Examining the prospects for scaling up solar energy
Live Webcast July 14 ~1 PM Eastern, 10 AM Pacific
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The sun is the primary source of energy in our solar system, yet most of the power running through our electric grid here on earth does not come from solar energy. It comes from a multitude of other, often environmentally harmful sources.
Solar power currently generates less than 1% of the electricity used in the United States. Will solar provide a greater share of our energy in the future? Should it? If so, how will we reach that point?
The Energy Collective presents this webcasts to explore the prospects for solar, discuss which forms of solar power have the most potential, and compare the costs and benefits of solar to other forms of energy.
In addition to any questions you may ask our panelists live during the webinar, we'll ask:
- What, if anything, should be done to drive up solar's share of our energy burden?
- Which form of solar power has the most potential? Rooftop panels? Photovoltaic arrays? Concentrated solar thermal power?
- Solar energy is more to costly to produce than many other forms of energy. What's the best hope of bringing those costs down?
Featuring:
Marc Gunther, a writer, speaker and consultant, who focuses on business and the environment. He worked for 12 years as a senior writer at FORTUNE magazine, where he is now a contributing editor. His most recent book, “Faith and Fortune: How Compassionate Capitalism is Transforming American Business,” was published by Crown in 2004. A graduate of Yale, he lives in Bethesda, MD.
Osha Gray Davidson, an investigative reporter who has been covering environmental issues for twenty-five years, with work appearing in Grist, The New York Times, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Popular Science and others. Davidson is currently the energy correspondent for OnEarth magazine and edits the blog he founded, The Phoenix Sun, which focuses on solar power and renewable energy.
Michael Jungreis, Business Development Manager for Siemens Concentrated Solar Power Ltd. Michael's responsibilities include business development of the utility scale solar thermal markets in the US, India and Australia. Michael comes to Siemens from the Israeli solar-power company, Solel Solar Systems, which was acquired by Siemens in 2009. Michael also served as Executive Director of the Israel Jordan Chamber of Commerce from 1999-2002 and as head of the Middle Eastern desk at the Israeli Ministry of Finance from 1997-1999.
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Solar photovoltaic technology is a wonderful invention. My admiration for solar power comes with many conditions however. We know about intermittency and storage challenges but are solar proponents willing to accept the fact that solar energy does not scale well and it never will?
ReplyDeleteThe beauty of solar is its ability to trump the costs and/or effort that would otherwise be spent connecting hard wires to certain applications. For those who want to power all or part of their house with it, by all means go right ahead but to the extent of subsidies paying half or more of the installation, I have a problem.
If clean energy is our goal, then paying tens of thousands of dollars just to partially power one suburban home is just not a workable plan. Building solar farms should be enough of a lesson in the scalability challenges of solar to not want to do it again, but the subsidies keep coming. Stop the subsides and the solar market takes a dive.
I like solar because it is a elegant niche power solution that works very well in many respects. There is a lot of room for growth in just application specific markets like that. Due to economic and other factors I think solar will always hover in the 1-3% market share for electricity - and heck, even a 1-3% market share of the electricity business is still a huge business.
Solar has obvious advantages for mobile and maintenance-free electricity generation, and it has had a market there long before the subsidies started.
ReplyDeleteWhen a power plant is built to power the grid, it allows for much more powerful electricity production. Solar panels don't use the potential that a large installation has. It is like putting 500 TV sets into a warehouse and calling it a movie theatre.