Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Laboratory >

New Developments in Alternative Energy

16:58 / 20.12.07

I thought I'd kick off this topic with this news.

You might not have heard, but solar power has just gotten cheaper than coal, thanks to Nanosolar, a company that prints solar cells on flexible rolls of aluminum sheeting.

They're backed by Google, and I think they're going to be BIG.

07:51 / 21.12.07

That's great news.

I'm curious about the embodied energy costs - I have had reservations about a reliance on piezo-solar because the way someone explained it to me once, the investment of energy in refining the necessary minerals and building the panels outweighs their lifetime yield of energy. If that was true they would be kind of a cell for banking fossil fuel energy.

This new form might not be like that I guess?

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:49 / 21.12.07

As I understand it, the new technology involves sticking very thin solar receptors onto things - most commonly, at the moment, aluminium sheeting. I don't know how the cost of extracting and refining the aluminium factors into the cost equations, environmentally speaking... but I think the idea is that you can basically hang these sheets on anything - they are not solid or fragile like standard photovoltaics, so one could face every building with them, possibly...

09:53 / 21.12.07

Aluminium's reasonably costly to refine I think - but I'm guessing that this new tech might have embodied energy costs that compare favourably with Stirling solar. I think it's the rarer mineral components that drive up the embodied costs of conventional photovoltaics. Since Nanosolar's also much less costly in monetary terms (I think Stirling production was around $10-12/W the last time I read up a few months ago) it looks really good and I'll wait with interest to find out how well the German plant operates.

The Nanosolar site says the panels are pretty robust and they offer a 25 year warranty, which looks pretty good. http://www.nanosolar.com/products.htm I wonder what the lifetime yield is estimated to be?

Also, I really want them to have some kind of sane integrated production/reuse plan where the company takes back the old sheets when they wear out and reprints them.

Wild thought, but how much of the world's built environment would you have to cloak in highly reflective aluminium sheeting before getting some significant alteration in planetary surface albedo? (Of course, they might not be v reflective once densely printed.)

14:13 / 21.12.07

How costly is aluminum to recycle, though?

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:41 / 21.12.07

Pretty cheap, comparatively, I think - I mean, compared to the cost of digging it up and refining it - you shred it, melt it and recast it. Aluminium lends itself very well to recycling - it doesn't degrade in quality when recast, and you can reclaim most of the metal usably - some dross is generated, but you can reclaim aluminium from that as well. You're also saving on the energy cost of mining bauxite, refining it and transporting it to wherever you want it.

21:34 / 21.12.07

I really hope this is as good as it sounds, but looking at the story a couple of things stand out:

- have their been any sales? The report says that they were about to announce the first sales.

- how advanced is the process? This is a bit confusing: the story says that they've already built a factory, which suggests that the cheaper process is already in the bag. But it also says the firm "is developing a new manufacturing process that “prints” photovoltaic material on aluminum backing", which makes me wonder whether they are at the 'cheaper than coal' stage just yet.

Lagrange's Nightmare

02:45 / 22.12.07

have their been any sales? The report says that they were about to announce the first sales.

No this is their first sale, as the article states. On their website they say:

Want to Buy Panels? We are presently already sold out for the next 12 months. We are working hard to scale our production capacity as fast as possible. Please sign up above to be notified of availability.

So the demand is definitely there...

- how advanced is the process?
Nanosolar has long been the darling child of the third generation solar crowd. Just because a factory is built does not mean the new process is in the bag. One of the most difficult processes is converting a laboratory process to a factory one, but you can't really tell till you try. I can't find anything about a pilot factory that was built, did they just bite the bullet and build a big one straight away?

However it looks like they are pretty happy with the process. I doubt they are at the cheaper then coal stage yet. From their website:

which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as $.99/Watt;

I assume this will be the price after a bit of manufacturing experience, it probably wouldn't make much sense to sell at that price at the moment anyway as demand would still be their for higher prices...

Lagrange's Nightmare

03:17 / 22.12.07

I'm curious about the embodied energy costs - I have had reservations about a reliance on piezo-solar because the way someone explained it to me once, the investment of energy in refining the necessary minerals and building the panels outweighs their lifetime yield of energy.

Nah I don't think that has been true since the early 90's. A typical payback period for the first generation solar would be 5 years (assuming a 30 year life time you may get 5 times the energy you put in back out accounting for degradation.) So not great, but definitely positive. These day figures as low as 3 years are given for silicon, but they may be skimping a bit on the calculations I don't think transport energy is ever accounted for.

CIGS type stuff is meant to have a lot less embodied energy. Nanosolar give a figure of 3 years payback for traditional solar and less then one month for their technology...

