Possibly the start of the end of traditional means of generating electricity

A recent item by David Roberts on the Grist website/Blog caught my eye,

Solar is getting cheap fast—pay attention, Very Serious People

That was the headline to the opening, thus,

I hope everyone has read Kees Van Der Leun’s post about the rapidly falling cost of solar PV. I want to draw out one quick point that Kees leaves implicit.

He argues that PV will be the cheapest source of electricity for most of the world some time around 2018, and for the rest of the world soon after. That could be off by a few years in either direction. It depends on whether the cost curve for silicon solar cells continues as it has the past and, as Alan says in his comment, whether the cost curve for “balance of system” costs (steel, glass, installation, etc.) declines as well. Let’s say it could be off by five years either way. Let’s just assume it’s 2023 before solar PV crosses grid parity and becomes cheaper than coal.

The Kees Van Der Leun post, referred to, points out that,

For a long time, the holy grail of solar photovoltaics (PV) has been “grid parity,” the point at which it would be as cheap to generate one’s own solar electricity as it is to buy electricity from the grid. And that is indeed an important market milestone, being achieved now in many places around the world. But recently it has become clear that PV is set to go beyond grid parity and become the cheapest way to generate electricity.

A hundred solar cells, good for 380 watts of solar PV power. Photo: Ariane van Dijk

Whenever I say this I encounter incredulity, even vehement opposition, from friends and foes of renewable energy alike. Apparently, knowledge of the rapid developments of the last few years has not been widely disseminated. But it’s happening, right under our noses! It is essential to understand this so that we can leverage it to rapidly switch to a global energy system fully based on renewable energy.

Working on solar PV energy at Ecofys since 1986, I have seen steady progression: efficiency goes up, cost goes down. But it was only on a 2004 visit to Q-Cells‘ solar cell factory in Thalheim, Germany, that it dawned on me that PV could become very cheap indeed. They gave me a stack of 100 silicon solar cells, each capable of producing 3.8 watts of power in full sunshine. I still have it in the office; it’s only an inch high!

That’s when I realized how little silicon was needed to supply the annual electricity consumption of an average European family (4,000 kWh). Under European solar radiation, it would take 1,400 cells, totaling less than 30 pounds of silicon.

Of course, you need to cover the cells with some glass and add a frame, a support structure, some cables, and an inverter. But the fact that 30 pounds of silicon, an amount that costs $700 to produce, is enough to generate a lifetime of household electricity baffled me. Over 25 years, the family would pay at least $25,000 for the same 100,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity from fossil fuels — and its generation cost alone would total over $6,000!

Back to the David Roberts article,

He argues that PV will be the cheapest source of electricity for most of the world some time around 2018, and for the rest of the world soon after. That could be off by a few years in either direction. It depends on whether the cost curve for silicon solar cells continues as it has the past and, as Alan says in his comment, whether the cost curve for “balance of system” costs (steel, glass, installation, etc.) declines as well. Let’s say it could be off by five years either way. Let’s just assume it’s 2023 before solar PV crosses grid parity and becomes cheaper than coal.

Here’s the thing: 2023 isn’t that far off. It feels distant to us in a lot of ways. My kids will be out of college. Fifty versions of the iPhone will have come and gone. We might finally have the jetpacks we were promised.

But in terms of energy infrastructure, 12 years is nothing. It can take half that long or longer to permit and build big coal and nuclear plants, and they are meant to last a long-ass time. The Perry K Steam Plant, which serves downtown Indianapolis, was built in 1938. They didn’t have color TV then. Thirty-six coal plants in the U.S. were built before 1950. If a coal plant built today lasts that long, it will still be belching all over the atmosphere in 2072. My kids will be in their 60s.

This is also true of nuclear plants (the oldest is 42 years) and to a lesser extent natural-gas plants. It’s even true of transmission lines. These are large, long-term investments.

So if solar PV is going to be cheaper than coal in the next decade or so, that seems like the kind of thing utilities, regulators, investors, and political leaders would want to, I don’t know, talk over. Grapple with. Mull. It certainly seems relevant to the investment thesis for large, centralized power infrastructure. Yet it’s all but invisible in the elite U.S. energy conversation, outside of a few voices like FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff. Very Serious People still see solar PV as an affectation, a kind of charity project.

