Tag Archives: Moore’s Law

Review of the misleading movie Pandora’s Promise

Here’s a trailer for the “documentary” pro-nuke film that comes out today,



Pandora’s Promise.
The film discounts solar and wind energy because its makers
don’t understand the exponential decrease in solar prices or
the night backup power ability of wind connected with a smart grid.
The vast majority of the American people already are demanding
those real renewables instead of nuclear or coal,
and the economics of wind and solar are also rapidly beating natural gas.

Atom Ecology’s promotional writeup 7 June 2013,

Pandora’s Promise – Anti-Nuclear Mob Burns Environment In Coal Fired Forges Of Industry For 30 Years begins,

A new documentary film that reveals how opposition to and voting
against nuclear power turned into massive increases in coal burning
power plants. The far worse outcome for the environment as coal has
filled energy demand is the story just coming to theatres.

The tiny germ of truth in that ten years ago is just plain wrong now
that coal is not the alternative because

solar has reached grid parity with nuclear, coal, and natural gas.

The movie plays up Stewart Brand’s conservationist credentials
and his conversion to pro-nuke.


Not in that movie, but

in this TED talk,
you can see
Stewart Brand lose a debate with Mark Z. Jacobson, who argued
we can power the whole world with sun, wind, and water.
Jacobson’s summary: Continue reading →

Solar shakeout



Solar companies are shaking out just like car and computer companies before them.
Dozens of automobile manufacturers shook out to a handful of major ones;
Tesla is the first new one in decades.
So many computer hardware and software companies went under or were bought
by bigger ones that it would take a very long blog post to list them all;
I could name a dozen or two off the top of my head.
There’s a shakeout going on right now among mobile phone manufacturers:
even mighty Nokia is sinking.
The solar industry is going through that same normal shakeout phase.
Will electric utilities be next?

Stephen Lacey wrote for greentechsolar 23 April 2013,

Four Must-See Charts on the Future of the Global Solar Market:
Who will be left standing when the dust settles?

In 2009, after Spain’s market collapsed and the world faced a
crippling financial crisis, GTM Research predicted a shake-out in
the manufacturing sector. But unexpected growth in global demand,
particularly in European markets, helped keep many producers afloat.

Then, in 2010 and 2011, we saw a surge of new manufacturing capacity
— much of it driven by China — that created the
structural oversupply faced by the industry today. As illustrated by
the growing list of deceased solar companies and acquisitions, the
delayed shake-out in the industry is now well underway.

This morning at the GTM Solar Summit, Shayle Kann, vice president of
research, shared his outlook on consolidation, module prices, and
the shifting global demand through 2016. Here are four charts from
his presentation that provide a glimpse of what the world may look
like in the next three years.

In 2010, when the period of irrational growth began in solar
manufacturing, there were 357 active module producers.

By the end of this year, that number will be down to 145. And in
2016, it will drop below 100. (So if you’re at a conference talking
to a person involved in manufacturing, there’s a good chance he or
she might be out of a job or working for a different firm the next
time you see them.)



He then predicts that solar PV panel prices may actually rise
briefly due to fewer manufacturers.
However, as he notes, demand will keep going up.
And demand combined with economies of scale may make prices continue down
with

Moore’s Law.
I think his installed capacity graph is way too conservative,
because he doesn’t go back far enough, which would reveal that
2010 growth is not an anomaly, it’s

a steady continuation of the
previous decade (well, except in Georgia).
We shall see what happens in the next few years.

One thing’s for certain:
a few bankruptcies are not a problem for the world’s fastest-growing
industry.
They are merely a symptom of any industry growing that fast.
Solar panels will continue to spread, ever-faster,
and

electric utilities need to adapt
or soon their big utility shakeout will start, too.
The utility shakeout may look more like an increase
in companies, as many solar installers and vendors move in to
handle distributed solar power

if the incumbents won’t do it.
That’s my speculation, and again we’ll see.

