NewEnergyNews: MOORE’S LAW AND SOLAR GROWTH/

NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

The challenge now: To make every day Earth Day.

YESTERDAY

THINGS-TO-THINK-ABOUT WEDNESDAY, August 23:

  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And The New Energy Boom
  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And the EV Revolution
  • THE DAY BEFORE

  • Weekend Video: Coming Ocean Current Collapse Could Up Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Impacts Of The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current Collapse
  • Weekend Video: More Facts On The AMOC
  • THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 15-16:

  • Weekend Video: The Truth About China And The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Florida Insurance At The Climate Crisis Storm’s Eye
  • Weekend Video: The 9-1-1 On Rooftop Solar
  • THE DAY BEFORE THAT

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 8-9:

  • Weekend Video: Bill Nye Science Guy On The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: The Changes Causing The Crisis
  • Weekend Video: A “Massive Global Solar Boom” Now
  • THE LAST DAY UP HERE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 1-2:

  • The Global New Energy Boom Accelerates
  • Ukraine Faces The Climate Crisis While Fighting To Survive
  • Texas Heat And Politics Of Denial
  • --------------------------

    --------------------------

    Founding Editor Herman K. Trabish

    --------------------------

    --------------------------

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, June 17-18

  • Fixing The Power System
  • The Energy Storage Solution
  • New Energy Equity With Community Solar
  • Weekend Video: The Way Wind Can Help Win Wars
  • Weekend Video: New Support For Hydropower
  • Some details about NewEnergyNews and the man behind the curtain: Herman K. Trabish, Agua Dulce, CA., Doctor with my hands, Writer with my head, Student of New Energy and Human Experience with my heart

    email: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

    -------------------

    -------------------

      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

    -------------------

    Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.

  • ---------------
  • WEEKEND VIDEOS, August 24-26:
  • Happy One-Year Birthday, Inflation Reduction Act
  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 1
  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 2

    Wednesday, May 28, 2008

    MOORE’S LAW AND SOLAR GROWTH

    An essay from Canada highlights the role of daring investors in the growth of the solar energy industry.

    Venture Capitalist (VC) John Walton took a risk on
    First Solar, a start-up company in 1999 with a plan to make something cutting edge called solar thin film. Walton dropped a quarter of a billion dollars on the company’s experienced, knowledgeable founders. At the end of 2007, the company was worth $5 billion, 20 times Walton’s investment.

    Chinese VCs in the Shanghai suburb of Wuxi took a $6 million risk on the solar energy knowledge and skills of Dr. Zhengrong Shi in 2001. In 2007, China became the 3rd biggest solar cell producer in the world (after Japan and Germany). Shi’s company,
    Suntech, is worth $6 billion and employs 35,000 people.

    From the essay: “Innovators, investors and even our children understand that the 19-century fossil-fuel technologies are expensive and outdated, and they are polluting our planet…it is time for both the Canadian and U.S. governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels, impeding progress with clean renewable energy technologies, and once and for all impose a carbon emission cap.”


    click to enlarge

    Bet on Moore’s Law to capture sunshine and change our world
    Reese Halter, May 25, 2008 (Calgary Herald)

    WHO
    Gordon Moore (Co-founder/Chairman Emeritus, Intel Corp.); Deep pocket venture capitalists (John Doerr, venture capital funder to Compaq, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Aazon, Google, etc.); Vinrod Khosla, co-founder, Sun Microsystems; Larry Page, co-founder, Google; John Walton, heir, Wal-Mart); First Solar; Suntech

    click to enlarge

    WHAT
    VCs are betting big bucks Moore's Law, predicting the number of transistors on a chip to double about every two years, will apply to solar energy technology.

    WHEN
    - 1965: Gordon Moore formulated his law.
    - 2007: World solar capacity = 6.6 gigawatts. World coal capacity = 1,000 gigawatts.
    - 2013: World solar energy expected to be 75 gigawatts.
    - 2008: First Solar has long-term contracts to deliver ~800 megawatts to European and Canadian buyers, 8 times the entire 2006 U.S. solar production.

    click to enlarge

    WHERE
    - First Solar started in Toledo, OH, and is presently based in Phoenix, AZ.
    - Solar presently provides less than 0.05% of U.S. electricity.

    WHY
    - One large obstacle to solar energy growth: Intermittency and lack of proven storage capacity. Technologies under development range from pumping water up hill building pressurized tanks to hold peak sun-generated steam.
    - Costs remain high. 3 strategies aim to lower costs: (1) Improve efficiencies of existing technology, (2) develop cheap, next-generation nanotech materials, (3) concentrating strategies on a power plant scale.
    - The earth gets enough energy from the sun every hour to generate electricity for the whole world.
    - At 9.5% efficiency, a plot of land 300 km square would power the U.S.

    click to enlarge

    QUOTES
    - From the essay: “The cost of outfitting the average home with solar panels is about $21,000 or enough to generate about three kilowatts. Those panels will last at least 30 years…That works out to about $7 per watt -- when it drops to $1 per watt, it out-competes coal. But don't forget, in the U.S., the coal industry receives $20 billion a year in subsidies…”
    - From the essay: “To stabilize our climate by mid-century, we must globally reduce our dependency on fossil fuels by at least 80 per cent.”

    0 Comments:

    Post a Comment

    << Home