Carter, Reagan, and the New Solar

A good precedent: Ted and I invading a random Taiwanese house
for Chinese New Year dinner and alcohol soup

The journey has begun! After months of planning and saving, Ted and I have finally embarked on our mission to experience the full force of Asia while researching sustainable practices and renewable energy. Before meeting in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam in a month’s time, we’ve separated ways to first focus on our own passions in this arena: Ted’s being sustainable development and farming, mine being renewable energy. First stop: The frozen north!

DSC are transparent, flexible, and cheap

Solar panels have long been an interest of mine and I was very excited to stumble upon the opportunity to spend a week working in an “Organic solar cell” (DSC) lab in Dalian before heading farther north to Yingkou to finish out the month at the head professor’s company that puts this research to work, producing the actual panels.

Poor Jimmy showing off his shiny new panels and energy policy

Cowboys and Solar: Why solar is still playing catchup

When one typical thinks of solar panels, myself included, arrays stuck on top of houses, large power plants with row upon row of panels, or those calculators that were so cool in 4^th grade come to mind. One thing to note about these: all are silicon based solar cells. This is the technology that just turned 60 last year. Another type that has been flitting in and out of our consciousness for generations was initially made famous by the solar hot water heaters that Jimmy Carter threw up on the White House and Ronald Reagan ripped down in a show of American bravado. Carter foretold that:

The Gipper went all in for oil, pushing off solar development
with lack of funding

“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people; harnessing the power of the Sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”

How prescient…

Although Reagan’s actions may have been a simple knee-jerk reaction to please the masses (or stick a fork in Carter), they represented a larger policy direction that left solar tech stagnating in underfunded limbo and out of the public eye. The original cowboy president slashed subsidies in 1985^[1][2] and opened up the market, making certain that only the cheapest and most profitable energy sources (oil and coal) requiring the shortest term investment get any attention.^[3] Out with science and in with the Hummer.

A Change in Tune

Obama's policy is much more green energy-friendly, but
it was Bush II who reinstalled solar panels at the white house

As everyone who has left their house in the past 10 years knows, there has been a major push to educate the public about global warming (think Inconvenient Truth) and as well as some fruition from consistent, if slow, progress in renewable technology.

This has created a real possibility for green profits, pushing public (and private) funding back towards solar. This has also spawned the revival of a wide variety of solar technology, all with a range of potential and varying application, whereas the previous lack of funding made everyone put the few eggs they had in the silicon basket (1^st generation solar cells). Among these are thermal solar, concentrated solar, solar updraft towers, thin-film solar (2^nd generation solar cells), and organic solar (3^rd generation solar cells).

The Chemical Route

The ability for photons to excite electrons in organic chemical dyes to create electric current, known as a photoelectric electrochemical effect (literally using liquid chemicals), was first observed in 1887 by James Moser. This concept was set aside for most of the glorious century of oil and consumption and was not revisited seriously until over 100 years later.

The increasing number of patents is emblematic
of how close DSC is to reaching the market

Enter Organic Solar

Inventor and creation

Flash forward to 1991 and you get a breakthrough in a little-known field of science dealing with chemical dyes and solar energy production with organic chemical compounds. After fighting through decades of technical snags, Michael Grätzel showed that dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC or DSC), the third generation of solar cell (following thin-film as the second), could be efficient enough to compete with traditional silicon solar. His jump from a lowly 1% to 5-6% efficiency began the flood of interest and funding that has brought DSC to its current max at 11-12% efficiency. However, the real reason why it now sits in a prime position to take over the market is because the lifespan, previously limited to less than 1 year, has been extended to 15 to 20 years. Silicon is now completely in its sights.



 

DSC research has exploded in recent history

My next article:

A head-to-head comparison between silicon and DSC solar and a closer look at how DSC will directly impact our lives in the next 5-10 years

Tradition "1st generation" silicon cells

Dye-sensitized "3rd generation" solar cells

                        VS

All News

• 7/25/2013   How Solar Parks Could Help Save Bumblebees
  
  Spain is still the world's leader, but the US currently has the largest CSP in the world and is building 4 more over 250MW in Cali and AZ and have 4GW of additional capacity planned (but only 1 with heat storage!. With only 7.7GW of PV capacity installed total, we may be seeing the new direction that solar is going in the US.
  