Hope you are still with me, because this is really an incredibly positive message.  By the time children born today are becoming teenagers, the means of harnessing the sun to deliver clean energy cheaper than carbon-based and nuclear generation will be a reality.  In a little over a decade from now!

It is so easy to see doom and gloom wherever we look.  For good reasons; these are very difficult times as societies pull back from the greed and materialism of recent times to a better, sustainable relationship with our planet, the only one we have.  But technology and innovation are quietly creating the opportunities for a new future for humanity.

Let me finish with an email received recently from good friend, John H., up here in Payson, Arizona.

Greetings from a Mountain Top,

It has been another bright and peaceful day of Indian summer in the Ponderosa pine forests of the Arizona Rocky Mountains. Our annual state-wide church convention last weekend was a metaphorical breath of fresh air.  It was an opportunity to realize where we’ve been and consider how far we have to go.

From the early evening vantage point of an upper porch with a vista of forest, mountains and sky, it appears that we’re facing spiritual, environmental, human and economic bankruptcy caused by top down idolatry, arrogance and ignorance.

It’s deeply disturbing to watch our human heritage destroyed by a corporate-government-military-industrial-intelligence complex with a clear plan to control the world through oppression. This systemic machine continues to increase the drain on the earth’s severely depleted resources.

Our present energy sources can no longer sustain exponential human population growth.  The industrial use of fossil fuels is destroying the earth which sustains us.  It’s time for us to wake up and read the book of life.  It’s time to lighten the human footprint upon the earth while we still have a choice.  Nature doesn’t care about human ambition.

Peace and love, an old lamplighter

Our beautiful planet home; the only one we have.

With great thanks to Dan G. for sending me the link.

Science educator James Drake built this amazing timelapse video from the perspective of the International Space Station as it flew over North and South America. He created this video by downloading a series of 600 photographs that were available online at theGateway to Astronomy Photograph of Earth, and then stitching them together into a complete video. You can see more of James work at his blog: infinity imagined.

A guest post from John Hurlburt.

Our living garden planet.

When we’re in love with God, the cosmos, our living garden planet and the steadily growing conscious interconnection between those who understand and serve, we live in awe and wonder and realize a peaceful natural serenity in the midst of our daily concerns and responsibilities.

As our world, our environment and our culture appear to be unraveling, it becomes increasingly necessary for human beings to slow down to re-energize. It’s clear that our species has recently lost spectacularly to natural forces in the Gulf of Mexico and Japan. It’s no coincidence that it’s our technology which continues to reveal the fundamental weakness of human ego. It’s more than a metaphor that our individual and species arrogance is our Achilles heel.

There are many people who fail to perceive, understand and appreciate parallel realities from a rational, sensory and unified perspective by learning to see through a mystical third eye. Mysticism may be misunderstood as simply thinking outside of the box. Forget about the box. Let go of self-centered fears. Become aware of being unaware. Nurture capabilities to perceive non-locally and act locally. What’s happening worldwide comes with the territory. We are each responsible for our collective destiny

Meditation reflects that imagination and creativity are necessary to invent and utilize tools. Creativity did not begin with humans and is not exclusive to humans. God’s nature precedes emerging technology. Morality derives from our common need for species unity.

The message is that God doesn’t care about money and the sky is no longer a human limit. The fact remains that except for occasional astronauts we all continue to live on the same planet. Those who understand need no explanation.

There is a need for productive use of intelligence and technology at our natural frontiers. We need to refuel world economies with clean energy visions that provide solutions for our present local planetary emergency.

We may choose to implement the changes necessary to avoid impending local ecosphere, cultural and technological meltdowns while preparing for a migration to the stars.

Unification is a common goal. Leaving the nest of our garden planet is a partial unifying solution for the problems of our exponentially expanding species. An alternative is that our obsession with the symbol of money will have the same dire consequences for those who are obsessed as for those whom are oppressed.

Please love God, maintain an even strain, follow your bliss, continue to learn, share and serve our common purpose under God, proceed as the way opens, cross the next bridge as we come to it, enjoy the journey and stay in touch.

Gratefully,

From an old lamplighter!

There’s more to flying than many of us realise.

