Jobless Recovery or Solar Power II

Much of what was to follow when I interrupted what became Part I will be omitted to make way for some discussion of fast moving developments, most of which are pertinent to the Copenhagen summit on climate change. Advertised intensely earlier, expectations for real success had to be lowered. Carol Browner, Pres. Obama's “energy czar” had told Congress more than a month ago that the conference could not achieve its aim in the face of US congressional resistance to cap and trade legislation. With the giant meeting, termed COP15, about to start, many confrontations emerged, the most serious of which seemed to be that between rich developed and poor developing countries.

The announcement of the troop surge to Afghanistan at this moment could have been interpreted as a ploy to ensure that the shaky summit will not get the main media coverage. It now looks more likely that the timing had to do with the ambitious Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (mazal tov). Evidently related to COP15 was his trip to China, the other big fosssil burner; 20% of world total each; while the other 190 attending countries burn a total of 60%.

For the biggest negative impact, it became known that e-mails and other documents hacked from the University of East Anglia records indicate that global temperature data used for the UN's Inter-governmental Panel (IPCC) raising the alarm on Climate Change had been handled illegitimately, so as to affirm the conclusions on imminent calamitous global warming dangers; and that papers at odds with those conclusions had been suppressed.

Not all these problems which could harm prospects for a fruitful summit will be discussed here, but if enough of them were to lead to yet another year on a weak, toothless interim deal, honest failure would be preferable, to clear the deck for something real; effective action.

On the eve of the COP 15 opening, the German Der Spiegel had a report on strong pressures on the new “center-right” German coalition government to drastically cut the price paid to people for feeding solar (PV) electricity to the grid. After the feed-in law had made the country the foremost generator of direct solar power (at least by PV) and major job creator, Spain and others adopted a similar one, albeit at a less generous rate and more limited success. Barack Obama is informed on that and does not want continued German (or other) superior standing in a technology first used in the US. In spite of the substantial German lead, beating it should be easy. That does not mean that it cannot fail, if what got the US to its inferior status is to continue, without more honest information, bold thinking and, if need be, readiness to stand up to the status quo crowd.

Apart from some work on multi-stage solar desalination in the 1960s, my serious professional involvement with energy sources took place in the 1970s. That did not end my interest, but my access to the pertinent literature became very limited. Surreptitious steps had already been taken before to isolate us. At the time, the conseqences seemed minor, possibly even in the period since, but readers ought to be aware of it.

While it is surely advisable to learn from earlier successes of others, it would not be a good idea to imitate the German experience on direct solar energy too closely. I have great respect for Hermann Scheer, the head of Eurosolar and Bundestag (Parliament) member mainly responsible for the German success. His book (The Solar Manifesto) was the best I had found on the several (non-technological) aspects of solar power, by far. That opinion did not change after some conversations with him at a Eurosolar conference (on solar finaning) in Bonn in the 1990s that he had asked me to attend. But their success relative to the US is based less on their (real) achievements than on the miserable record of the US program; that looks designed by outfits of the polluting competition, especially the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC); which indeed it was and continued under its successors, first ERDA then the new Energy Department.

As long as the aim of these AEC generated outfits was (is?) to prevent utilization of the solar sources of power, it is easy to understand why the US lost in a utilization race, noted by Pres. Obama. They did not pioneer, so others could follow. On a wider scale, the suddenly large solar funding, when it became part of the nuclear power and bomb domain, may have intimidated others from starting a “race”. And there was worse; like abuses of the patenting process and worse than that.

In the 1970s I (along with at least one colleague) probably knew more on how to get low cost solar power than anyone else. It may still hold true today, so when Barack Obama started with his emphasis on clean energy, I thought I ought to make one more effort in spite of my age-related problems. The wait for real action has lasted longer than expected. Our project still looks better than any I see in the open literature, so I'm still at it, can't tell for how long.

The same week as his talk at MIT, Obama went to Florida to visit the largest photovoltaic (PV) Installation in the country. The largest is not the same as the best. Florida Light and Power (fpl) which owns the thing, uses the same flat plate PV as the Germans. In the best areas of the US (not necessarily Florida), it is easy to focus the sunlight, e.g. with inexpensive (Fresnel-like) lenses, to get much more power, say 10-20x, from the same amount of expensive PV strips. They were to be used preferably in decentralized installations of moderate size at/near the point of need. There should be little, if any, economies of scale beyond a minimal size to detract from the big power gain. Our main emphasis was on solar thermal power, using the concentrated sunlight to provide heat for power by conventional turbine generators.

Our motivation was not fear of climate change, which was barely audible at the time, nor anything new and alarming. We also did not do it for jobs, but there were plenty of other problems that could be tackled in addition to the effects of the first oil shock and embargo; and we were not the only ones busy with it. Later it turned out that additional things could get solved, including climate and job problems.

The way it came across at MIT, Obama wants to win the race by exporting things like solar panels or wind turbines. That must have been involved in the German successes. But what's wrong with the huge internal market that China gets exhorted to produce for. Satisfying US energy needs can provide non outsourceable assembly jobs for a very long time at an acceptable price, largely competitive already with polluting power. It is a very flexible design, but it can, and should, not be expected to apply everywhere. Nor should any other solar design.

Since this again has taken too long, and Cop 15 is approaching its end, the main thing that will not be left for a post to follow (where the advantages and drawbacks by comparison with other energy will be cited) is the superior job creation potential of our design (for details on which the September 16 posting is adequate). Simplified, some job creation beyond that from other direct solar designs derives from the greater amount of assembly work when the concentrating panels are assembled on site from simple components; but the main reason for more jobs is the much lower price of the installation, which should lead to natural proliferation, mostly by private capital.

Let me restate that I am continuing, as was the norm, to use the term solar energy for all the sources that provide energy ultimately derived from earth's continuing income from the sun, including i.a. wind, hydro, wave and biomass. Only the latter may have to be renewed by someone.