the air.

Solar power has also had enemies , as pointed out long ago, e.g. by Amory Lovins (in the scan immediately preceding the passage linked to here). These saw reasons to be concerned about the popularity of solar energy. And they are powerful; very powerful. They succeeded in aborting the birth of a solar age in the U.S. in the 1970s.

To bring about the transition to an economy based on the solar sources of energy, a strong grassroots movement arose, initiated by the (earlier) Earth Day organizers. The 1970s provided a really unusual opportunity, because of the crises, price shocks, boycott, gas station lines, that suddenly showed people the vulnerability of the oil based economy. It peaked on SUN Day (May 3, 1978) and was promptly dissipated thereafter. Without the possibility of a real grassroots movement standing up for the common good, there evidently will not be a solar age (if any).

Solar energy can be utilized in a great variety of ways, and classified according to no less. I do not really like any of the reviews describing/explaining them briefly on the web, including my own, but here are two link / link . There is a lesser, but still substantial number of ways of generating electricity. Some of these are suitable for what is termed utility scale, not necessarily the gigascale kind.

At least in the early stages, direct solar power is most easily cost competitve when generated at, or near, the point of consumption. Especially in conjunction with indirect solar sources, notably biomass derived alcohols, solar thermal power is likely to be the most easily competitive worldwide. Windpower looks like the early workhorse for many northern countries, that can also more readily afford the capital expenditure (besides, less hostility from the giant private utility companies). But others will be favored, especially based on specific local features.

Solar Power in the 70s

In case these statements surprise you, let me note that they are based on over 3 decades of experience; first as an active participant. By my job description as a senior researcher at the main Western laboratory of the US Department of Agriculture in Albany (adjacent to Berkeley), California, I was to pick my research topics (and discuss them with my boss). These had been remote from solar energy (and mainly scientific rather than developmental). But in the early 70s I was adding a (partial) 2nd floor to my Berkeley home and, when the first oil shock and boycott came down, considered ways to minimize heating oil and power needs. It led first to designing a greenhouse roof garden, then a likely way to concentrate sunlight. That looked too important to confine to my house, so I discussed it with colleagues at the lab, where energy and food production were now at the top of research priorities.

We came up with ways that should have made possible solar power generation for rural communities competitively with conventional utility power in many locations, in conjunction with intensive food production; without requiring major prior research, thus in the mid 1970s.

That sounded far out at the time, even for well informed people, but we were in an unusual position with respect to location (et al). Working as we did for the people as whole (we thought), we could discuss the difficulties honestly with a view to finding solutions. Among the main difficulties generally cited against wide solar feasibility was that large areas had to be covered with collectors and that these had to be heavy and tough to withstand the weather. But we were going to have them very light in food producing greenhouses, suspended over the crops and allow the part of the light spectrum required for photosynthesis (especially the red) to pass through the collection system. To the objection of solar radiation being too diffuse (low energy density), the answer was to concentrate (focus) the light onto a narrow tube through which a fluid is passed to carry the heat energy converted there to a heat exchanger for steam, then power generation by conventional turbines; or without the latter for thermal use.

The big problem then was supposed to be that focussing devices were very expensive, parabolic mirror troughs $200- $500 per square meter, (Fresnel) lenses even more. But that is where our expertise with polymeric material provided a decisive basic innovation; that very thin, light lenses would be inexpensive to produce by extrusion and embossing as they emerge from the extrusion die:

For pertinent text go here.

Why Don't We Have Solar Power Now?

The anti-solar interests evidently were taken by surprise, and they had to clamp down so fast and decisively that they didn't conceal their misdeeds. When we didn't take the hints and "stayed the course" (rather than cut and run) they began collective punishment, first against our whole research group, including those with no involvement in the solar project, and it didn't stop there. I won't go into details here (but many are available, e.g. in parts linked to). The diagrams above are from a solar summary attached to a 1980 request for an inquiry by the Human Rights Commission of the UN in Geneva (where the same people called the shots. The owners of the US government were "influential" abroad, too; still are). The diagrams had not yet been drawn that neatly (and no motion).

[ To view a larger, more detailed version of this image click on it. If you are using Internet Explorer, click then on the icon at the lower right of the resulting image. ]

The box above about the lenses is from the USDA's Agricultural Research of February 1978, It is a good feature of an article already meant as distortion, and appeared after the group had been told their jobs would be abolished, in an illegal manner. That issue of the journal was not available, as it usually was, at the visitors' entrance room to the lab. It had a photo of colleague Glen Bailey on the cover, behind a Fresnel lens we had "developed" in the few hours of commercial extrusion time allowed; and misinformed on in Lovins' Soft Energy Notes. Other parts of that solar summary can be found starting here .

