SOLAR TODAY Blog

By Seth Masia
Solar Today deputy editor

The Geothermal Energy Association reported yesterday that in the year ending last October, the United States boosted its installed geothermal electric generating capacity to 3,152.7 megawatts, an increase of roughly 9 percent over the previous year.

Aided by roughly $342 million in new Department of Energy funding for research, development and demonstration projects, the industry pushed work forward on 132 projects, mostly in Western states.

By Seth Masia
Solar Today deputy editor

America's energy grid added a record-setting 9,922 megawatts of new wind power capacity in 2009, thanks largely to federal stimulus funding.

So says the year-end report of the American Wind Energy Association, released today. Cumulative capacity rose 39 percent during the year, to 35, 159 megawatts.

By Liz Merry
SOLAR TODAY "Ask Ms. Liz" Columnist

For two years, I have been tracking job boards using the keyword "solar" and no other search terms. While far from a statistical analysis, the data from this hobby is illuminating, and the latest numbers are somewhat encouraging.

The number of job listings is increasing (click here to see a chart) - a very good thing-and among those growing numbers, I've noticed some trends. Some conclusions I've drawn from following the job boards and tracking the employers, regions and job titles posted:

First, as I've stated repeatedly in this blog - the direct solar industry is still small. There are a couple hundred new job openings posted in the United States each month, not a couple thousand. Compared to other industries, the competition for a job with "solar" in the title will be very high.  Compare these keyword searches using Careerbuilder.com: 

By Seth Masia
Solar Today deputy editor

Frank Luntz has some pointed and valid advice about how to achieve an effective national energy bill.

This is an astonishing development. Luntz, a top Republican pollster and messaging expert, is the fellow who popularized the term "energy exploration" to substitute for "off-shore oil drilling," "death tax" for "inheritance tax," and even "climate change" for "global warming." He has helped conservative causes for year, and his effective message-framing helped delay for years the public-opinion acceptance of climate science consensus.

But now:  The Environmental Defense Fund this morning sent out a press release announcing that a Luntz poll finds broad public acceptance a national energy policy, using a cap-and-trade mechanism -- especially when it's couched as a jobs-creating, energy-independence and national security issue rather than as carbon-reduction policy. According to Luntz, up to 60% of Republicans say they'd support an energy bill that leads to energy indepenence.

This is useful stuff. Specifically, Luntz advises energy-policy advocates to use positive language, like this passage lifted directly from his Powerpoint:

By Seth Masia
Solar Today deputy editor

Walt Ratterman, CEO of SunEnergy Power International, was installing off-grid power systems for Haitian hospitals when the earthquake occurred. He's still missing. We're hoping his work can be continued with the backing of the entire PV industry.

Amidst the tragedies reported this week in Haiti, a number of NGO spokespeople told reporters that Haiti ought to be rebuilt with a real infrastructure - and most have pointed out that it never had much of an infrastructure to begin with. There never was an effective system to deliver clean water, for instance. There's no building code to speak of, and when there is it will have to call for roofs that neither blow away in hurricanes nor crush people in earthquakes.

The power grid meets only about half the demand for electricity, so most businesses rely on their own diesel generators. This is one of the reasons reporters were able to call out using cell phones - cell towers had their own generators. When a new grid is built, it should be designed internet style: as a fully distributed, smart and resilient system. It could serve as a model for larger grids elsewhere. The hardware and software to do it already exist. And it would be tremendous economic head start for Haiti if it were to become fully energy-independent, free of the costs of fossil fuel imports.

A start has already been made through the work of people like Ratterman, and with the donation, by Sol, Inc., of solar-powered LED emergency lighting. SolarWorld has donated 10kW of PV modules to use in water-pumping systems. The PV industry should get behind these programs and expand them in the direction of building out hundreds of off-grid and grid-tied systems.

 700,000 more to come by 2012

By Heather Zichal
From the White House blog

A report delivered by the Council of Economic Advisers today found that the clean energy investments of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) are not only creating jobs today, but for the future. The clean energy provisions of ARRA alone have already saved or created 63,000 jobs and are expected to create more than 700,000 by 2012. When we talk about clean energy jobs, we mean new work for skilled laborers who can install efficient heating and cooling systems and windows, who can retrofit homes to save electricity, who can build and install solar panels, wind turbines and other clean energy technologies. These investments are positioning the American workforce to remain competitive and keep our nation at the forefront of a new low-carbon global economy. At the same time, these initiatives are changing the way that we produce, distribute, and use energy to reduce green house gas emissions and cut our dependence on foreign oil.

By Seth Masia
Solar Today Deputy editor

Thomas Friedman's column in Sunday's New York Times is worth a read.

It starts with a quote from C.H. Tung, chief executive of Hong Kong after the handover in 1997: "China was asleep during the Industrial Revolution. She was just waking during the Information Technology Revolution. She intends to participate fully in the Green Revolution."

And participate she does. If you've been listening to conservative American congresspeople, you'd think China is bent on dragging the whole world into a carbon-emissions hell, regardless of what we do in the West.

But as Wolfgang Palz writes in the upcoming March issue of Solar Today, and as Friedman points out here, China has, over the past year, emerged as the global leader in most clean-energy technologies. China is eating our green lunch, while American industries dither over who wins and who loses in a carbon-pricing standoff.

By Liz Merry
SOLAR TODAY "Ask Ms. Liz" Columnist

Q. I am a graduate student at Arizona State University, majoring in alternative energy systems and technology. I have my bachelor's in electrical engineering from ASU as well.

I strongly believe that no academic experience is complete without a valuable internship experience. I am looking forward to exploring the energy demands of the new economy, mainly solar.

I need some advice from your end as to what would be the best course of action for me to acquire an internship in the field of alternative energy.

Thank you,
Saurabh Chatterjee

A. For all undergraduate and graduate students interested in renewable energy (RE), being in school right now is ideal because you can still take advantage of those resume-building internship and volunteer experiences that appeal to RE employers.

Stimulus funds support projects buying foreign components

By Seth Masia
Solar Today deputy editor

On Oct. 30, news broke that a 600 megawatt wind farm proposed for West Texas would be equipped with turbines manufactured by China's A-Power. It was a big story, because roughly a third of the $1.5 billion project is to be underwritten with Federal stimulus funds.

Within three weeks, A-Power and its American partners announced plans to build a factory in the U.S.

Meanwhile, no one in the press appears to have noticed that the structural steel for a new coal-gasification power plant in Indiana was made in China. Michael Womack, project supervisor for Duke Energy's new Edwardsport coal plant, noted as much in testimony before the Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission. It's not as if steel isn't available from domestic sources: According to the
American Iron and Steel Institute, U.S. mills (including those in nearby Gary and Pittsburgh) shipped roughly 4.8 million tons of steel in June of 2009 alone.

The New York Times ran an article in March about the Edwardsport plant, noting that the $2.5 billion project is soaking up stimulus funds. But the article didn't mention the Chinese steel source.

Other new coal-fired plants use major foreign-made components. Xcel's new 750 megawatt Comanche 3 coal plant in Pueblo, Colo., has been delayed by failed welds in a boiler built in Brno, Czech Republic. A similar boiler is scheduled to power the new Kansas City Power & Light Iatan 2 plant in Weston, Mo.