Thanks to Mike T who I have known for a few years now.  Mike is an air traffic controller as well as being a keen private pilot so if there is one person who can see through the telescope from both ends, it’s this man.

Anyway, GE Aviation are one of the big players in aviation.  Here’s a quote from the website that I am going to link you to in a moment.

GE Aviation designs engines, flightpaths, and advanced aircraft systems. And we wanted to share the intricate choreography of flying in all its glory.

Dancing in the air!

Here’s the video – just 1:48 long – it’s captivating.  This link takes you to the GE web page where there is much more of great interest other than the video.

If you only want to watch the video then, of course, there’s a copy on YouTube, as below.  Enjoy!

Thanks Mike.

By Paul Handover

“Fear paralyzes; curiosity empowers. Be more interested than afraid.” — Patricia Alexander, American educational psychologist.

This dropped into my email in-box the other day so I grabbed it to set this Post off on the right theme.

There is much around that can generate fear, touched on in my Post a couple of days ago where I quoted Richard Branson.

Prof. Lovelock

For an example of fear, many will have listened to the recent interview of Professor James Lovelock on the BBC Today programme and wondered just where we are all heading.  ( The interview may be listened to here.  – it’s 7 minutes long but listen to it!)

Here’s a YouTube video of Lovelock being interviewed in 2009. (Also worthy of watching for the full 13 minutes and note the connection between Lovelock and Branson.)

So if you listened and watched these two interviews then one could argue that there is more than enough to be fearful of our future.

Now go back to the opening quotation: “Fear paralyzes; curiosity empowers. Be more interested than afraid.”

Being fearful is not the answer – even if no alternative appears to be a rational way of mentally processing something.

Here’s a piece from Wayne Dyer’s book, There’s a Spiritual Solution to every Problem.

We are subjected to many illusions in our daily life.  The greatest one is the one that keeps us trapped in giving our energy to what always has been.

The past is behind us.  Predicting the future accurately, even by eminent scientists such as James Lovelock, is very, very unreliable.  Thus all we have is today.  So do not be afraid, be curious.

By Paul Handover

Learning from Dogs has been running for one year.

On July 15th, 2009 a post called Parenting lessons from Dogs started what has now become a bit of a ‘habit’.  But more reflections tomorrow.

Reach for the Skies

Today I want to voice something that has been running around my mind for some time.  It is whether we give in to the mounting doom and gloom at so many levels in our societies (and it can be a very compelling draw) or whether we see this as a painful but necessary period where slowly but surely the desires of ordinary people; for a fairer, more truthful, more integrous world are gaining power.

And I’m going to use Richard Branson to voice it for me!

(Now this is an unusually long Post so I’ve inserted the Read More divider to prevent the Post visually swamping your browser.)

Read the rest of this article

The brilliance of fine engineering

The BBC have been started a series on how things are made!  The first episode was on the making of a nuclear submarine – perhaps not something that touches most of us!

Trent 900 on the A380

But the second episode was much more the ‘touch of the common man’ as it was about the building of a commercial jet engine, the Trent engine built by Rolls Royce of Derby, England.

Anyway, I’m not going to natter on other than to say that not all regulatory bodies are bad in this world.  Indeed, the aviation industry has shown how splendid both engineering and the certification processes can be in giving us a incredibly safe form of transport.

There are plenty of YouTube videos on the Trent engine but here are two that I found of great interest. (Thanks to Simon H for the pointers.)

Rolls Royce Trent Engine Certification video

A380 Loss of Blade test

By Paul Handover

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

A quick Google search shows that this is a well-documented story that has been doing the rounds since 2009.  But I hadn’t come across it before so was very grateful for a friend in England, Richard Howell, including me on a recent email circulation.  I shall reproduce Richard’s email just as it was received.

OK… so… you’re the pilot of a plane…

It’s on auto-pilot and you’re catching up on People magazine and having a cup of coffee.

Suddenly the loudest sound you will ever hear goes off just behind your left ear.

You’re blinded by the flash and can’t hear.

All you can feel is something warm running down your leg.

You immediately consider retirement.

This is an Atlantic Southeast Airlines/Delta Connection aircraft… soon after it suffered a lightning strike.

Yep… time to RETIRE!

Thanks Richard,

By Paul Handover

What a fabulous gift to openness!