• 7/18/2013   How Solar Parks Could Help Save Bumblebees
  
  While it likely wouldn't prevent the mysterious death of millions of bees worldwide, it does show that solar's thirst for land isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the land could be simultaneously used for bee breeding or farming, it might actually contribute to conservation.
  
• 7/9/2013   CarLab Mixes Natural Gas and Gasoline for More Efficient Vehicle
  
  CarLab's conversion is ~3x cheaper than a battery and ~25% cleaner than pure gasoline, but storage is under pressure and downright dangerous for a large fast-moving metal object. Boom! Why Prof. Tim Zhao of HK UST told me they were NOT considering gases as a possible replacement for gasoline, only liquid and aiming for fuel cells.
  
• 6/3/2013   U.S. Approves 520 Megawatts of Solar, Geothermal Energy Projects
  
  Obama continues use of federal land for renewable energy projects, this time mostly concentrated in the southwest. Of real interesting is the inclusion of what will be the second concentrated solar plant with molten salt energy storage in the US, limiting the need for coal or gas backup generation.
  
• 11/21/2012   Alternative energy will no longer be alternative
  
  An interesting purpose and message, but a number of flawed facts take away from this article's legitimacy. The natural price of solar is $3/w, NOT the $0.75 that it has temporarily dropped to because of Chinese panel subsidies.
  
• 9/6/2012   EU initiates anti-dumping investigation on solar panel imports from China
  
  A good step-by-step explanation of the EU's anti-dumping investigation into Chinese solar panels. Looks like we'll have tariffs by December 5th, 2013.
  
  
• 5/30/2013   Elon Musk Has Plans For A New, Magical Form Of Transportation Called The 'Hyperloop'
  
  Win or lose, this is how all billionaires should think all the time. What better way to invest your excessive funds than on technology that will leapfrog mankind into the future? As an American, building the world's most expensive and slowest bullet trains years after every other developed country is about as impressive as building the 4th tallest skyscraper in the world to show how we're not phased by terrorists.
• 5/14/2013   The Future of Solar in Latin America
  
  Looks unsurprisingly like Brazil will lead the way with excellent sun and a bustling economy to boot. The DR doesn't inspire my confidence politically, and Mexico's 25% renewables by next year seems absolutely, but may be a reason they will even more resources in solar to at least make an attempt.
• 4/25/2013   In Two-Way Charging, Electric Cars Begin to Earn Money From the Grid
  
  These cars provide part of the energy storage needed the intermittency of solar or wind energy. Currently, on a cloudy day or when the wind dies down the system reverts to coal or gas, needed to be constantly running as a backup, but with this system it could sneak a few kilowatts from everybody's cars to keep the grid producing. It also incentivizes people to drive less because they earn money when their car is plugged in.
• 5/1/2013   Cross-Country Solar Plane Expedition Set for Takeoff
  
  Bertrand Piccard, hot-air balloonist and enlightened philosopher, has finally completed his solar plane to cross the US and later the world. Watch his TED Talk. Its monocrystalline panels power batteries that can keep it in the air 24 hours a day at about 45mph. The one other application mentioned in the article is to keep drones from having to refuel: killer solar robots from the sky!
• 4/21/2013   Could New York run on renewable energy alone?
  
  Mark Jacobson has put together the comprehensive plan to completely eliminate fossil fuels that I wish I had done. The new infrastructure would have a mix of solar, wind, and water, but he doesn't elaborate much on intermittency. Shrugging off THE main question regarding green energy by briefly mentioning grid upgrades and hydrogen storage doesn't fill me with confidence, but what a great project!
• 4/23/2013   19-Year-Old Student Plans to Clean Up the Ocean
  
  After watching a documentary on the pacific garbage patch last year, I was pretty sure that we have absolutely no chance of preventing plastic from continuing to pile up. It's not great to solely rely on tech to dial down our environmental damage, but it's nice to know this kid created a potentially effective cleaning system that could finish the task in 5 years.
• 4/22/2013   In China, Breathing Becomes a Childhood Risk
  
  The pollution readings we were all shocked by in Beijing last month are starting to be examined a little bit closer. The NYT reports that health problems from pollution are creating brain drain and the educated are moving away. Based on how concerned parents are in the states about even trivial problems, it wouldn't surprise me.
• 4/9/2013   Vietnam launches electric motorcycle program in cooperation with Japan
  
  The Vietnamese government is encountering some resistance to replacing the millions of gas-powered scooters roaming Hanoi and Saigon, but it could fight air pollution, save money, and quiet their busy streets if successful.


