Solar San Diego

Calling for a US Energy Strategy

Daniel M. Kammen writes in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist about the need for a US Energy Strategy. 

Over the next 50 years, progress to meaningfully address the risk of significant climate change will require an estimated 80-percent or more reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. Global emissions now include more than 7 billion tons of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere annually, three-quarters of which come from fossil fuel combustion (with the remainder largely from land conversion and forest burning), and their rate of accumulation is increasing.

  Read the entire piece here.

Tech Companies that Could Change The World

From the Red Herring comes a story about the World Economic Forum naming "startup technology companies that the international organization said have demonstrated visionary leadership and proven technology that could change business and society." See the World Economic Forum list here.

OpEd: Congress Must Legislate (Renewable) Energy

The Honolulu Star Bulletin recently had an opinion piece regarding the stalling of energy legistlation in Congress. 

CHANCES that Congress will adopt legislation necessary to move the nation away from reliance on imported oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions have dimmed as short-sighted lawmakers have been unable to set aside their narrow interests.

After a week of debate, Republicans in the Senate choked off further advancement, balking at a proposal to require electric companies to generate a modest 15 percent of power from renewable sources by 2020.

Read the entire editorial here. 

Coming Soon to Solar San Diego, Your Direct Source for Renewables™

The future for Renewables in Southern California and beyond is bright.

By the time 2007 dawns, Solar San Diego will begin to unveil a new part of the site that brings together renewable energy providers and renewable energy customers: Your Direct Source for Renewables™.  Interested providers who want to get in on the ground floor of this opportunity should send an e-mail inquiry to solarsandiego@gmail.com.    

Applause in the Desert, the Desert Sun Chimes In

The Desert Sun in an editorial today applauded the City of Palm desert's move to cut energy consumption in the city by 30% over the next five years. The measures include:

" • Requiring new-home developers to give buyers the option of installing solar-power units.

• Teaming up with Southern California Edison and the Public Utilities Commission to offer up to $18 million in incentives for homeowners and businesses to replace inefficient air conditioners, pool heaters and the like.

• Providing energy audits for homeowners and businesses

• Spending a half-million dollars in city funds to create an Office of Energy Management.

• Educating homeowners, businesses and public agencies about the need for conservation.

• Developing public-private partnerships with Southern California Edison, Southern California Gas Co.    and the Building Industry Association Desert Chapter."

Hopefully other Cities and Towns in California will follow Palm Desert's example. You can read the entire editorial here.

Solar World AG Extends Its Supply of Solar Silicon, Joins with Scheuten Solar

Freiberg Germany's Solar World AG, one of the world's leading solar companies has formed a 50-50 joint venture with Scheuten Solarholding B.V., a Dutch company. The joint venture, named Scheuten SolarWorld Solizium GmbH, will develop and build "a manufacturing facility for the production of high purity solar silicon. " One thousand tons of metallurgical silicon will be dedicated to the venture initially. This will be the first time that "...a technology for the production of solar silicon using metallurgical silicon available in unlimited quantities is implemented on an industrial scale..." This looks like another win-win situation for two solar companies with Solar World insuring it's supply of silicon in what many analysts expect to be the lean years ahead for silicon supply.  

You can read the entire press release herein, below:

SolarWorld AG extends solar silicon supply

Joint Venture for raw material production established in Freiberg

 
SolarWorld AG (ISIN: DE0005108401) has established the Joint Venture „Scheuten SolarWorld Solizium GmbH“ for the future-oriented production of solar silicon with the Dutch company Scheuten Solarholding B.V. in which both companies hold a share of 50 per cent each. The Joint Venture will develop and build a manufacturing plant for the production of high purity solar silicon on the basis of metallurgical silicon with an annual capacity of initially 1,000 tons. In doing so the leading solar technology group in Freiberg is creating another source for the supply of raw materials to its solar industry production facilities.

 

First solar silicon production in Saxony

It is the first time in Germany that a technology for the production of solar silicon using metallurgical silicon available in unlimited quantities is implemented on an industrial scale. „In the course of our consistent group-wide growth we are opening up an additional raw material source with this new technology,” says Dipl.-Ing. Frank H. Asbeck, Chairman and CEO of SolarWorld AG. „By building the first industrial scale silicon production facility in Saxony we are at the same time increasing our vertical integration in Freiberg.“

To implement these new raw material activities the company has acquired a plot of land with a total area of 20,000 square meters including an administrative and a laboratory building at the Saxonia location – in the immediate vicinity of the existing silicon recycling activities and the logistics center of the SolarWorld Group. “At this location in Freiberg we will be able to use synergies for the realization of an economically viable technology for the production of solar grade silicon,“ explains Prof. Dr. Peter Woditsch who will assume the management of the Joint Venture on behalf of the SolarWorld Group. “Our Solar Material division has for years been successful in the reprocessing of raw materials for wafer production and will support the Joint Venture with its technology and know-how,” adds Professor Woditsch who is at the same time the CEO of the SolarWorld subsidiary Deutsche Solar AG which is responsible in Freiberg for all raw materials activities as well as the production of crystalline wafers from solar silicon.

