Solar Energy from Space

One of my friends, Alex Moore, sent me this article on solar energy.

A company called SolarEn is looking to develop technology to send solar panels into space, then transmit the energy gathered by the space panels back to the Earth through radio signals. The amount of energy captured without atmospheric filtration could potentially be 10x higher than what can be captured by panels on land.

While the concept itself is not new - NASA performed cost-benefit analyses on such energy sources in the 1960s and 1970s and determined that it would cost around $1 trillion, a great deal more than countries were willing to pay at the time - it could potentially revolutionize the future of solar power. However, the problem of cost still exists unless more funding is poured into making solar cells and space travel cheaper and easier.

Reading this article reminded me of a documentary I watched long ago about solar power. The documentary had mentioned something about solar energy potential in the Sahara Desert, saying a tiny area of land in the Sahara fitted with solar panels has the potential to power half the world's energy needs.

I googled this topic, and found this article. Europe is starting to look at North Africa as a potential source of energy, as costs of solar technology drop and the costs of transporting the energy over longer distances go down.

Space solar energy may not be viable in the immediate future, but I definitely believe that certain areas of the world like the Sahara have an untapped potential to be huge sources of power for the world. It is also potentially a development opportunity for these nations by selling the captured energy to other countries and furthering their economy and infrastructure.

Artificial Trees that Generate Energy

I ran across this company while I was searching the web called Solar Botanic. 

They essentially have this concept to develop artificial trees which would act like solar panels to capture sunlight and generate electricity. Plus, the trees would also utilize the wind through the swaying motion of its leaves and branches whenever the wind blows.

The most important concept of this artificial tree is a technology they call the Nanoleaf. This leaf not only uses photovoltaic elements to covert sunlight into energy, but the wind would sway the leaf, which would move a mechanism in the joint of the leaf and the branch, converting kinetic wind energy into electrical energy. One leaf by itself may not generate enough power, but if you have thousands of leaves in a tree-like structure, then it has the potential to generate quite a bit of energy, enough to power an average household. Now if we had groves of these trees, then the effect could be very high, so it's a concept with a lot of potential.

Not only that, the tree will apparently act as some sort of air filter, using an agent on the membrane of the artificial tree that mimics the processes of the human lung in converting unwanted air molecules.

Right now, the company seems to still in the research and development stages and is looking for partners to fund its research, but I think if they are able to develop this idea further and eventually manage to create an aesthetically pleasing prototype that is relatively cost-effective, then they have the potential to change the face of alternative energy sources.

Good News for Solar Power

In my last post, I'd talked about how First Solar made a breakthrough with their photovoltaic cell fabrication process to reduce the cost of solar to under $1 per watt. 

My roommate, Zach, forwarded me an article about First Solar, which relates to my last post. The article, from CNet Green Tech, is about how First Solar acquired the rights to complete projects that a rival solar company called OptiSolar could no longer complete due to the economic recession. More details on the deal can be found here.

What's more interesting than the deal itself is the implications of these types of consolidations for the solar industry. There's a recent trend going on with solar power that brings both good news and bad news, but I think the positives for the industry outweight the negatives.

As this Economist article points out, the costs of manufacturing solar panels have been declining partly lately due to an excess supply of silicon. Since silicon producers catered less to the solar industry because of the uncertainty of the industry, the costs of acquiring silicon for solar panels was much higher. However, as solar power started becoming more popular, more and more sources of silicon opened up, leading to lower prices for silicon and lower costs for solar companies. These costs were further reduced due to better manufacturing techniques and increased solar cell power efficiency.

Since First Solar hit the $1 per watt mark manufacturing cost of their solar modules, other solar companies have been scrambling to reach that target. As these costs go down, more and more solar companies are able to offer their solar panels at lower prices, which is great news for consumers. The price of panels was probably one of the biggest hurdles for the adoption of the technology (that and the low energy efficiency of solar cells). However with cheaper prices, people can more easily adopt solar power as an alternative energy source, benefiting from its clean, virtually emission-free energy generation.

This does, however, pose problems for some solar companies. With decreasing costs, and with solar companies pushing to deliver panels at lower prices, companies unable to keep pace will either have to sell to rival companies or go out of business. These companies also face the additional challenge of increasing difficulty in funding from venture capital firms, who will most likely start to look to invest in companies that are in a stronger and better position to manufacture solar modules.

On the bright side, companies who are in a strong position, such as First Solar and Sharp among others, now have the opportunity to expand their business and grow by acquiring a greater share of the solar market. As the industry consolidates, these key players will be in a better position to manufacture solar power modules in large scales and potentially combine research from acquired rivals to discover new ways to make solar power cheaper and more efficient.

Economic Recession hits Solar Power, but there's hope...

Following up on my article on Sharp Corp. and it's solar power focus, I was reading a few articles in the NY Times about solar power. The recession has taken quite a toll on solar companies, which were growing very rapidly over the past few years - according to this article on the Green Inc. NY Times blog, Cleantech investments jumped from $270 million to over $4 billion from 2003 to 2008.

A lot of it is due to the credit freeze, which is drying up the necessary capital that wind and solar power companies relied on in the past to keep going. While Obama's plans for a green America are in the works, and while he's dedicated $83 billion in tax credits and cleantech spending in his stimulus bill, the effects of those actions won't be felt until much later. At present, these companies are starting to cut back and layoff workers in order to stay afloat.

Some solar companies like Ausra, had big plans like creating thousands of solar power plants that would supply the United States with clean power, but now they're turning more towards steam generation to supply existing power plants and industries with steam.

Luckily, there is still some progress being made. I was reading this article about how another solar company called FirstSolar made a breakthrough in their development process of its solar modules from $3 per watt to $1 per watt, which could be huge once this recession blows over and people start getting back on track in finding ways to more efficiently use solar power.

There has also been speculation that Obama is considering using solar panels in the White House.

By the way, I had no idea that the Carter installed solar panels when he was president, or that the panels were later taken down by Reagan - which makes sense...Reagan was no friend to alternative energy or the environment. But what was most surprising was that there were additional solar panels added in 2003 under George W. Bush.

Sharp Corporation is awesome

I realized that my last two posts were about cars. I have to admit that I really know nothing about them, though I do find alternative energy vehicles fascinating. So, I've decided to step away from cars and turn to solar power.

During one of my phases when I started investing some of my savings in the stock market, I started looking for companies that were researching and developing innovative alternative energy sources, particularly solar power. After all the sun puts out so much energy, so if we find a way to efficiently harness and capture that energy, it would mean nearly limitless power that has minimal impact on the environment.

One of my research binges led me to Sharp Corp. Sharp has been involved with photovoltaic cell production for years, and their corporate vision for a green future is amazing - they are essentially trying to balance out their emissions through the carbon reduction through the development and sales of their photovoltaic cells by 2010. Not only that, but the long-term objectives they've set for themselves in order to become a greener company are extremely impressive, especially their target of making green devices account for 90% of their sales by 2010, converting all their production sites to be grade B green factories or higher, and using 1,400 tons of recycled plastic in their products by 2010.

I'm not sure how far they can expect to go given the state of the economy around the world, but the very fact that they have set such goals is amazing. The cool thing is, they publish lots of data on their progress towards achieving their goals: CO2 emissions, number of green products, amount of water used, amount of waste created, etc.

What's more, Sharp has started outfitting production facilities with solar cells and other clean technologies (molten-carbonate fuel cells and co-generation systems that use city gas to generate electricity and waste heat, which is used to power the air conditioning and hot water), and they've started recycling programs for used electrical products in a lot of countries.

You can check out the entire eco section of their website here