Some nuclear backers only want to look at the
next table in that FERC report,

Office of Energy Projects
Energy Infrastructure Update
For December 2012,
which shows solar energy as 0.34% of total U.S. energy production,
and then they stop thinking.
But what about

that 30% increase in solar power deployed
between 2011 and 2012?
Think of it like compound interest.

Source: Data derived from Ventyx Global LLC, Velocity Suite.

Growth rates computed by jsq for LAKE www.l-a-k-e.org 24 January 2013.

Let’s look what happens if we assume 30% growth in solar power deployed per year:

At 30% annual growth,
we’re up to solar as 50% of all generation
within

twenty years.
That’s impressive, but still too slow to, for example,
affect climate change fast enough to make much difference.

But 30% isn’t actually the growth rate.
30% is the increase in added solar capacity
between 2011 and 2012.
So 30% is actually the acceleration in growth, compared to linear growth.
But solar power growth is not linear; we’re not adding the same number of solar MW
each year: we’re adding an increasing amount each year,
30% more added in 2012 than was added in 2011.
That’s not linear growth: that’s compound growth, like money in the bank with compound interest.
Very large interest.

What’s the real growth rate?
Since 1.476 gigawatts of solar power were added in 2012,
for a total of 3.9 GW, the total in 2011 must have been 3.9 – 1.476 = 2.424 GW.
So the growth rate from 2011 to 2012 was 3.9/2.424 = 1.6089, or about 61%.


Which is quite similar to the

65% average annual growth rate from
2005 to 2010 observed by Paula Mintz of Navigant.
That’s the realistic middle curve on the graph:
65% annual growth.

However, that middle curve is only realistic in the
current sceptical political and financial climate for solar power.
What if we added Feed-In Tariffs, or a carbon tax?
That solar power growth rate would go up.

The third curve on the graph shows what happens with
100% annual growth rate.
We’d break 20% in six years from now
and we’d have enough solar power to run the whole country
in less than ten years.

You may say that’s silly: that graph shows growth
as a percentage of total power generated, and is drawn
like everything but solar is standing still.
Well, look at the growth rates in the table!
The only thing other than solar cracking 5% growth is…
wind power.
Which means even at the 65% solar growth rate
we can power the country mostly on wind and solar
in less than a decade if we want to.
And long before then we can start shutting down
not just coal and nuclear plants, but also natural gas plants.

Now obviously growth rates like that have to slow down eventually,
because otherwise we end up generating more than 100%
and customers will stop buying more.
However, with

Moore’s Law for solar there’s no reason
we can’t do 65% for quite some time.
Or faster.
And there are lots of countries in the world beyond the U.S.

Well, no reason except financing and legal obstacles like

Georgia’s 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act.
The GA legislature
is in session and could fix that last right now.
That would help with financing.
So would a Feed-In Tariff or a carbon tax.


Or the legislature could just fully fund GEFA’s 35% state renewable
energy tax credit.
And double the pot like it did
year before last.

I know some people will say we shouldn’t subsidize any new sources
of energy, but many of them are the same people who are backing nuclear
with

its huge subsidies, and the rest could do more to stop the
ridiculous subsidies fossil fuel companies still get even though
they are now among the most profitable companies in the history of the planet.
Governments have always subsidized new sources of energy,
and solar and wind should be no exceptions.
But the first thing the Georgia government could do is stop
getting in the way:

fix that 1973 law.

-jsq