-jsq

NJ 1 GW Solar: GA #22

While Georgia

failed to reform its antique Territorial Electric Service Act
and

toyed with a solar monopoly,


New Jersey, far to the north with far less sun,
finished installing a gigawatt (1,000 megawatts) of solar power.
The rest of the

U.S. installed 3.3 MW total, slightly higher
than projections of 3.2 MW, but Georgia lagged behind.
When will the legislature and the Public Service Commission,
and perhaps more importantly, Georgia Power and Southern Company,
stop

stop wasting our money on that three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture boondoggle
at Plant Vogtle
and get on with solar in Georgia for jobs, for profit, and for clean air and water?

Pete Danko wrote for

Earth Techling and Huffpo 20 March 2013,

New Jersey Solar Capacity Hits 1 Gigawatt,

Continue reading →

U.S. installed 3.3 Gigawatts of solar in 2012, on target

Moore’s law continues to drive solar costs down and installations up.
According to SEIA,

U.S. Market Installs 3,300 Megawatts in 2012; Driven by Record Fourth Quarter,

2012 was a historic year for the U.S. solar industry. There were
3,313 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) capacity installed
throughout the year, which represents 76% growth over 2011’s record
deployment totals. The fourth quarter of 2012 was also the largest
quarter on record as 1,300 MW came online, driven in part by
unprecedented installation levels in the residential and utility
markets. SEIA and GTM Research forecast that the market will
continue to grow at a steady clip with over 4,200 MW of PV and 940
MW of concentrating solar power (CSP) expected to come online in
2013. (All data from SEIA/GTM Research “U.S. Solar Market
Insight 2012 Year-In-Review” unless otherwise noted.)


And those new installations are driven by solar PV prices continually falling in

Moore’s Law for solar:

Continue reading →

Nukes economically hard to justify —GE CEO Immelt

The CEO of General Electric,
the company that designed the reactors

at Fukushima and Hatch 1 and 2,
said nukes are economically hard to justify.
And that was back in July, before
the first new nukes permitted in 30 years,
at Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River,

slipped 15 months.
What’s winning? Shale gas, temporarily, but that’s just a bump
in the road on the way to wind and solar power.

Pilita Clark wrote for Financial Times 30 July 2012,

Nuclear ‘hard to justify’, says GE chief,



Nuclear power is so expensive compared with other forms of energy
that it has become “really hard” to justify, according
to the chief executive of General Electric, one of the world’s
largest suppliers of atomic equipment.

“It’s really a gas and wind world today,” said Jeff
Immelt, referring to two sources of electricity he said most
countries are shifting towards as natural gas becomes
“permanently cheap”.

“When I talk to the guys who run the oil companies they say
look, they’re finding more gas all the time. It’s just hard to
justify nuclear, really hard. Gas is so cheap and at some point,
really, economics rule,” Mr Immelt told the Financial Times in
an interview in London at the weekend. “So I think some
combination of gas, and either wind or solar … that’s where we see
most countries around the world going.”



GE CEO Immelt may also want to talk to GE’s own research director

Continue reading →

2012 solar deployments driven by Moore’s Law price reductions


Moore's Law in solar Watts/$100

Moore’s Law for solar is about decreasing price per Watt,
or more Watts per dollar.
Here’s an example of a common confusion, to think it’s about efficiency:

“The curve will obviously become asymptotic at some point, ie,. the rate
of improvement will flatten out, so we end up with a sort of squashed
“S” shape curve, because you can’t get more than 100% efficiency —
36 watts/m2 or so.”

And indeed efficiency probably will flatten out soon.
But it’s not solar
efficiency that’s improving by Moore’s Law: it’s price per watt.
That can keep improving for a long time.

Here’s an example of decreasing price.
Scott Detrow wrote for NPR 23 December 2012,

Forget Fracking: 2012 Was A Powerful Year For Renewables,


Rhone Resch
“Just to give you perspective,” Resh said, “in Washington, D.C.,
where I live, when I installed solar on my house six years ago, the
average install cost was about $14 a watt. Today it’s about $4 a
watt.”

Here’s another comparison, this one just for solar panels.