Wordpress Logo

I subscribe to a Blog that comes with the rather intriguing name of The Gospel According to Rhys.  It’s a bit ‘geeky’ for my tastes but it offers sufficiently good advice on Blogging and other Social Media systems that it is a worthwhile entry in to my email in-box.

Anyway, in today’s in-box was a piece from Rhys about WordPress turning 7 years old.

Learning from Dogs is, of course, a WordPress driven Blog and thus is an example of the power of this wonderful software.  I trust that Rhys will forgive me if I quote at length from his article – I can’t better it.

Recently it was WordPress’ 7th Birthday. On the 27th of May in 2003, Matt Mullenweg released a fork of b2/cafelog, called WordPress. From the 0.72 release, it’s become the defacto blogging solution for thousands of publishers.I love it, I think it’s great, and although I’m probably preaching to the converted, here’s 7 reasons why I think your blog should be on WordPress.

It’s Free

For what it does, and for amount it costs, it is amazing that it costs nothing. Sure there’s hosting costs & domain names, but there’s nothing stopping you playing with the software for nothing.

It’s Open Source

Fancy yourself as a bit of a coder? Well WordPress is entirely free to see the code. In fact, I recommend playing with WordPress to learn the basics of PHP. There is great documentation (again, open source wiki) to help you with the WordPress framework, itself a great introduction into advanced PHP programming & working with API’s & frameworks.

Furthermore, with it being open source, if a bug is discovered, it’s fixed relatively quickly.

It Is Quick & Easy To Use

WordPress is famous for it’s five minute installation, and when you get good, it should take you half of that time. Logging in you can write a post within a minute, and it’s ridiculously easy to use. Changing design & adding plugins is easy as well.

As CMS’s Goes, It’s Pretty Good for SEO

Out of the box, f0r search engine optimisation, it’s okay. However, with a few tweaks, WordPress becomes a solid SEO platform. It’s certainly one of the better CMS’ out there.

It’s Well Supported

I’m not sure if there’s been a “state of the wordpress community” post ever done, but WordPress itself hosts nearly 10,000 plugins, and there must be tens of thousands of themes available online (WordPress itself only holds about 1 and a half thousand). Each one has a programmer or designer behind it, and although support varies (the official wordpress forum is average at best), enough people know what they are doing, both paid or free, to help you out.

It Can Make You A Rich Man (or Woman)

Whilst I’m not a rich man, running this blog & a few websites on WordPress have allowed me to make some money, and anybody can do this. As well as ebooks, adsense, affiliate marketing & god knows what else, you can make a fortune carrying out WordPress related services for other people.

It’s Never Going To Disappear Overnight

WordPress has some huge sites supporting it, a company fully dedicated to it’s production, and a thriving community. It’s not here today, and gone tomorrow.

So happy birthday WordPress, here’s to the next 7 years!

Well said, Rhys.

By Paul Handover

Visualisation of data

I can’t recall how but I came across a web site that focuses on ‘translating’ data into pictures.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  The web site is called Information is Beautiful.

Anyhow, they have attempted to graphically portray the scale of the BP oil spill. (A thumbnail is below but please click on the link, or here, to see this as it was meant to be shown.)

Ouch!

But this image is an update of an earlier one here that is really powerful.  Because it attempts to put the scale of the oil spill into context with global oil consumption.

If the Purdue University estimate of the oil spill is correct at 48,500 barrels a day (a barrel is approximately the equivalent of two car tankfuls of gas/petrol) and the spill is contained in 90 days then the total oil spilled will be:

90 x 48,500 = 4,365,000 barrels

That is an enormous quantity.

But have a guess as to how much that would represent in terms of hourly global oil consumption?

Any idea?

Well global oil consumption is 3,500,000 barrels an hour.

So 90 days at 48,500 barrels a day represents just 1 hour 15 minutes worth of global consumption!

If there was ever an argument for the world to wean itself off oil then this would appear to be it.

What has happened so far is tragic – tragic beyond measure.  But if it turns out to be a ‘tipping point’ for nations to reconsider how we find and use energy then, perhaps, it will have been a horrible lesson that we all had to take.

And if the USA puts all it’s collective back into leading the world out of our addiction to oil then the damage and hardship will not have been in vain.

By Paul Handover