Government & Business, Power

Solar Realities for the Rest of Us

These are Gold Rush days for solar advocates in the US.  Molly Sterkel, who supervises the California Solar Initiative for the Public Utilities Commission, jokes that she lives in fear that private industry is looking to poach her staff:

There’s a lot of people going to solar companies to work because it’s a really exciting industry. It’s growing so much in California, so it’s attracting some of the best and brightest. I’ve told all of my staff that they have to sign 10-year contracts to work for me but so far most of them have stayed because it’s a really exciting time to be in government, to be able to run the largest solar program in the country.

In 2002, California established its Renewable Portfolio Standard Program “…with the goal of increasing the percentage of renewable energy in the state’s electricity mix to 20 percent by 2017.” Then the Energy Commission bumped the deadline up to 2010, and the 2004 Energy Report Update further recommended increasing the target to 33 percent by 2020.

Whatever the deadline, numerous incentives and rebate programs funded by the state and utility ratepayers are fueling an explosion of solar.  Sterkel says it’s growing at a rate of 40-50% a year.

But installing solar is still not cheap. Even now, all the solar in California adds up to 350 MW (one big power plant generates about 500 MW).

In part, that’s because most of the people taking advantage of the subsidies are residential utility customers, and most of those are installing systems of 4 KWs. That’s not a bad thing, per se.  Any kilowatt that home doesn’t siphon off of the grid is a kilowatt that can be used elsewhere. But slow and steady is a little too slow and a little to steady for some. Never mind that California is way ahead of other US states.  That just makes it easier to compare us to other countries, like Germany and Spain, that have invested even more in solar.

There’s no argument it takes subsidies to make solar financial feasible.  The question for advocates and regulators alike is how much subsidy helps solar thrive without spurring a ratepayer revolt? And how long should those subsidies last?  A report from McKinsey & Co. concludes:

“…regulators must adjust incentive structures over time and phase them out when grid parity is reached.”

Grid parity is the point at which there’s no difference between the price of solar and the market price for (less environmentally preferable) “brown power.”
Sterkel says:

(That) is the point at which everybody gets solar. Just like there was a moment when everyone got a cell phone and everyone got a car. And this year, we’ve already installed more megawatts than we did in all of 2007, and we’re not even all the way through the year. The policies are all pushing towards solar. The businesses are growing. The venture capital is here. You know, all signs point to “yes” for solar here in California.

That’s even though incentive levels in California have been dropping.
Where’s it all going?  Some say we could see a repeat of the 1980s, when oil prices tanked after spiking and green energy projects went “poof.”  It took them well over a decade to begin the long, slow climb back to economic and political viability.  Oil prices appeared to be sliding after a long, hot summer in 2008–until yesterday, anyway.  But green advocates say they won’t be caught out in the cold this time around. That’s because renewable energy advocates can point public attention to something that goes well beyond consumer price protection: climate change.

Rachael Myrow hosts The California Report. She reported on rooftop solar installations for Climate Watch on September 23, 2008. Listen to her story here.

Power

Supersizing Solar

Kramer JunctionMonday begins the radio component of Climate Watch, with the first of a two-part series on “solar realities.” (Click here for the second part of the series). Solar power is one of those renewable, low-carbon sources of energy that is enjoying a boom, as we scramble to reduce the state’s carbon footprint and, with any luck, slow down the climate change train.

But one of the thornier realities of utility-scale solar is that it has its own footprint. In fact, in terms of the sheer real estate that it gobbles up, you could say it’s the Sasquatch of renewables.

David Gorn begins our series on Monday morning’s edition of The California Report. Here’s a page from his reporter’s journal:

My girlfriend couldn’t believe it. “You’re going WHERE? The middle of the Mojave Desert? In August?”

And she looked up the temperature out there in Kramer Junction, California. She’s so helpful that way. The web page said it would be a high of 121 degrees Fahrenheit. But the reality was much better; the area was going through a “cold snap” the week I went, and it was only 106.

Still, that’s hot enough to fry eggs on the hood of your car, and it’s hot enough to power some of the largest solar reflectors in the world. In fact, because of the dearth of cloud cover, the searing heat and the higher elevation (~2,500 feet), the Mojave is one of the best places on Earth for solar power generation.

Out at Kramer Junction, the solar power-generating plant uses solar troughs to collect the heat. There are about 10,000 of these modules, 20 mirrors to a module, spread out over a million square meters.  That’s about 1,000 acres.