KC 170 solar panels, purchased 2005
In 2005 the first set of solar panels we got cost $670 each
and produced 170 Watts DC each, or $4.94/Watt.
In 2011 our second set of solar panels cost $562 each
for 235 Watts DC each, or $2.39/Watt.
That’s more than 50% price decrease for solar panels in six years.
(I can’t compare inverters or support structures directly,
because those were sized so differently, but those have also
come down in price, helping lower the overall install cost).

Year price /Watt price /panel Watts /panel Dimens. square inches Watts /100 sq in. Model
2005 $4.94 $670 170W 50×39″ 1950 8.7 KC 170
2011 $2.39 $562 235W 39.1×64.6″ 2525 9.3 Sharp ND 235 QCJ
2012 $1.32 $310 235W 39.1×64.6″ 2525 9.3 Sharp ND 235 QCJ

Meanwhile, the Watts per surface area hardly changed, from about

Continue reading →

Industrial Authority working for solar in south Georgia @ VLCIA 2012-12-18

The

Industrial Authority
is working to find locations for some of the
210 MW Georgia Power got the PSC to shift
from biomass to solar back in September.
That’s a good next step.

Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT 23 Dec 2012,

Solar power push has Authority working to establish connections,

Since the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved Georgia

Allan Ricketts, Projects and Existing Industry Manager, VLCIA, 2012-12-18
Power Company’s plan Nov. 20 to add 210 megawatts of solar power to
its electrical grid, the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial
Authority has been devising strategies to draw solar energy
producers to South Georgia.

Georgia Power will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) from solar
energy collection and production companies in early 2013, according
to the PSC, and the company will contract with the lowest bidders to
purchase their energy and place it on the Georgia Power electrical
grid for public consumption.

Georgia Power plans to add 90 megawatts to its grid from distributed
generation (small companies producing between 100 kilowatts and 1
megawatt), and 120 megawatts of large utility-scale projects
producing up to 20 megawatts each. The company plans to price the
solar energy at $0.13 per kWh for distributed generation and up to
$0.12 per kWh for utility-scale projects, according to the PSC.

This government-approved commercial push for solar energy could be a
boon to sunny South Georgia as well as the greater Valdosta area
specifically, and the Authority is prepared to accommodate the solar
energy producers they expect.


Andrew Schruijer, Executive Director, VLCIA, 2012-12-18
“I think there’s a very good possibility of solar energy
coming to South Georgia,” Executive Director Andrea Schruijer
said. “Possibly in the near future.”

There’s more in the VDT story.
It’s pretty much what
Col. Ricketts also told me after the VLCIA meeting Tuesday a week ago.
He asked me if I knew what “distributed” meant.
I pointed out Georgia Power’s version of distributed was actually not
very distributed, compared to

Continue reading →

What is Moore’s Law for solar power?

Many people are unfamiliar with Moore’s Law, and

how it affects solar power.
Moore’s Law doesn’t occur
in many technologies or industries,
but it’s there in solar photovoltaic (PV).
For those of us whose whole working lives have been
affected by Moore’s Law, seeing it turn up in another field
is like a flashing neon sign pointing to the future.
A future of distributed solar power sunrise
over the crumbling industrial relics of coal, nuclear, and natural gas plants.
A future with much less control by monopoly utilities,
which is why they fight it.
If they even see it coming; Bill Gates didn’t, back in the day,
but Jeff Bezos of Amazon did.
They both surfed that tide,
and Moore’s Law made both of them among the richest humans on the planet
while changing the world for all of us.
Steve Jobs even used it to put a computer in your pocket
more powerful than big companies could buy a few decades ago.
What does Moore’s Law for solar power mean for electric power?

This chart shows the telltale symptom of Moore’s Law in solar electricity:
65% compound annual growth rate in solar power plants
deployed for the past 5 years:


Source:
Solar Power Graphs to Make You Smile
by Zachary Shahan for CleanTechnica 10 June 2011.

As SunPower’s Dinwoodie puts it:

That 17 GW installed in 2010 is the equivalent of 17 nuclear power
plants — manufactured, shipped and installed in one year. It
can take decades just to install a nuclear plant. Think about that.
I heard Bill Gates recently call solar “cute.” Well,
that’s 17 GW of “cute” adding up at an astonishing pace.