06:56 / 22.12.07

I think it was the late nineties when I picked up that conclusion, but in any case it would be great if it's really different now. I find it a bit disappointing that Nanosolar don't say anything about how they derive the figures for energy payback.

I'm not aware of embodied energy calculations being accepted as an industrial standard - it might be different in California too - and the figure I want is something like the Odum's 'emergy' index.

Lagrange's Nightmare

08:45 / 22.12.07

I'm a bit unsure of what you mean by an industrial standard, an industrial standard for who?

Embodied energy is by far and away the de-facto standard within the manufacturing industry. In research communities this is being over-taken by life cycle analysis (however there are still significant disagreements within this field), while some companies have also begun to adopt this (through the ISO standards).

I'm not aware of emergy making the leap out of ecological circles yet, has it? I certainly would be interested in seeing an example of a company applying emergy analysis.

07:45 / 23.12.07

Your last post is a bit confusing.

By industrial standard I mean used as a standard in the manufacturing industry to the degree of not needing to specify the methodology in detail; it's an industry of which I know little but you seem to know more?

Embodied energy is the description of what the Odum's emergy index measures; if it's not emergy, what's another index of embodied energy claiming to measure?

Lagrange's Nightmare

20:52 / 27.01.08

Embodied energy is the description of what the Odum's emergy index measures; if it's not emergy, what's another index of embodied energy claiming to measure?

Opps sorry forgot to reply to this. Emergy is essentially a much more hardcore measure of embodied energy. In particular emergy relies on scaling all energy measures back to a 'solar equivalent embodied energy' which will end up including all of the energy lost as you change its form or quality.

Where a typical embodied energy analysis will look at the energy inputs on a lower level and most likely just deal with thermal, electricity and fuel inputs with a fudgy assumption that these energy inputs could be provided by better (renewable?) sources in the future. I guess it is looking at energy use on the human level (i.e. using the raw inputs that humans are used to) while emergy deals with energy use on ecosystem level...

10:36 / 31.01.08

EU-funded project WINTECC's skysails: test vessel MV Beluga Skysails is apparently at sea carrying wind generator parts to Venezuela. Skysails are said to reduce fuel consumption by between 10 and 35%.

14:45 / 31.01.08

Yeah, there's something beautiful about a computer-guided sail.

14:56 / 13.02.08

Two news articles from The Register today about alt-energy topics.

Academics propose carbon-capture kit for cars
This one discusses a scheme for recapturing the carbon held in traditional hydrocarbon fuels, before its burned in vehicle. IMO this scheme is not far-reaching enough a solution - I would prefer to see some striking new tech in this area. The case for adding something to the existing fuel infrastructure that helps make things greener will probably convince others more. My ponder is "will the end user see any financial benefit in giving up their stored carbon"?

Cue a "day-to-day monetary issues" vs "non-monetary environmental costs" debate ;-)

US scientists puncture the ethanol biofuel bubble
As the link title suggests, this concerns [two] reports on how increased use of biofuel cannot be the energy-industry cure some were touting. I hadn't read any of the prior touting and initially confused this with the re-use of cooking oil as fuel.

11:01 / 28.02.08

Wave-powered boat (or is it "ship"??)
http://www.popsci.com/gear-gadgets/article/2008-02/wave-runner

Yes, that's right. One of the significant factors usually associated with SLOWING a boat's movement is apprehended and harnessed to PROPEL the boat forward. So good.

14:21 / 28.02.08

Weird - I was, not 20 minutes ago, reading about Horie's Pacific crossing aboard his junk-rigged catamaran made of recycled bottles and beer barrels. He sounds like an interesting guy. (Although I kinda doubt he'd like hanging out with me. Or, well, anyone, for any length of time.)

Something about that boat reminds me of self-winding watches. There's a lot of ambient kinetic energy out there waiting to be harnessed.

17:13 / 21.03.08

SkySails completes mission.

It was a success.

00:06 / 24.04.08

Brilliant news. Thanks for the update. Sorry for the delayed reply!

15:09 / 06.06.08

Check out the Whisson Windmill, a device to generate potable water from the air- it look sway cool, at the moment it costs $48k or so but it's totally green and has won me over in about 30 seconds...
I know it's not energy per se but I didn't want to start a thread on 'New developments in greentech' unless others think it's worthwhile

10:59 / 16.06.08

Japanese car manufacturer Honda has begun the first commercial production of a zero-emission, hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicle.

The four-seater, called FCX Clarity, runs on hydrogen and electricity, emitting only water vapour. Honda claims the vehicle offers three times better fuel efficiency than a traditional, gasoline-powered car.

We're living in the future!

17:42 / 16.06.08

Pretty.

It's in Hollywood.