The new plant that’s proposed for the Mojave city of Ivanpah, near the Nevada border, will be about three times that size. The entire thing would cover about 5 square miles.  When it’s built, it may be the largest solar power generating site in the world, depending on the pace of some other planned projects.

There are actually three other proposals for even larger solar plants in California, but those are not yet under review by the Bureau of Land Management. And one of them is out in the Imperial Valley, where there are currently no transmission lines in place.

You can peruse the major Mojave sites on our interactive map. The California Energy Commission has the complete list of existing and proposed large solar arrays.

Listen to David’s story on super-sized solar sites here.

Government & Business

Gone: An Eloquent Voice on Climate Change

I was unaccountably saddened by the news today that Philip Clapp had died. I say “unaccountably” because I really didn’t know the man. I had been in the same room with him exactly one time, when he spoke to a group of Knight Fellows in College Park, MD, right after Memorial Day.

But of all the nearly two dozen speakers paraded before us over the four-day climate change seminar, Clapp stood out. He was Deputy Managing Director of the Pew Environment Group, an outgrowth of the National Environmental Trust and to say that he knew his stuff would be an enormous understatement. He held an impressive–almost singular, it seemed to me–footing on the treacherous ground of climate science and policy. Speaking without a single note, he had a way of distilling the topic down to its stark realities. It was riveting–and a little scary. But listening to him, I didn’t get the sense that Clapp was some sort of professional alarmist. I did get the sense that he could see our high-carbon future with unusual clarity–and I left the room glad that he was on the job.

Philip Clapp died in Amsterdam at the age of 54. David Roberts posted this obituary for Grist.

Government & Business, Power

Net Zero Energy Future?

According to the Air Resources Board, about a quarter of California’s (human-induced) greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings–or what planners like to call the “built environment.”

My colleague Peter Jon Shuler was at today’s meeting of the California Public Utilities Commission in San Francisco, when it rolled out its master plan for energy-efficient buildings throughout the state. Peter’s notes:
The California Public Utilities Commission has taken the first steps in an innovative plan to eventually get all new construction in the state down to zero net energy use.

On Tuesday, the PUC adopted what it’s calling the Long Term Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan.  More than 500 individuals and organizations came together to craft the ambitious plan – designed to save energy while growing the state’s population and economy.  It’s still a little fuzzy on the details of how all this will happen.

The plan includes what it calls its four Big Bold strategies:

• All new residential construction in California will be zero net energy by 2020;
• All new commercial construction in California will be zero net energy by 2030;
• The Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) industry will be reshaped to ensure optimal equipment performance; and
• All eligible low-income homes will be energy efficient by 2020.

Government & Business

Selling the Benefits of AB 32

Well-timed would be one way to describe the pair of rosy forecasts from the state’s Air Resources Board today. For Californians beleaguered by the slumping economy, both reports were choc-a-bloc with good news. The only drawback is that we’ll have to wait a while for the payoff.

The ARB is the “lead agency” for implementing California’s comprehensive plan passed in 2006 to combat climate change, known affectionately as AB32. The primary objective is to get a 30% reduction in greenhouse gases statewide by 2020. The two reports released today attempt to gauge the long-term economic and public health benefits from fully implementing the plan.

Over time, the reports point to creation of more than 100,000  jobs and higher per capita income on the economic front. Estimated health benefits include fewer premature deaths (mostly related to heat waves) and asthma cases.

Some of the touted benefits are relatively small incremental improvements over programs already in place. For instance, ARB anticipates that by 2020, all the provisions of AB32 combined would mean 67 fewer hospital admissions per year (statewide) for respiratory conditions. That compares to the 770 admissions spared in 2020 that would result from existing air quality measures.

Power

Where’s My CW Radio?

Due to breaking news events in Sacramento and Los Angeles over the weekend, we had to reschedule the radio rollout of Climate Watch until next week. Please listen to our two-part series on “Solar Realities” (aired on September 15 and 16, 2009 on The California Report). Listen to Part 1 of the series here, and Part 2 here. In the meantime you can explore some of the supersized solar sites already built in the Mojave and see where utilities are planning to add one that would dwarf even these.

Kramer Array


Government & Business

Clear as Mud?

