On April 24th & 25th, I attended the Texas Solar Forum at the capital. It would probably have been better to send someone with a science background to cover it but I did learn quite a few interesting facts about solar power.
A survey was done 25 years ago asking people where they thought they would be getting their energy in the 21st century. 48% of the people surveyed said they would be using solar power. Sad to say in Texas only .01% of power is supplied by solar power at this time.
cross posted @ Daily Kos, Doing My Part For The Left, Texas Kaos
Texas and America are at a point where we can become leaders in the solar industry or major importers from other companies. I would hate to see Texas waste the resources we have right here in our state and buy from other countries and states. Several of the panelist through out the two days talked about the skills and resources already available in Texas from the semi conductor business and highly trained scientist at Texas universities.
Germany, which leads the world in solar power, has created over 20,000 new jobs in clean energy which amounts to the same as all automotive jobs in Germany. Just think if we did the same here in America.
America at this time only accounts for 8% of the solar power in the world.
If you look at the following map, you will see by color which areas of the country have the most sunlight than can be used for power. Texas is one of the top sites. This map is from 2004 so with global warming I think we have more sunlight now than 3 years ago.
The Texas Business Review April 2007 gives a great overview of why Texas needs to get busy instead of wasting time on coal plants and oil wells.
I was intrigued to see Bob Manning, Director of Engineering for HEB, there. Bob brought home a lot of points about why Texas and a lot of Texas businesses are not jumping at the chance to use solar power. It is still cost prohibitive. A member of the audience asked what type of price would make it feasible and Mr. Manning said “It would have to pay for itself in 5 years. Currently, with no incentives from the state or local municipalities, the price was not one a company can absorb as they deal with higher prices and lower profits.”
I know we have all seen the newspaper stories where companies such as Starbucks have started adding solar panels to their drive through windows to help save energy. Starbucks is based in California where the state does give huge incentives for for companies that go green.
This is where the Texas Legislature(and other states)and US Congress have to catch up. Instead of giving subsidies to oil companies who are making multi-billion dollar profits, they need to start investing in the future.
Do I think we will see solar power become a big industry in Texas? YES!!! The plans the different companies were putting forth which included combining wind and solar in the same ares so that an area was used to maximum both day and night made lots of sense even to a none science person like me. One of the biggest problems facing solar companies in Texas is there is no standardization in the electric industry in Texas. Each electric district has their own coupling or linking systems and with solar on businesses and homes you have to have a way for solar to override or tie into the current power system as well as feed back into it.
I never realized that extra power your home or business generates from solar has to be bought from you by the local power company. In Germany, the government set prices at which the power companies had to buy solar power from individuals and guaranteed it for 20 years. That is something which needs to be done here. A typical German customer who also has solar power panels on their home gets a power bill and a check from the power company each month. Germany, which is the leader in solar power in the world, has the natural solar out put of Montana.
Solar power as well as Wind power is the wave of the future along with other renewable energies. Texas has a chance to be first in the nation or be an importer. Which do you think we should strive for?
Sorry this is not more wonkish but I am scientifically challenged. LOL
Do not worry about lack of wonkishness, this is a great overview.
Eyeopener:
America at this time only accounts for 8% of the solar power in the world.
That’s a disappointing surprise; the US consumes almost 25% of the world’s oil production. The time to change course came long ago.
Thank you.
America at this time only accounts for 8% of the solar power in the world.
the truly sad part of that statement, and one you likely won’t see anywhere, is that…
that’s a decline of over 80%, and it should come as not surprise, to those of us paying attention, that we have squandered our opportunities, and leadership in the fields of alternative energy with “oil men” in the white house and energy companies writing our “energy laws”.
it’s been happening since abandonment of the the alternative energy initiatives that were first initiated by jimmy carter in the 70’s, then systematically dismantled by subsequent administrations and a compliant congress at the direction of big energy cos.
even thomas friedman, whom l am not particularly fond of, gets it:
so there it is, in a nutshell. the only thing that’s changed is that big energy has decided they want a controlling position in the technology, because you can’t make a profit directly from wind, tides, sunshine, etc., therefore, they’re pouring a large number of their ill gotten gains into r&d to lock up the patents, copyrights etc., and using their political clout to drive the smaller, independent producers, like first solar, either off-shore, or out of business.
a prime example of this is the latest purchase of the storage tek campus here in colo by conoco/phillips:
here endeth the rant.
We need an FDR style national effort to energize our country (pun intended)! The result would be a win for all of us (except for the poor oil execs). Too bad about them. Let ’em sell fries.
Thanks for this. Solar and wind should have had huge infrastrutural support thrown at them 20 years ago, but we all know what stood in the way of that. We’re going to get tired of having to follow Europe’s lead, sooner or later, on all this. If one wants to make a national security argument about it, that could be easily done as well — and should. All it may take is one broad push from the White House to get it all rolling — can’t wait to find out.
Well, the push also has to come at the state and local level. The reason California is ahead of the curve in the US and HI are ahead of the curve in the US is their state legislatures are pushing it.