Solar Energy - Saved by the Sun

1. IntroSmall electronic devices

Solar dancing

Increasing worldwide demand for electricity

Chance to meet inapetitable human for energy

Important source after 70's oil crisis

Innovative business models

Can solar power produce enough electricity to meet the demands of energy of 21stcentury?

2. KazmerskiSolar enthusiastic

Collector of solar history

Present when solar started in the US - President Carter

Threat of electruction - Pres. Carter

0. About the movieNOVA DVDs

To buy: shop.wgbh.org

56 minutes

2007

ISBN: 978-1-59375-721-2

Watched Jan. 14, 2015

3. Solar cells

Like a sandwich

Top = protection

The more sunlight = more juice they produce

Bottom = base

Middle = silicon (where action occurs)

[no text]

4. Solar power adoption

Phill Reavis JrIndustrial designer

Sommerville, MA

change = motivated by oil crisis

1st to go solar in the community

Bill and Debi LordSolar houses

Offers on-site tours to convert houses

Passionate advocates 4 solar power

Website and Podcast 4 the curious: MAINE SOLAR HOUSE

Solar electric panelsFor home uses

Net metering

Sells the surplus to the grid

Solar hot water panels Incentives to go solar (US)

14 states1) Illinois / 2) Wisconsin / 3) Minnesota / 4) Florida / 5) California / 6) Nevada / 7) Massachusetts / 8) Maine / 9) New York / 10) Vermont / 11) Connecticut / 12) Maryland / 13) Delaware / 14) New Jersey

Massachusetts = 50% off investment

Net metering

Phill pays less than a half

5. What is this about?Savings

Payback

Reducing individual carbon footprint

Reducing CO2 emissions Reducing effects of global climate change

Reducing global warming

ConsequencesDroughts

Severe weather conditions

Unexpected other cnditions

7. Needing for power

Grid managersIntense heat waves = more electricity

Peak use (A/C on) = blacouts

Needs to buy electricity from other places

Extreme winters = more heating

Efforts to conserve energyAsk companies/municipalities to turn off6. Alternative Energies

Renewable: solar and solarDon't have the nuclear's drawbacks

Needs to get cheaper

Nuclear energyVirtually carbon-free

Fear over nuclear accidents

8. Solar Thermal Power Plant

Uses synthetic oilReaches up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit

Uses parabolic-shapped mirrors

Powers 150,000 homes in Greater LA area

occupy area bigger than NY Central Park

Kramer Junction

largest solar power plant in the world

built 20 years ago = response energy crisis

Mojave Desert

3h driving from LA

9. Germany

More and more renewable

Walls of solar panels on the roads

Hermann ScheerLeading advocate

20% of renewable energy by 2020

ahead on schedule: close to 30% by 2020

cash incentives

50 cents to sell

20 cents to buy

prices fixed for 20 years to build huge solar structures

National Renewable Energy Act

80% of the people support the Clean Energy project

Leader in solar cell production

10. Promising trend led by business

Whole Foods MarketRoof covered with solar panels

Jennifer McDonnel - green missions specialist

Solar panels complements but not replaces energy from the grid

The panels supplies from 50%-100% daylight needs

Daylight fares are the most expensive ones

Solar provides only 15% of the year round store needs

Fixed prices for 20 years

Because of that - prices are predictable

SolarEdison

Jigar Shah - CEO

company and its investors pay the solar systems

contractor promises to buy buy power over a long-term contract

11. TechnologiesPhotovoltaic panels

Solar heat panels

Flexible solar sheetingMore power than conventional panels

Multijunction solar cellSeveral layers of light-absorbing materials

miniature version of a conventional solar solar cell

harness energy in different energy bands = more efficiency

technology used in the robot that is being used in the Mars robot by NASA

Nano solar paintLayer of something conductor of electricity

Wires to transport energy

Layer of the solar paint

Nathan Lewis

CalTech professor - nano technology

Uses titanium oxide (TiO2)

Put a positively charged coat over the Lewis's paint to freed electrons

12. Amory Lovins

Lives in Colorado Rockies

Energy expert

U.S. energy policykeep wasting lots of energy

import "energy"at whatever prices and whatever means are necessary

keep stealing from our kids

keep screwing up the climate

Investment in energyRecognized as one of the most creative thinkers on energy use and misuse

Private and public investments has shrunk in the last decades

Ultimate goal

Helping the U.S. get completely off oil by 2040s

His biggest project

Physicist

13. Final considerationsCalifornia's plan to get solar panels on a million roofs

Solar power + wind (2007) less than 1%

U.S. need to achieve 20-30% of solar power + other renewables to significantly reduceCO2 emissions

Is this target realistic? (20%-30% solar)

Sterling BurnettEnergy Policy Analyst

Don't think 20-25 y it is going to be 20%

Larry Kazmerski

Fairly certain that it is by 2025 - 25% from solar

National Renewable Energy Lab