Raw material generation in the group

With the new Joint Venture SolarWorld AG increases its technological options for raw material generation. The object is the upgrading of metallurgical silicon with a degree of purity of around 98 per cent. However, the photovoltaic industry needs raw material with an even higher degree of purity which is why the raw silicon has to be further upgraded.

  
In addition, SolarWorld AG operates another raw material Joint Venture – Joint Solar Silicon – together with the chemicals group Degussa. At the moment this company is building an industrial scale production site for the generation of solar grade silicon from a feedstock material called Silan at Rheinfelden. In parallel to its own raw material activities the group traditionally also relies on long-term partnerships with dependable external silicon suppliers.  

About SolarWorld AG: The SolarWorld Group is among the three largest solar power companies in the world. The group is dedicated exclusively to the core business of solar energy, combining all stages of the solar value chain, from the raw material silicon to turn-key solar power plants. The company operates production facilities in Germany, Sweden and the United States. In the United States, SolarWorld AG is the leading producer and provider of solar power technology. In addition, sales offices operate in South Africa and Singapore, completing the international alignment of the group. The responsibilities of these offices include the sale of rural solar power solutions that can make an important contribution to the sustainable economic development of the southern hemisphere.

In Freiberg, Saxony, the group operates one of the world's most advanced integrated solar production facilities where the SolarWorld Group turns solar grade silicon into high quality solar wafers, solar cells and solar modules. SolarWorld AG offers a broad and diverse range of products from modules for grid-coupled and grid-independent power generation all the way to a whole class of complete solar power systems for decentralized and centralized electricity generation. After the IPO at the end of 1999, the company developed within a few years from a solar trading house to a fully integrated solar technology group, increasing its workforce to more than 1,300 employees. SolarWorld AG is listed at the stock exchange in the technology index TecDAX, in the Dow Jones STOXX 600 as well as the international MSCI index, among others.

Two California Laws Affect Locals According to Nevada Paper

Two pieces of California legislation are highlighted in a Nevada Appeal article, first carried in sister newspaper, The Siearra Sun.  The article discusses AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act and the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Performance Standard and how they are affecting the utility district in Truckee.  Readers will recall that the Truckee Donner Utility district is trying to put through a 50 year deal with a coal plant prior to January 1, when such deals will be severely curtailed.  The possibiltiy of a carbon tax has been pointed out by more than one local resident in these letters to the editor, while this one utility customer feels as if the recent meeting on the subject was "hi-jacked by the Green/Sierra Club fraternity." What that ratepayer fails to mention is the possiblity that what he considers to be cheap energy will not be so cheap in the long term as well as the effect on the environment, which he seems to care about little.

Motley Fool Chimes in On SunTech

The Motley Fool, the irreverent investing website, has a piece regarding SunTech America's multi-year supply agreement with SunEdison, Inc.,  reported about here recently.  The Fool comes to similar conclusion that this transaction "...should serve as a wake-up call to those rivals that SunTech is a legitimate competitor...because it suggests that the cost and efficiency advantages of SunTech's PV modules are drawing the attention of some large buyers..."

In the Wake of Prop. 87's Defeat, California Should Refocus on Renewables

In a special editorial to the Sacramento Bee, Dianne Fellman, a director of regulatory affairs for FPL Energy, a Juno Beach, Florida company, says that California "...needs to examine what is stopping major investment today from the private sector in order to meet our clean-energy objectives. Regrettably, California is losing its environmental leadership position to other states that are doing more than just talking about renewables..."  Fellman cites the fact that Texas has overtaken California as the largest producer of windpower in the nation as part of the evidence that California's regulatory atmosphere "...drives clean-energy companies to invest in other places where they can more readily bring production on line..."  Fellman calls for streamlining the process to encourage more renewable energy.  You can read the entire editorial here.  

Sahara Power Source, No It's Not Oil

The Sahara Desert could be a major source energy through concentrated solar power, the Guardian Weekly out of the UK writes. 

"...In the Sahara desert is a vast source of energy that can promise a carbon-free, nuclear-free electrical future for all Europe, if not the world.

We are not talking about the vast oil and gas deposits beneath Algeria and Libya, or uranium for nuclear plants, but something far simpler - the sun. Every year it pours down the equivalent of 1.5m barrels of oil of energy for every square kilometre.

Most people think of solar power as a few panels on the roof of a house producing hot water or a bit of electricity. But according to two reports prepared for the German government, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa should be building vast solar farms in North Africa's deserts using a simple technology that more resembles using a magnifying glass to burn a hole in a piece of paper than any space age technology..."

  According to two German scientists cited in the article, "''covering just 0.5% of the world's hot deserts with a technology called concentrated solar power (CSP) would provide the world's entire electricity needs, with desalinated water for desert regions as a valuable byproduct, as well as air-conditioning for nearby cities...."  These scientists are not the only ones who believe in the potential of what also has been called centralized solar power, which was recently touted by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.