The most widely heard complaint against almost all solar sources, including direct sun energy (sunnergy?), is that they are intermittent, thus require expensive storage. In our version, storage is cheaper than for "flat plate" and can be minimized, or eliminated, by wider use of the biomass (alcohol) which otherwise just serves for superheating steam.

The last time I wrote to compare different solar technologies , I evaluated the fuel cell as the important new thing. That seems to have been based in part on the hype then around it. But I still wouldn't discard it to the extent now prevalent. With it, other ways, such as windpower and photovoltaics (PV), would also turn into non intermittent technologies. Even without, PV with lens-focused light would probably have been able to compete widely for a long time by now, if not prevented by the dirty competition.

Vancity and Necessary Voices

Although I have been a member (and depositor) of Vancity, I found out about the Global Warming event through an e-mail from "Necessary Voices" which earlier had co-sponsored other interesting events. I had joined Vancity as soon as I found out about it; before becoming a Canadian citizen, first mainly because the cooperative aspect appeared strong, then because the people were so pleasant to deal with. I had been committed to cooperatives always as long as they were around, had met the love affair of my life (two decades) at a singles occasion of the Berkeley Co-op, which really was alive in the sixties. I considered trying to (co-)organize a solar inventors co-op against friendly advice. Necessary Voices had sponsored an event about co-ops and co-op education in Bologna (where my company in the British army had been among the earliest Allied troops toward the end of WWII. I tried to make contact with BC Cooperative HQ (just west of Granville Island). No sign of life, and I didn't broach it with my Vancity branch; maybe should have.

I had been asked by a colleague (Dr. Bob Lundin), whose wife was Co-op president (or candidate [I stand corrected; she won]) to write to the editor at the time of the California ballot initiative on nuclear safeguards. Other colleagues wanted to co-sign (with modification of details).

One of the Necessary Voices occasions was on/by BCSEA. I had vented some resentment about semantic tactics operated through the US Departmenrt of (Dirty, Obsolete) Energy (DoDOE) designed to make people forget solar. Thus the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), for which Glen Bailey had been invited to give the first seminar (on our work), was renamed Renewable (NREL) even though the sun is not renewable, nor needs to be; or the wind. If the few non solar (nor exhaustible) energies (like tidal) are to be included by the name, sustainable energy seemed preferable. Surprise: BCSEA turned out to stand not for Solar, but for Sustainable Energy Association. And I went with the likelihood that I would join. I didn't.

At the Italian Cultural Centre, where the two Global Warming talks were to be delivered, everything was well organized. A major challenge is that you get so used to all the Vancity people being friendly that you have to remind yourself to keep appreciating it. The speakers were good. William Rees, UBC professor applied system analysis to the human (and other) species, which didn't make us , or them, look very fit in any Darwinian sense. He was very persuasive in presenting evidence for global warming. Guy Dauncey, identified as writer and consultant, also presented his solutions and action required. It was a little too much, too fast, but while I still listened closely, I had only two marginal reservations.

More Motives, Same Solutions

Although I didn't need special persuasion on it, global warming certainly was a suitable topic to pick for the occasion. But if the solutions are indeed based on the clean, mainly solar, sources there are quite a few other problems served by the same solutions. I don't recall when the likelihood of global warming began to enter significantly into our considerations. Our main motives in the early 1970s was (1) the effects of dependence on an exhaustible energy source, the price and availability of which could be manipulated; and (2) especially for my insisting on "staying the course" in the face of the terror unleashed, was the imminent starvation of many millions , impressed upon me by Turner Alfrey (long before the first CNN Ethiopia show).

Other motives were obvious, still are, usually more so. The Exxon Valdez oil spill, with many to follow, now in front of the beautiful coast of Lebanon; the advisability of solar absorption cooling to prevent ozone layer depletion (before the Montreal conference and the Chinese crash program); the dangers from more nuclear fission reactors, not just in Iran, from which I feared especially the loss of democracy associated with them; or what I emphasized in the 80s, the flight of "3^rd World" peasants first to megalopolis slums, then to try to scale the fences/walls barring access to the "first"; with the likely increase in overt racial prejudice. That no longer has to be predicted. And the list could go on.

Let's end with the summarizing statement repeated often since the early 80s:

"What I know most surely, and am most clearly qualified to state categorically, is that solar energy could have been shown by existing (i.e. functioning) examples to be the best, immediately viable primary energy source for most of the U.S., for most people on earth, if it had not been obstructed deliberately and with powerful determination."