• 9/25/2012   1st Geothermal Plant in Vietnam Gets Approved
  
  This sounds great, but Hot Dry Rock geothermal has never been shown to work and I've had a source from the company that passed on this project, Ormat, that says it is dead on arrival. Apparently the problem is that too much of the water injected into these 3-4 km deep wells dissipates into the ground instead of being pumped back out, yielding uneconomical efficiencies.
• 11/9/2012   Viet Nam embraces wind power
  
  Vietnam is slowly ramping up support for green energy, but as Professor Duong Ngoc Huyen of Hanoi University of Technology says, "beside the energy, Vietnam has some other different issues to worry about: food, infrastructure, literacy, etc".
• 4/1/2013   Air Pollution Linked to 1.2 Million Premature Deaths in China
  
  Many people complain about outsourcing to the Chinese, but not too many people talk about how we are also outsourcing all the pollution that comes with production.


• 3/31/2013   Tamar gas field has given Israel energy independence
  
  Israel is probably the country most in need of energy independence, but, domestic benefits aside, natural gas pollutes and discourages green energy investment by dropping energy prices. In this case, it looks like the Israeli people won't see much of this on their monthly bill.
• 9/25/2012   1st Geothermal Plant in Vietnam Gets Approved
  
  Historically Vietnam hasn't invested heavily in renewables, but with new investment from Germany and the US and policies like net-metering on the way, things are beginning to develop.


• 3/28/2013   Mystery Malady Kills More Bees, Heightening Worry on Farms
  
  A mysterious example of unsustainable something. Some say that it is due to pesticides now inherent in the plants, but all we really know is that it's poisonous to pretty much everything.


• 1/29/2013   Has Belgium cracked the problem of storing Wind Power?
  
  Belgium is building a pumped-water electricity storage island to store wind power when the breeze dies down.


• 3/26/2013   What does the collapse of solar-panel giant Suntech mean? Pricier panels, probably
  
  The end of China's Suntech is not surprising. The massive subsidies followed by oversupply and price drops are thinning China's solar herd, as well as others. The price will likely return to it's natural price level at about $3/watt.

News

Here are some news articles I've come across that I find interesting for one reason or another. The articles are posted in the order that I find them, not by publication date.