In case you missed the explanation that VP candidate Sarah Palin offered to ABC’s Charlie Gibson regarding her stand on anthropogenic climate change, this discussion and video clip at rawstory.com may be clarifying–or not. The governor may not literally be able to see Russia from her house, as her Tina Fey doppelganger suggested on Saturday Night Live but she’s certainly had a front-row seat on the effects of rapid warming in the higher latitudes.

Also under the heading of “in case you missed it,” worth hearing is the America Abroad special that aired last week on KQED Radio. Co-hosted by Ray Suarez and Deborah Amos, Feeling the Heat explores the positions of the two major candidates on climate change, as well as the history of climate science.

Uncategorized

Climate Linked to “Silent Streams”?

Memo to anglers: If you’re wondering why they’re not biting, it may be because they’re not there. Little noticed this week was a report from the U.S. Geological Survey, detailing the staggering losses that freshwater fish species have suffered across the U.S. The report describes nearly 40% of North America’s freshwater fishes as “imperiled.” The figure represents a 92% increase over a similar survey done in 1989 by the American Fisheries Society, which participated in the new report. USGS director Mark Myers cited loss of habitat and invasive species as primary causes for the decline but noted that “climate change may further affect these fish.” The news is worse for California, as topping the Survey’s at-risk list are “salmon and trout of the Pacific Coast and western mountain regions.”

Release of the report followed by one day Terry Root’s keynote presentation at the California Climate Change Conference, in which the Stanford researcher warned of a catastrophic loss of trout habitat in California, due in part to climate change.

Uncategorized

In CA’s Future: More Hay, Less Lemonade?

Climate change might actually help California’s agriculture industry, according to preliminary research findings by one of today’s speakers at the California Climate Change Conference in Sacramento. UC Santa Barbara professor Charles Kolstad described his current research assessing potential future effects of weather and climate on different California agricultural crops such as broccoli and lettuce. His team compiled historical data on farm revenues, crop production, soil quality, and weather, and applied it to two of the standard scenarios provided by the IPCC; A2 (“business as usual”) and B1 (“more moderate change in climate”). Kolstad found “a clearly positive effect [of climate change] on profits” that is mostly due to temperature changes. Precipitation changes had a lesser effect on the results.

However, before you fire up the Farmall (that’s a tractor, for you city folk) and head for the fields, it’s important to note that the study does not account for future water availability and price, which obviously will have a huge impact on the future of agriculture in the state. When one conference attendee took issue with the study, calling it “completely wrong” based on several factors, Kolstad said he was aware that water availability and prices could “swamp these results,” but said that the study was focused on just one piece of a complicated issue.

Of course, not all crops will benefit from increased temperatures. According to the study, cotton and hay will see some of the biggest gains, but food crops like table grapes and lemons will suffer. So at least the horses of the future will be well fed…or not.

Power

Climate Conference, Day 2: Re-roof the World

Morning presentations covered various public health effects from climate change (mostly from air pollution) and some ideas for carbon sequestration, from the potential for low-tech wetlands storage, to the huge WestCarb pilot project, aimed at injecting surplus carbon dioxide into subterranean rock formations. Just approved by DOE is a plan to inject a million tons of CO2 over a four-year period, at a site near Bakersfield. John Henry Beyer of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab says that oil companies may be able to use the stored CO2 for “enhanced oil & gas recovery.”

Greg Rau of UC Santa Cruz cast the mandatory pall-of-the-day with a blunt assessment of the battle against global warming: “We are failing to mitigate atmospheric CO2.” Too much of growing energy demand is being met with fossil fuels, Rau explained. “We need to urgently think about this.” Most of Rau’s talk was devoted to the problem of ocean acidification, recently profiled by my colleague Lauren Sommer for Quest Radio.

One guy who’s done a lot of thinking about it is Hashem Akbari, who will take the lectern today to call upon cities around the world to move rapidly toward “cool roof” policies. Akbari, who works at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, has been a long-time advocate of using reflective roofing and paving materials to help offset the effect of “urban heat islands.” He says that replacing the roof of one typical suburban home (about 1,000 square feet) can produce a CO2 “offset” of four metric tons. He adds that replacing flat commercial roofing with white “cool” roofing or coatings can increase the solar reflectance of the roof from as low as 10% to as high as 80% (at least until it gets dirty). I  interviewed Akbari for a Quest Radio piece on heat islands last year.