Continual drop in solar energy prices – grid parity

Solar electricity is moving ever closer to grid parity, meaning the cost is comparable to existing grid supplies (coal, gas, etc). This is a pretty significant milestone, as politics have failed (and will continue to do so) in substantially reducing CO2 emissions…but if solar becomes less expensive than fossil fuel electricity, market forces will take over where governments have failed. A project in Spain recently achieved grid parity with a group of fourteen rooftop solar panel arrays, and in the US, a project by First Solar is producing at less cost than coal. I think we’re moving into a new electricity marketplace, where people are going to start asking why we’re not looking at solar to cut costs, rather than asking why we should pay *more* for solar, as has been the case in past years. I wouldn’t expect your utility bill to decrease though, as the gradual decommissioning of fossil fuel plants is not going to be cheap. But, a big win for the environment – if we can move quickly enough on this.

Also in solar energy news, the world’s largest solar thermal plant, being built in California, recently passed a big test proving that it’s ready to enter commercial service. Solar thermal technology is significant as the thermal energy it collects can be stored to provide energy when there’s a shortage of sunlight (cloudy days, or at night).

March 4, 2013

Graphene supercapacitors to replace batteries?

There’s a lot of exciting work being done in battery technology…yet your future electronic devices may end up being powered by a supercapacitor instead if research into this area pays off. Environmentally, it’s pretty awesome…graphene is of course carbon, which is plentiful and non-toxic (potentially, you could even throw a used graphene supercapacitor into your compost bin!). These supercapacitors can store a lot of energy and be recharged extremely quickly (like 100-1000 times faster than a battery). It’ll be interesting to see which wins out here…advanced battery technologies, or supercapcitors? Stay tuned to Peak Geek for all the latest on that, and in the meantime, check out the video below describing these graphene supercapacitors (I love that word, especially as they didn’t mention ‘nano’ anything).

February 24, 2013

Lithium battery technology advancements

Researchers at USC have made some progress in improving lithium ion batteries, with tests suggesting a three-fold increase in energy storage and fast recharge times. Their technology is…well..honestly, the description had too many ‘nano’ items in it and that made me a bit skeptical…it’s a bit of a media buzzword that I grow wary of. But, well, here goes. They used nanoparticles, nanospheres, nanowires, and nanotubes (naturally). Yeah. Well, if you want to juicy technological details of how they did it, follow this link. The most important thing to realize is that this is just one of many efforts being made to improve battery technology…and there are a LOT of competing teams of scientists and engineers getting really close to bringing this to your home. Expect vastly improved batteries in a matter of just a few years (if that).

February 23, 2013

Clean coal power – for real this time!

The idea of ‘clean’ coal power has really been more of a marketing ploy and not something that environmentalists would agree with…until now, that is. Researchers at Ohio State University have proven a new clean coal technology in a 25kW facility ran for one week…far from the megawatt scale needed for industrial uses but no small feat and a great step towards that goal. The next step is a one megawatt demonstration plant already in the planning stages.

So how does it work? Burning coal is a messy process, producing lots of gaseous byproducts that are difficult to separate and manage. This new process (“chemical looping”) reacts with materials rich in oxygen, like iron oxide (ie, rust). The energy in the coal breaks the bond between the oxygen and iron, which produces nearly pure CO2 as a byproduct (the other being iron metal and a mineral known as wustite). So, it still produces the greenhouse gas CO2, but that CO2 is nearly pure, meaning it’s much easier to contain it (at which point it can be used for industrial purposes or stored underground to not contribute to global warming). The pure iron is then burned in a separate process, which produces heat to generate steam and drive turbines to generate electricity.

This is expected to result in only small increases in the cost of electricity…whether it can be scaled up to power plant levels quickly enough is the real question.

(via TechnologyReview)

February 7, 2013

Solar power news

The solar power industry continues to make some big advances, in the labs at least. First up, scientists were able to make silicon crystals at a much lower temperature using liquid metal (read more here)…this has the potential to substantially lower the cost of solar panels, eventually.

A study published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal attempted to answer the question, what is more efficient at transforming solar energy into miles driven in a car – solar (PV) panels, or biofuels? PV panels handily bested biofuels in this comparison. Considering future demands for food with a growing planetary population, and given this new information, it seems that we should be more focused on growing food to eat rather than to be converted into liquid fuel for cars.

Last but certainly not least is some cool technology from Wysips, a transparent solar panel! Well it’s 90% transparent, but really, at that point who’s going to notice. Sure, it doesn’t produce as much electricity as a conventional PV panel…but it DOES make otherwise unproductive surfaces a valuable part of a building’s energy supply, with no architectural or visible impact. Imagine a skyscraper using this on their windows, for example. Or, in the example at the link above, imagine the glass on your iPhone recharging the phone itself when outdoors.

January 30, 2013