All News 7/25/2013   CSP Key Players Focus on the Desert Spain is still the world's leader, but the US currently has the largest CSP in the world and is building 4 more over 250MW in Cali and AZ and have 4GW of additional capacity planned (but only 1 with heat storage!. With only 7.7GW of PV capacity installed total, we may be seeing the new direction that solar is going in the US. 7/18/2013   How Solar Parks Could Help Save Bumblebees While it likely wouldn't prevent the mysterious death of millions of bees worldwide, it does show that solar's thirst for land isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the land could be simultaneously used for bee breeding or farming, it might actually contribute to conservation. 7/9/2013   CarLab Mixes Natural Gas and Gasoline for More Efficient Vehicle CarLab's conversion is ~3x cheaper than a battery and ~25% cleaner than pure gasoline, but storage is under pressure and downright dangerous for a large fast-moving metal object. Boom! Why Prof. Tim Zhao of HK UST told me they were NOT considering gases as a possible replacement for gasoline, only liquid and aiming for fuel cells. 6/3/2013   U.S. Approves 520 Megawatts of Solar, Geothermal Energy Projects Obama continues use of federal land for renewable energy projects, this time mostly concentrated in the southwest. Of real interesting is the inclusion of what will be the second concentrated solar plant with molten salt energy storage in the US, limiting the need for coal or gas backup generation. 6/5/2013   China Aims at Europe’s Wines After Solar Panel Action In an escalating and increasingly hilarious tiff between two major world powers, China seemingly arbitrarily threatens Europe's wine imports as the EU's first round of tariffs go into effect. "Seemingly" because the EU's trade commissioner owns a large stake in wine vineyards in Tuscani.
New Tech 7/25/2013   CSP Key Players Focus on the Desert Spain is still the world's leader, but the US currently has the largest CSP in the world and is building 4 more over 250MW in Cali and AZ and have 4GW of additional capacity planned (but only 1 with heat storage!. 7/9/2013  CarLab Mixes Natural Gas and Gasoline... CarLab's conversion is ~3x cheaper than a battery and ~25% cleaner than pure gasoline, but storage is under pressure and downright dangerous for a large fast-moving metal object. Boom! Why Prof. Tim Zhao of HK UST told me they were NOT considering gases as a possible replacement for gasoline, only liquid and aiming for fuel cells. 5/30/2013   Elon Musk Has Plans For A New, Magical Form Of Transportation Called The 'Hyperloop' Win or lose, this is how all billionaires should think all the time. What better way to invest your excessive funds than on technology that will leapfrog mankind into the future? As an American, building the world's most expensive and slowest bullet trains years after every other developed country is about as impressive as building the 4th tallest skyscraper in the world to show how we're not phased by terrorists. 4/25/2013   In Two-Way Charging, Electric Cars Begin to Earn Money From the Grid These cars provide part of the energy storage needed the intermittency of solar or wind energy. Currently, on a cloudy day or when the wind dies down the system reverts to coal or gas, needed to be constantly running as a backup, but with this system it could sneak a few kilowatts from everybody's cars to keep the grid producing. It also incentivizes people to drive less because they earn money when their car is plugged in.	Sustainability 7/18/2013   How Solar Parks Could Help Save Bumblebees While it likely wouldn't prevent the mysterious death of millions of bees worldwide, it does show that solar's thirst for land isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the land could be simultaneously used for bee breeding or farming, it might actually contribute to conservation. 11/21/2012   Alternative energy will no longer be alternative An interesting purpose and message, but a number of flawed facts take away from this article's legitimacy. The natural price of solar is $3/w, NOT the $0.75 that it has temporarily dropped to because of Chinese panel subsidies. 4/21/2013   Could New York run on renewable energy alone? Mark Jacobson has put together the comprehensive plan to completely eliminate fossil fuels that I wish I had done. The new infrastructure would have a mix of solar, wind, and water, but he doesn't elaborate much on intermittency. Shrugging off THE main question regarding green energy by briefly mentioning grid upgrades and hydrogen storage doesn't fill me with confidence, but what a great project! 3/28/2013   Mystery Malady Kills More Bees, Heightening Worry on Farms A mysterious example of unsustainable something. Some say that it is due to pesticides now inherent in the plants, but all we really know is that it's poisonous to pretty much everything.
Business 6/3/2013   U.S. Approves 520 Megawatts of Solar, Geothermal Energy Projects Obama continues use of federal land for renewable energy projects, this time mostly concentrated in the southwest. Of real interesting is the inclusion of what will be the second concentrated solar plant with molten salt energy storage in the US, limiting the need for coal or gas backup generation. 4/19/2013   Google wants the push for more green energy to come from big power users With little new green energy production and fear of future diminished subsidies, Google has stepped in to encourage more wind/solar farms to be built by allowing companies to choose where their energy comes from and if they want to pay more for cleaner energy. 3/26/2013   What does the collapse of solar-panel giant Suntech mean? Pricier panels, probably The end of China's Suntech is not surprising. The massive subsidies followed by oversupply and price drops are thinning China's solar herd, as well as others. The price will likely return to it's natural price level at about $3/watt.	World 6/5/2013   China Aims at Europe’s Wines After Solar Panel Action In an escalating and increasingly hilarious tiff between two major world powers, China seemingly arbitrarily threatens Europe's wine imports as the EU's first round of tariffs go into effect. "Seemingly" because the EU's trade commissioner owns a large stake in wine vineyards in Tuscani. 6/4/2013   Europe Imposes a Tariff on Chinese Solar Panels, for Less Than Expected China gets an early (and temporary) slap on the wrist for solar panel price dumping. The EU couldn't decide what powerful interests to listen to and so languish in meager threats as China lashes back (see above). 9/6/2012   EU initiates anti-dumping investigation on solar panel imports from China A good step-by-step explanation of the EU's anti-dumping investigation into Chinese solar panels. Looks like we'll have tariffs by December 5th, 2013.

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