PV Times PV World PV Times | October 8, 2009 |View online
PV WORLD EXCLUSIVES
Optimism, reality duel at Solar Plaza demand conference
The recent Solarplaza Global Demand Conference combined optimism, pragmatism, and some healthy skepticism to provide an informative overview of several key and emerging markets in Europe and Asia, reports Navigant Consulting's Paula Mints.
Cogeneration and hydrogen production for solar-grade polysilicon
Fluor's Louie M De los Santos explains the benefits of integrating combined heat and power (CHP) and hydrogen generation with large-scale polysilicon manufacturing, including reduced operational costs and greenhouse emissions.
Using ALD for improved efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells
Plasma ALD (Al2O3) shows superior surface passivation quality, and when implemented in a highly doped p-type emitter cell, has yielded cell efficiencies up to 1% absolute higher than current techniques. (From the September/October 2009 issue of Photovoltaics World magazine)
INDUSTRY NEWS EPIA: Europe's 2020 energy map missing PV tech, finance needs
Long-term research, pilot plants, and power producing projects are all key items in a new European Commission report on how to support and broaden its solar energy progress and adoption -- but Europe's PV industry organization says a stronger push for technology roadmaps and funding are needed as well.
Report: Policies, prices driving China's solar expansion
Demand for solar panels in China could grow tenfold over the next three years, thanks to policies that wipe out up to 70% of the cost of solar-power systems, according to a new report from Greentech Media.
FPL ahead of schedule with nation's largest solar PV plant
Florida Power & Light says its 25MW DeSoto plant in Arcadia, FL, which uses >90,000 panels, will start delivering electricity to customers later this month.
Poll: Nine out of 10 US citizens want solar -- now
A "Solar Barometer" report from Kelton Research indicates 92% of Americans believe it's important to develop and use solar energy, and nearly 80% of them think the federal government should make it a major priority, including financial support.
More Headlines
• PECO seeking bids for 6MW solar RFP
• Green tech execs descend on Washington for climate change bill
• Ventura County turns solar vision into reality
• NM city council OKs lease for 10MW solar plant
• Soliant Energy hires Evergreen sales VP as new CEO
• Report: China's polysilicon industry to increase production fivefold by 2011
• MATC, Johnson Controls to build Wisconsin's largest solar power project
TECHNOLOGY NEWS
IMEC Tech Forum: Spray-coating for organic cells, cheaper c-Si
Two announcements coming out of IMEC's annual Technology Forum this week were a new spray-coating technique for solution-processed organic solar cells, and work with BP Solar on making solar cells with a lower-cost alternative to Czochralski silicon.
Nanoparticles give solar cells a boost
Researchers at Ohio State say adding silver nanoparticles to polymer-based solar cells increased energy output by 12%.
Dow: "Solar shingles" for BIPV almost ready
Dow Chemical says its Powerhouse shingles, made with thin-film CIGS PV cells in a proprietary roofing shingle design, will be available in mid-2010 to be integrated on rooftops with standard asphalt shingle materials.
DCG, Thermosensorik to make cameras for finding PV cell defects
The new products, based on Thermosensorik's infrared cameras, will offer defect detection in crystalline and thin film solar cells, as well as in semiconductor devices including buried defects within stacked-die packages.
Publisher
Diane Lieberman
603-891-9441
DianeL@PennWell.comEditorial Director
Pete Singer
603-891-9217
PeteS@PennWell.comSenior Technical Editor
Debra Vogler
408-774-9283
DebraV@PennWell.comNews Editor
James Montgomery
603-891-9109
JamesM@PennWell.com
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A personal quest to promote the use of wind energy and hydrogen technology in the Great Lakes area of the United States. The Great Lakes area is in a unique position to become an energy exporting region through these and other renewable energy technologies. *Update 2014: Just do it everywhere - Dan*
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Optimism, reality duel at Solar Plaza demand conference
PV World's PV Times wrote:
Experience, Learn, Discover - Attend the Small & Community Wind Conference & Exhibition
American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) wrote:
AWEA Small and Community Wind Conference & Exhibition
AWEA Small and Community Wind Conference & Exhibition
November 3 – 5, 2009 > Detroit, MI
Q. Can you invest in clean wind technology and strengthen your local and national economy? Q. Would you like to reduce our nation's energy consumption and go green? Q. Could your company get involved in this rapidly expanding industry? Q. Do you want to learn more about how wind technology can make you money and save you money? Get the answers to these and other questions by joining project developers, economic development groups, municipalities, land owners, wind energy manufacturers, wind component suppliers, and consumers looking for ways to maximize the value of wind.
