Tag Archives: solar industry

New Study: Forget About Carbon Capture. Let’s Clean Up Solar Manufacturing

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

To continue powering the United States with coal without adding any adverse climatalogical effects, 89% of the United States would have to be covered in forest, according to a new study from the Michigan Technological Institute.

The study compared that route – interesting but ultimately futile – with the idea of shifting electricity generation to solar power (now you’re talking) and figuring out how to sequester the carbon produced in the solar manufacturing process instead (a much more manageable task).

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(Kudos to the press release writer who put this subhead into the press release on the study: “The Giving Tree Won’t Give Enough for Carbon Neutral Coal.” Anyone with kids or parents both chuckled and teared-up at the reference.)

The study’s authors write:

Coal-fired power plants require 13 times more land to be carbon neutral than the manufacturing of solar panels. We’d have to use a minimum of 62% of U.S. land covered by optimal crops or cover 89 percent of the U.S. with average forests to do it.

One gets the sense that calculations like this are not going into the decision-making process of the federal bureaucrats currently trying to figure out how to save economically failing coal and nuclear plants. And that realization had at least one researcher shaking his head.

“We know that climate change is a reality, but we don’t want to live like cavemen,” says Joshua Pearce, professor of material sciences and electrical engineering at Michigan Tech, said in the release. “We need a method to make carbon neutral electricity. It just makes no sense whatsoever to use coal when you have solar available, especially with this data.”

The study recommended that instead of focusing on saving coal plants, innovations should instead focus on making the solar manufacturing process less carbon intensive. That way, you’re producing the best-of-all worlds – taking carbon-heavy coal plants out of generation and replacing them with more carbon-neutral solar manufacturing, leading the way to solar farms that require no carbon offset. The study says that would use 13 times less land than continuing to burn coal and trying to offset the carbon pollution used by it.

The killer stat is that to offset a 1 GW coal plant, you’d need to plant a forest the size of Maryland to capture its carbon output. You can see where that is not only not feasible, but frankly untenable.

Thanks to the Michigan Technological Institute, we now have even more stats to back up the contention that saving the coal plants is an insane idea. Quick, someone get Rick Perry on the line.

Proposed Kansas Demand Fees Could Bring Solar Installations To A Screeching Halt

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Solar observers in Kansas are watching closely as two demand-charge proposals wend their way through the Kansas Corporation Commission. A decision on whether the fees will go into effect is expected on September 27.

It’s always interesting to watch lesser solar states work out their solar policies, despite the fact they often fall into some of the same traps earlier states have. Kansas appears to be no exception.

The state’s two largest utilities – Westar Energy and Kansas City Power & Light – currently have proposals before commission, which solar advocates say could bring the industry to a screeching halt, according to Midwest Energy News.

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One solar installer named Mark Horst is quoted in the article discussing one particular customer that he put together an estimate on how the demand charge would affect her bill. This is what he found:

The demand fee is high enough that it would actually offset all of the energy savings provided by smaller solar arrays, according to Horst. He analyzed the finances of one customer’s 2.32-kilowatt array, and determined that her average monthly savings of $35 would be more than negated by an average monthly demand charge of $45.

The upshot: “She would have to pay $10 a month for the luxury of having solar panels,” Horst said, adding that he would have to advise her for financial reasons to remove the panels.

As Midwest Energy News correctly points out, the demand charge is a longstanding method that utilities use to try to recover the revenues they lose when people discover what a good deal solar is for them and generate their own electricity.

What is heartening, at least for Kansas consumers, is that most utility regulators are loathe to allow demand charges because of their confusing nature. Most regulatory bodies aren’t willing to make it harder for customers to understand their bills.

That’s not to say Kansas won’t be the exception to the rule. But it should give solar installers like Hurst and solar consumers like the one he discussed some hope that the Kansas Corporation Commission won’t allow these usurious and confusing charges to make their way on to those bills. We’ll all find out together later this month.

More:

Kansas utilities’ proposed new fees could wipe out savings for some solar customers