Solar

An interview with Dr. David Mills, Chief Scientific Officer and Founder of Ausra: Dr. David Mills has worked in the alternative energy field for over 30 years. He was born and raised in Canada and educated in Australia. In his University of Sydney lab he developed and licensed the evacuated-tube solar water heater technology, which consists of about 60 percent of the world's solar collectors and created an advanced double cermet selective absorber coating, which is used in tube receivers by Chinas largest solar company. He also invented or co-invented the Prism solar concentrator (Sol X) and the S evacuated tube reflecting system (Solahart). He's saved his best for last however, with his...

With renewable energy sources like wind and solar constantly on hand, it is no wonder that everyone wants to harness this energy with constantly evolving technology. Cars and buildings are going solar, why not boats and massive cruise ships? Solar Sailor, an Australian company that owns the patented 'solarsail' technology, has developed devices comparable to 'wings' that attach to ocean-going vessels to harness the ever-popular wind and solar energy. Both sources of energy are especially abundant when floating on the ocean. This hybrid marine power (HMP) technology comes in the from of a 'solar wing', which typically rests on top of the ship like a solid metal sail (to take advantage of wind) and...

Earlier this year, on October 27th, Ausra commissioned their first solar thermal pilot plant, a 5.0 megawatt facility located in Kimberlina, just north of Bakersfield, California. It is the first solar thermal power facility to be commissioned in California in over 20 years - significantly, the approximately 350 megawatts of solar thermal power installed back in the 1980's are all still operating. There are three basic types of utility scale solar thermal power, all of which have strengths and weaknesses and all of which currently compete to become the most cost effective version. Bright Source Energy has been working on an improved "power tower" design, where a field of two-axis tracking mirrors (which can be...

How epic has this correction been? The answer is worse than the 1987 programmatic crash (S&P -32%) but not as bad, to-date, as the 1973 oil crisis (S&P -48%) or the dot-com bubble (S&P -49%). For an excellent graphic of these events and the current housing bubble (S&P -45%) visit CalculatedRisk.com. In this graph each of the indices starts at the same point on the top of the vertical axis, which represents the percentage amount of drop in index value. With the horizontal axis representing time, it can be seen that while the percentage drop of the S&P 500 is not quite as severe as in the case of the corrections of '73 or '00, those corrections took 2-3 years to hit bottom. We are less than...

Solar panels have been the topic of thousands of articles over the past couple of years. It seems like everyone is going pro-solar, but there is one thing that few people have addressed: Dirt. Solar panels glisten in the sun after first being installed, and make any building look modern, shiny and new when viewed from above. But after a little while, these panels reflect a little less and don't function as well. Tree branches hanging overhead drop sap onto anything below, flocks of birds leave behind a mess after spending the night overhead while dust, grime and mold adds to the layers of dirt already coloring the solar panels a splotchy brown. Dirt is a major problem with solar panels...

With many millions - if not billions - around the world believing today's U.S. Presidential election could be the dawn of a new age of peace and prosperity and international cooperation - with even this skeptic among them fervently hoping they're right - where are we with the dawning of the age of solar energy? How much solar power do we harvest from dawn to dusk, the world over? Having spoken or corresponded with more than a few experts on this topic over the past few days, here is the status of global solar energy right now:  The total installed base of photovoltaic capacity in the world as of 12-31-08 is estimated to be about 12.5 gigawatts. This is including both "inside the...

Imagine trekking through the snow in one of the most remote places in the world. Wind whips around your whole body. Your fingers and toes are numb from the cold. A thick fur lined hood obstructs your peripheral vision, but there is nowhere to walk but straight ahead, anyway. When it comes time to call in for help, the satellite phone fails to pick up a signal. Then the unthinkable happens...the battery dies. A dying cell phone in the remote wilderness is a disaster. A dead mp3 player, camera or GPS system is not as serious, but also an incredible annoyance. Solio, the world's most advanced hybrid solar charger, has ensured that no one has to ever be without power. The lightweight design of...

On Thursday 10-16-08 I attended the User Group meeting of Plexos Solutions LLC, a boutique firm providing software and consulting to the rapidly changing California electric market. One of the presentations covered issues surrounding integration of renewable energy resources into the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). This is important to sustainable energy investors because virtually all the growth in generating capacity is forecast to come from renewable resources. While the fundamentals of this market have been overwhelmed by broader market conditions this last month, over time the fundamentals provide the tailwind that will lift stocks. And the growth expectations for renewables are very high in the California market. Over the...

Even if California "only" ends up with 25% renewable electricity within the next decade or two, there is going to be a staggering amount of investment pouring into wind and solar power, and with intermittant sources of energy, massive storage infrastructure is just as necessary as the generating infrastructure. In our analysis of Prop. 7, California's Proposition 7, the initiative that calls for 50% renewable energy by 2025, we estimated compliance would require about 500 gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity generating capacity per day. For wind power, based on installation costs of $2.5 million per megawatt ($2.5 billion per gigawatt), and yields of 17.5%, this would require a total investment of nearly $300...

There is nothing wrong with encouraging clean, renewable, domestically produced energy.  But California's proposition 7 "would, if approved, require California utilities to procure half of their power from renewable resources by 2025" (ref. Ballotpedia).  Currently California's public utilities are mandated to generate 25% of their electricity by 2025, and this is an ambitious goal.  Just getting to 25% renewable electricity by 2025 would require more than doubling renewable power generation in California.  Getting to 50% by that time would require renewable power generation in California to nearly quintuple. To understand why accomplishing such an ambitious goal is not necessarily practical, you don't have to be an economist or a renewable power expert.  You simply need to take a look at the current cost for renewable power technology.  While you're at it, write off hydropower, which...

Nothing beats natural light. And nothing is more depressing than a gloomy room forced into darkness by the neighbor's wall. Windows help add warmth to any room, while the natural lighting allows homeowners to run around the house without the need to turn on as many lights. Not only that, but the ventilation provided by an open window slows the growth of the fuzzy green molds known for taking over the soggy windowless bathroom walls found in your first apartment and many dorms. Solatube International, founded in the early 80s and one of the first companies to design a tubular daylighting system, allows homeowners to bring natural light to any part of their home by running a flexible tube from their roofs to other areas of the building. Extra windows and skylights are a burden to install and can be incredibly costly. Not only that, but small bathrooms, centralized rooms and hallways may not have space or...

Back in April 2006 we posted "The Photovoltaic Boom ," where we enthusiastically reported the bright future of photovoltaic power.  We thought then, and we believe now, that photovotalic production will increase faster than projections, at the same time as costs will fall faster than expected.  But if photovoltaic power is becoming a commodity, doesn't that mean the stocks of photovoltaic companies are also going to acquire the characteristics of commodities stocks?  Here in the summer of 2008 we may very well have a photovoltaic bubble.  It may be that photovoltaic stocks have nowhere to go but down.  Rather than attempt to compare and contrast the entire sector, simply consider the fortunes of First Solar, a...