Bill Gates should recall that Moore’s Law made formerly “cute” PCs with his
“cute” operating system Windows expand into every company in the world
and made him the second richest human on the planet.
Growth of computer software markets,

like for the U.S. as shown in the graph on the right,
is a symptom of the original Moore’s Law.
Software runs on hardware, and these hardware market curves
are driven more directly by Moore’s Law:

Continue reading →

15 month delay for new Plant Vogtle nukes —state inspector at PSC



Southern Company's new nukes are delayed at least fifteen months,
at least a billion over budget and rising,
and not organized to meet safety filing requirements,
yet the Georgia PSC yesterday
let SO pass the buck to contractors and Georgia Power
continue charging customers for that boondoggle,
despite 40 to 1 opposition from attendees.

Ellen Reinhardt wrote for GPB News yesterday,

Plant Vogtle Construction Costs Rising,

An independent auditor told utility regulators Plant Vogtle
construction will be delayed at least 15 months and go millions of
dollars over budget.

Nuclear engineer William Jacobs said poor construction material,
contractor mistakes and oversight delays will mean the Unit 3
reactor won't be ready until July of 2017.

That's 15 months later than planned.

Surprise!

From $0.66 to $8.87 billion: original Plant Vogtle nuclear costs
Who could have expected that, given that back in the 1970s and
1980s

costs blew up 26 times the original estimate.
Back then SO complained about paperwork after Three Mile Island.
They're trying that same excuse now,
but even a former Commissioner-turned-lobbyist is incredulous,
as Kristi Swartz reported for the AJC yesterday,

Monitor: Paperwork problems a drag on Vogtle schedule,

“It's taken eight months to handle paperwork
deficiencies?” asked Bobby Baker, a former PSC commissioner
who now represents Resource Supply Management, an energy consultant
that works with large commercial, institutional and industrial
electric customers.

A current Commissioner was almost as incredulous:

Continue reading →

Renewables are Winning, Nukes are Dead, and Coal is Crashing



Somebody is willing to read the sunshine writing:

Renewables are Winning, Nukes are Dead and Coal is Crashing, as
Kathleen Rogers and Danny Kennedy wrote for EcoWatch 14 Dec 2012.

As I wrote

back in April when formerly coal-plotting Cobb EMC went solar:

Coal is dead. Nuclear is going down.
Solar will eat the lunch of utilities that don’t start generating it.

Can Georgia Power and Southern Company (SO) read that handwriting on the wall?


They can’t fight Moore’s Law, which has steadily brought the cost
of solar photovoltaic (PV) energy down for thirty years now, and
shows no signs of stopping.
This is the same Moore’s Law that has put a computer in your pocket
more powerful than a computer
that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1982
and was used by an entire company.

Solar PV costs dropped 50% last year.
Already
all the new U.S. electric capacity installed this September
was solar and wind.
As this trend continues, solar will become so much more cost-effective
than any fossil or nuclear fuel power that nobody will be able to ignore it.

Rogers and Kennedy explained this phenomenon:

The seismic shift in how we all use cell phones and mobile technology to access the internet almost snuck up on the incumbent technologies and the monopolies that made money selling us landline telephones and a crappy service. Now, we’re all using apps on smartphones all of the time. So too, the shift to a scaled, solar-powered future built around the modular technology at the heart of solar power—the photovoltaic solar cell—will come as a surprise to many. We call it the solar ascent, and it is happening every day in a million ways.

Will SO and Georgia Power continue to prop up

that 1973 legal wall


that

inhibits solar financing in Georgia?
Companies and even economic development authorities are

starting to find ways around it,
and of course there’s

Georgia Solar Utilities (GaSU) trying to

wedge into the law as a utility.
After Hurricane Sandy,

rooftop solar for grid outage independence
has suddenly hit the big time
(Austin Energy caught onto that back in 2003).
The

U.S. military got solar and renewable energy
back in Afghanistan and are now doing it bigtime everywhere.

SO and Georgia Power can try to ignore

Continue reading →