Ed Ring

In response to our post of October 20th, "The Photovoltaic Revolution," a reader made the following comment:  "It seems that there are dozens of companies announcing that they are about to produce megawatts of low cost solar cells. When they actually ship and with a warranty for ten or twenty years I will believe it. Until then they are just like the hundreds of other companies whose main output is press releases." This is absolutely true. We have been watching photovoltaics very carefully for over ten years, and there have been a lot of false alarms. It isn't easy to find information about the commercial status of thin film photovoltaics.  When we searched in Google, our investigation led us to the U.S. Energy Information Adminstration's website, to a page entitled "Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic Collector Manufacturing Activities 2005." In this report, on table F-9 "Market Share of Thin Film Shipments, 1996-2005" you can see that last year thin film accounted for 25% of U.S...

We are very close to learning whether or not what we've been waiting for all these years has finally come true:  Cheap abundant energy via photovoltaics.  What was required was a way to manufacture them for, say, one-tenth the current costs, and from what representatives of several photovoltaic manufacturers are telling us, that day has come. We're closely watching two Silicon Valley standouts in this field, Miasole and Nanosolar.  According to Martin Wenzel at Miasole, they are within a month or so of starting up a 25 MW photovoltaic manufacturing line.  Nanosolar, not far behind, claims they will start up a whopping 430 MW photovoltaic manufacturing line by the end of 2007.  For a more complete...

We have just published a feature story "Saving Endangered Species" covering the courageous activities of the organization WildAid, a San Francisco-based organization that prosecutes people who traffic in wild animal parts.  WildAid also works to raise public consciousness, especially in Asia, in an attempt to reduce demand for wild animal parts. There are a few issues here worth exploring:  Some are crystal clear, such as the need to strictly regulate hunting animals when the hunting itself is leading a species towards extinction.  From that standpoint, hunting game animals even for food is hard to justify. There is also the issue of keeping animals in captivity in order to harvest, for example, the bile from a bear's gallbladder.  This is typically a dreadfully cruel practice that can leave an animal in agony for literally decades.  Again, this is pretty hard to justify under any circumstances. But...

Forests are considered sacred by most environmentalists.  Over the past twelve years we've reported on deforestation and reforestation, and there has always been a consistent refrain from environmentalists:  Monocultures are not forests.  This point of view, while debateable, is one we basically agree with. So why are environmentalists relatively silent on the potential problems with biofuel plantations? Most environmentalists as well make much of the "carrying capacity" of the planet.  They point out, correctly, that there is a limit to how much the Earth's biosphere can generate.  Their concerns are manyfold - we will run out of forests, we will run out of farmland, we will run out of...

One of the more interesting propositions to face California's voters in November 2006 is Proposition 87, which would tax in-state oil producers to fund alternative energy projects.  Proponents of this bill air a television commercial, narrated by Bill Clinton, where the Brazilian ethanol industry is referenced.  The closing message is "If Brazil can do it, so can California." This is preposterous.  First of all, Brazil, which only replaces a bit more than 10% of their petroleum with ethanol, has a per capita petroleum and ethanol consumption of about 4.0 barrels per year per citizen (ref. EIA).  California, the most energy-efficient of all US states, nonetheless has a per capita petroleum consumption of over 20 barrels per year per citizen (ref. DOE).  For this reason, California, with 33 million inhabitants and sitting on maybe 40,000 square miles of fully utilized farmland...

That would be the proper title for the story just released today by Reuters, based on recent statements from NASA scientists.  But the title, perhaps predictably, was "Greenland Ice Sheet Shrinking Fast."   Once again, let's do the math, based on NASA's own data, as reported in this story:  During the years 2003, 2004 and 2005, NASA scientists estimate 41 cubic miles of ice melted along the periphery of Greenland, while 14 cubic miles of new ice were deposited via snowfall in the interior of Greenland.  This is a net loss of 27 cubic miles per year.  Does that sound like a lot?  It isn't. Given that there are 139 million square miles of ocean, adding 27 cubic miles per year of ice melt from Greenland to this...

Nobody knows for sure how low conventional manufacturing costs are for photovoltaics, since at the wholesale price of $4.00 per watt they are being sold, everywhere, as fast as they can be made.  Demand has exceeded supply for photovoltaics for several years, and even with incremental decreases in cost and increases in supply, this will continue. But the revolution is here. Thin film photovoltaics use far less silicon, which dramatically lowers costs.  In fact - "thin film" is a catch all term - some thin film photovoltaics use no silicon at all.  There are several companies pursuing thin film technology, Nanosolar, Miasole, Konarka, Heliovolt, and Innovalight.  And we are getting very close to seeing the proof in the pudding:  As we reported on September 29th in Miasole Photovoltaics, this company expects to have their production line up and running before the end of 2006, producing 25MW of output per year. Nanosolar has even...

One might assume that after nearly 12 years of publishing strategic information about green technology and environmental issues we would know everyone, but it's a bigger world than that.  Today we found www.eco-web.com and want to report this as perhaps the best organized and current compilation of green technology companies we've ever seen. Based in Zurich, Switzerland, Eco-Web's so-called "Green Pages" provide information on over 7,000 companies in nearly every country in the world.  Their classification system is pretty good; the primary categories they've created are: Environmental Information Waste Water Treatment Water Supply & Purification Air Pollution Control Waste Management Recycling Soil Preservation Noise Protection Power Generation Energy Efficiency Within each of these categories are several sub-categories, and you are also able to cross-reference by nation.  For example, when we search under Power Generation, the first result we get is Photovoltaic Solar Cells, and on that page we get 84 listings. Eco-Web's "Green Pages" then lets you sort by...

Many people who question the claims of global warming alarmists are nonetheless pleased that in the process of regulating CO2 emissions we will clean up air pollution.  They could be making a bad assumption. If you read, for example, the text of the most recent revision of California's Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, you will see that the regulation of "criteria pollutants" is almost an afterthought.  Here is the heart of the bill: "42877.  (a) On or before January 1, 2008, the state board shall adopt regulations that will reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 emission levels by 2020, taking into account projected reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from state agency programs not subject to this chapter. The emission limits shall be expressed in total tons of allowable emissions of greenhouse gases, expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents, and shall include all emissions...

According to the Global Footprint Network, humanity started "eating the planet" on October 9th of this year.  Some background is in order.  The Global Footprint Network's stated mission is "To support a sustainable economy by advancing the Ecological Footprint, a measurement and management tool that makes the reality of planetary limits relevant to decision-makers throughout the world." What these researchers do is estimate the amount of resources the planet will generate in one full year, then compare that to the speed with which human civilization will consume these resources.  And according to their findings, the renewable resources that our planet generated during the entire 12 months of 2006 were used up by humanity by October 9th. The subjectivity of the assumptions underlying this assessment is certainly not in limited supply!  Why not consider the solar energy hitting the planet?  Isn't...