With an ever growing list of exhibiting companies and an insightful program full of important information presented by industry leaders, the AWEA Small and Community Wind Conference & Exhibition is one event you can not afford to miss.
Early Registration Deadline: Tuesday, October 13
Be sure to sign-up before the deadline to save on your registration. Register now!Would you like to save even more? Simply recruit other attendees and we'll thank you by refunding a portion of your registration! Click here for more details.
The event features:
- EXPERIENCE an exhibit hall devoted to community and small/mid-sized wind technology, and national supply chain companies
- LEARN about how landowners, ranchers and municipalities can join together to create wind opportunities
- DISCOVER the wind industry supply chain, market growth, and strategies for getting into the industry
- ATTEND conference sessions on how to choose small wind system for a home or business
For more information visit:
www.smallandcommunitywindexpo.org
A special thanks to the Small and Community Wind Conference Program and Session Chairs for their support in developing the conference program:
Program Chairs:
- Jacob Susman, Chief Executive Officer, OwnEnergy, Inc
- Charles Newcomb, Chief Technology Officer, NexGen Energy Partners, LLC
Session Chairs:
- Andrew Carstensen, Managing Director, Nord LB New York
- Cindy Crooks, Director of Development, OwnEnergy, Inc.
- Lisa Daniels, Executive Director, Windustry
- David Drescher, Vice President, Wind Energy, John Deere Renewables, LLC
- Larwrence Flowers, Principal Project Leader, NREL
- Trudy Forsyth, Small Wind Turbine Project Leader,NREL
- Mike Hess, President & CEO, Mariah Power
- Brad Lystra, Manager, Economic Development Partnerships, AWEA
- Christopher McKay, Product Manager - Wind & Power Electronics, Northern Power
- Larry Sherwood, Executive Director, Small Wind Certification Council, Sherwood Associates
- Brent Summerville, Technical Director, Small Wind Certification Council
- Greg Price, Executive Director of Sales & Marketing, Abundant Renewable Energy
- Jim Walker, Vice Chairman, enXco
- Daniel Yarano, Attorney, Fredrikson & Byron, P.A.
Register Now Program Agenda Exhibition Hotel & Travel Become an AWEA Member Contact Us Join Our Mailing List The Co-Located
Supply Chain Workshop
Held with the Small and Community Wind Conference, this workshop allows attendees to learn about specific supply chain issues impacting the potential growth of the wind industry. Click here to learn more.
Important Dates:
Early Registration Deadline:
Tuesday, October 13Hotel Reservation Deadline:
Tuesday, October 20
AWEA Fall 2009 Events:
Wind Power Finance & Investment Workshop
Oct. 13 – 14 > New York, NYSupply Chain Workshop
Nov. 3 – 5 > Detroit, MIWind Energy Fall Symposium
Nov. 18 – 20 > Orlando, FLOffshore Wind Project Workshop
Dec. 2 – 3 > Boston, MAVisit www.awea.org/events for initial
details on our spring 2010 events.Why Attend AWEA Events?
As the national trade association for the wind industry, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) strives to create and deliver educational events that capture the energy of the rapidly expanding wind market and offer necessary opportunities for organizations to learn and network with fellow wind professionals. The revenue generated from AWEA events is used to advance the wind industry through policy analysis and promotion, to ensure wind industry interests are addressed in renewable energy legislation, and to communicate the benefits of wind energy to all. ONLY AWEA puts your dollars to work advancing the wind energy industry.
AMERICAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION
1501 M Street NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202.383.2512 / Fax: 202.293.2567 / Email: conference@awea.org / Web: www.awea.org/eventsNote: this email message is distributed by the American Wind Energy Association. If you have received this message in error, or if you do not wish to receive future mailings from this organization, please respond to be removed.
This message was sent from American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) 1501 M Street, NW Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005.
Green is not just a color. It's our promise
Interstate Renewable Energy Council wrote:
For over 25 years, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) has worked behind the scenes tackling market, regulatory and cultural barriers which have hindered wider acceptance and use of renewable energy resources.
Finally, there's a sea change.
Renewable energy is taking front and center stage as part of the solution to many of our environmental, energy, and economic challenges. Three cheers. Actually, we've been at it so long, let's say three cheers and three cheers more.
But, we're not resting on our laurels. Hardly. In fact, today our work requires greater diligence and attentiveness. The meteoric rise of green can lead to the misuse and mismatch of practices, products, and services.
You know our work. You read our newsletters; attend our events; use our reports and best practices. IREC keeps the important issues on our radar screen.This year alone, IREC has participated in rulemakings and hearings in over a dozen states. But we need to keep pace with important new regulatory rulemaking and emerging policy issues. IREC is increasingly called upon to address issues that arise and while we are responsive, resource limitations frequently prevent us from taking an active role.In just the past six months, IREC has awarded 13 training programs and trainers credentials assuring that instruction has met high international standards for content, facilities, resources, and safety. But with new training programs hitting the market every day, it becomes even more important that the right skill sets are being taught and that students have a realistic understanding of the kinds of jobs for which they are being prepared. IREC's quality review and auditing assessment credentialing programs are more critical than ever with the growing green workforce.
Would you help us now ratchet up our efforts to make sure that green is not just a color but a practice? A small donation will make a big difference. That's OUR promise to you.
Please give us a hand and make a tax deductible contribution and support IREC's important work.
IREC is a nonprofit organization, incorporated in 1982. For a full review of our
programs and projects, please visit www.irecusa.org.
Please Write to EPA: Protect Communities from Coal Ash Spills
Dear Daniel,
According to a federal survey released this past August, toxic waste from coal burning are sitting in over 580 locations in 35 states (see map) -- including Michigan. U.S. coal-fired power plants generate over 130 million tons of toxic coal ash annually, and yet there are no specific federal regulations governing its disposal. These sites pose serious risks to nearby communities and waterways. We encourage you to send a letter to U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, asking for tough regulation of coal ash disposal sites.
Please don't let the images from this video show up on your local news. Take action today. The way the U.S. EPA chooses to regulate the waste ("hazardous" or "non-hazardous") will determine whether the promised regulations offer communities sufficient protection or whether the status quo of patchwork state rules and inadequate standards will remain.Sincerely,
Monica Patel
Clean Energy Advocate
Ecology Center
The Ecology Center works for a safe and healthy environment where people live, work, and play.
Make a donation to support projects of the Ecology Center.
Earth Policy News -- Our Global Ponzi Economy
Earth Policy Institute Plan B 4.0 Book Byte October 7, 2009 OUR GLOBAL PONZI ECONOMY http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2009/pb4ch01_ss4 Lester R. Brown Our mismanaged world economy today has many of the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme takes payments from a broad base of investors and uses these to pay off returns. It creates the illusion that it is providing a highly attractive rate of return on investment as a result of savvy investment decisions when in fact these irresistibly high earnings are in part the result of consuming the asset base itself. A Ponzi scheme investment fund can last only as long as the flow of new investments is sufficient to sustain the high rates of return paid out to previous investors. When this is no longer possible, the scheme collapses—just as Bernard Madoff’s $65-billion investment fund did in December 2008. Although the functioning of the global economy and a Ponzi investment scheme are not entirely analogous, there are some disturbing parallels. As recently as 1950 or so, the world economy was living more or less within its means, consuming only the sustainable yield, the interest of the natural systems that support it. But then as the economy doubled, and doubled again, and yet again, multiplying eightfold, it began to outrun sustainable yields and to consume the asset base itself. In a 2002 study published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a team of scientists concluded that humanity’s collective demands first surpassed the earth’s regenerative capacity around 1980. As of 2009 global demands on natural systems exceed their sustainable yield capacity by nearly 30 percent. This means we are meeting current demands in part by consuming the earth’s natural assets, setting the stage for an eventual Ponzi-type collapse when these assets are depleted. As of mid-2009, nearly all the world’s major aquifers were being overpumped. We have more irrigation water than before the overpumping began, in true Ponzi fashion. We get the feeling that we’re doing very well in agriculture—-but the reality is that an estimated 400 million people are today being fed by overpumping, a process that is by definition short-term. With aquifers being depleted, this water-based food bubble is about to burst. A similar situation exists with the melting of mountain glaciers. When glaciers first start to melt, flows in the rivers and the irrigation canals they feed are larger than before the melting started. But after a point, as smaller glaciers disappear and larger ones shrink, the amount of ice melt declines and the river flow diminishes. Thus we have two water-based Ponzi schemes running in parallel in agriculture. And there are more such schemes. As human and livestock populations grow more or less apace, the rising demand for forage eventually exceeds the sustainable yield of grasslands. As a result, the grass deteriorates, leaving the land bare, allowing it to turn to desert. In this Ponzi scheme, herders are forced to rely on food aid or they migrate to cities. Three fourths of oceanic fisheries are now being fished at or beyond capacity or are recovering from overexploitation. If we continue with business as usual, many of these fisheries will collapse. Overfishing, simply defined, means we are taking fish from the oceans faster than they can reproduce. The cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada is a prime example of what can happen. Long one of the world’s most productive fisheries, it collapsed in the early 1990s and may never recover. Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest, puts it well: “At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation.” The larger question is, If we continue with business as usual—with overpumping, overgrazing, overplowing, overfishing, and overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide—how long will it be before the Ponzi economy unravels and collapses? No one knows. Our industrial civilization has not been here before. Unlike Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, which was set up with the knowledge that it would eventually fall apart, our global Ponzi economy was not intended to collapse. It is on a collision path because of market forces, perverse incentives, and poorly chosen measures of progress. In addition to consuming our asset base, we have devised some clever techniques for leaving costs off the books—much like the disgraced and bankrupt Texas-based energy company Enron did some years ago. For example, when we use electricity from a coal-fired power plant we get a monthly bill from the local utility. It includes the cost of mining coal, transporting it to the power plant, burning it, generating the electricity, and delivering electricity to our homes. It does not, however, include any costs of the climate change caused by burning coal. That bill will come later—and it will likely be delivered to our children. Unfortunately for them, their bill for our coal use will be even larger than ours. When Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, released his groundbreaking 2006 study on the future costs of climate change, he talked about a massive market failure. He was referring to the failure of the market to incorporate the costs of climate change in the price of fossil fuels. According to Stern, the costs are measured in the trillions of dollars. The difference between the market prices for fossil fuels and an honest price that also incorporates their environmental costs to society is huge. As economic decisionmakers we all depend on the market for information to guide us, but the market is giving us incomplete information, and as a result we are making bad decisions. One of the best examples of this can be seen in the United States, where the gasoline pump price was around $3 per gallon in mid-2009. This reflects only the cost of finding the oil, pumping it to the surface, refining it into gasoline, and delivering the gas to service stations. It overlooks the costs of climate change as well as the costs of tax subsidies to the oil industry, the burgeoning military costs of protecting access to oil in the politically unstable Middle East, and the health care costs of treating respiratory illnesses caused by breathing polluted air. These indirect costs now total some $12 per gallon. In reality, burning gasoline is very costly, but the market tells us it is cheap. The market also does not respect the carrying capacity of natural systems. For example, if a fishery is being continuously overfished, the catch eventually will begin to shrink and prices will rise, encouraging even more investment in fishing trawlers. The inevitable result is a precipitous decline in the catch and the collapse of the fishery. Today we need a realistic view about the relationship between the economy and the environment. We also need, more than ever before, political leaders who can see the big picture. And since the principal advisors to government are economists, we need either economists who can think like ecologists or more ecological advisors. Otherwise, market behavior—-including its failure to include the indirect costs of goods and services, to value nature’s services, and to respect sustainable-yield thresholds—-will cause the destruction of the economy’s natural support systems, and our global Ponzi scheme will fall apart. # # # Adapted from Chapter 1, “Selling Our Future,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), available on-line at www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4 Media & Permissions to Reprint Contact: Reah Janise Kauffman Tel: (202) 496-9290 x 12 E-mail: rjk (at) earthpolicy.org Research Contact: Janet Larsen Tel: (202) 496-9290 x 14 E-mail: jlarsen (at) earthpolicy.org Earth Policy Institute 1350 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 403 Washington, DC 20036 Web: www.earthpolicy.org ---
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
From: Google Alerts
Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 6:11 AM
Subject: Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
Google News Alert for: hydrogen, wind, power
Where's the next boom? Maybe in 'cleantech' | ||
A settled question? | ||
| GOVERNOR PATERSON ANNOUNCES ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW YORK ENERGY ... | ||
| LETTER: Frustrated |
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
From: Google Alerts
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 6:11 AM
Subject: Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
Google News Alert for: hydrogen, wind, power
Once Upon a Time, Coal Needed a Big Push ($$$) to Become "Base ... | ||
| Nokia joins Wireless Power Consortium | ||
| Clean energy shares on a two-week consecutive retreat (05 Oct 2009) |
Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
From: Google Alerts
Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 6:11 AM
Subject: Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
Google News Alert for: hydrogen, wind, power
Sailing the Seas of Green | ||
| San Antonio is developing sustainable-energy plan for future | ||
| Ky. Lawmakers Look At Wind, Other Energies |
Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
From: Google Alerts
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 6:11 AM
Subject: Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
Google News Alert for: hydrogen, wind, power
| San Antonio announces plans for a sustainable future |
| Carbon capture: the future of coal? |
| On Energy, We're Finally Walking the Walk By Lester R. Brown |
Friday, October 02, 2009
Renewable Energy Stocks Directory
| Renewable Energy Stocks Directory - How to Find the Next Green ... |
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
From: Google Alerts
Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2009 6:12 AM
Subject: Google Alert - hydrogen, wind, power
Google News Alert for: hydrogen, wind, power
Bright Ideas | ||
| Can you press 'stratosphere,' please? |
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