Another Achilles' Heel for nukes - Droughts are Dry!

In early December I blogged about the TVA's power generating capacity being weakened by low water levels due to extreme drought conditions. They were faced with the Solomon's choice of supplying more water where it was most needed or to save water to produce the normal amount of electric power to the region. Of course, TVA had to provide people with water. This meant that, with less water saved behind dams, hydro had less generating capacity, forcing TVA to buy power at higher cost from other sources. And of course passing costs along to customers. End result: emergency water was provided and customers will pay more for light and heat next year.

This was almost two months ago and only barely significant rain or snow has fallen since. Now the focus is on the effects on nuclear power generation.

Again the story features TVA as the owner/manager making the decisions. This article in today's Huntsville (AL) Times does a good job of explaining the problem and how the outcome is similar to the one facing the hydro generators. The Achilles' heel with both hydro and nuke power generation is - that's right - YOU NEED ENOUGH WATER.

For every location where a new nuclear power plant is being considered, you'd better hope that climate change doesn't land a big drought on you. And while I'm at it, all those nukes built on th coastlines at sea level to make use of the ocean's voluminous water supply - you'd better hope the sea doesn't rise. How, I wonder, are those plants assessing risk these days?

Stewart (Whole Earth Catalog) Brand has been promoting nukes as the one renewable and "green" electric power source that can be put online fast enough to allow us to cut loose of coal burning plants in time to avoid the atmospheric carbon tipping point. I have an inherent fear of nuclear accidents, one of which could kill and dispace so many people - not to mention destroy gobs of infrastructure and whole local economies - that it's hard to see how benefits could be worth the risk.

But these real, climate-determined limits on operability are what adaptation planning is all about. We won't be functioning under the conditions we're used to. Climate variability will make many of our assumptions unstable and our solutions temporary. Adaptation won't be a one-time adjustment ("OK, we'll just replace the roses with cactus and that will be that."), it is likely to be an ongoing accomodation to whatever our carbon-soaked atmosphere heaps upon us, in each of our unique local environments.

Adaptation may be like what we tell people visiting us and asking how they should dress for our local weather. No matter what time of the year, we tell them, "Wear layers."

Staggering sun power stats

John Schaeffer, founder of Real Goods (now owned by Giaim) and the Solar Living Institute (SLI), sold his first photovoltais (PV) module in 1978 and has never stopped. He's the host of the annual Solarfest that I attended last August.

In his latest message to the SLI mail list subscribers he tells about his visit to an annual solar energy conference.

The Solar Power 2007 Conference in Long Beach, California, in late September, was a real eye opener. This young conference has doubled in size every year for the last three years and this year there were nearly 9,000 paid attendees - the largest solar conference ever, unless of course you count SolFest and the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair, which are consistently larger. I've been going to solar conferences since the early 1980s, and most were noted for their rag tag conglomeration of mission passionate solar pioneers with stars in their eyes.

More impressive than the number of attendees, though, were the projections of solar power as a growing portion of total energy needs in California and the world at large. Not bad! Factor in the optimism that inflates every press release from industry-specific industry annual conferences, and it still looks like a good share of the sustainable energy needs we're looking for. Let's hope these positive trends continue and let's do what we can to make them come true.

PV has been growing 70% - 80% annually in the U.S.




Solar hot water is growing 50% - 80% every year




California has an RPS (renewable portfolio standard) of 20% by 2010, meaning we need to have 20% of our power coming from solar by then.




Most CEOs estimate that by 2010 we the world market for PV will be about 15 GW (gigawatts or 15,000 megawatts). Compare this to our current level of a little over 2 GW.




Today, worldwide, we get 1/10 of 1% of our power from solar

By 2030 we will get 30% of our power from solar




By 2100 we will get 70% of our power from solar.

The silicon shortage? As John had it explained to him,

One of the biggest challenges in the solar industry today is the silicon shortage, which has caused the major PV manufacturers to limit the supply to its dealers for the last couple of years, which has wreaked havoc for many smaller installers. It is expected now that this silicon shortage will be gone in approximately two years and the solar floodgates will again become wide open. Many manufacturers are working on PV modules that use less silicon like thinner wafers, thin film technologies, concentrators, and metallurgic grade silicon.

John's perspective of the solar industry - as one of the groundbreakers - was also interesting.

Driving home from the conference my strong sense was that the PV market right now is where home computers were in the late 1970's and cell phones were in the late 1990's. It's both gratifying to be a pioneer in this industry having sold the first PV module in America back in 1978 and daunting to see the tidal wave of the solar economy washing up on our shores so quickly. In the long run it's just what we need if we're to have a chance to mitigate global warming.

Solfest - celebrating sustainable living in NorCal

The small village of Hopland, California stradles the Redwood Highway, about a 2-hour drive north of San Francisco. The presence of the redwoods is just starting to come on when you reach Hopland, but you approach the town with vinyards, not trees, blanketing much of the open space. The road takes a long gentle curve to the right and then you see the huge photovoltaic array directed at the southern sky. They call the array Solar 2000, and it sells power (160,000 kWh annually) into the grid to provide income for Solar Living Institute (SLI), the non-profit organization that runs the Solar Living Center, whose 12-acre facility beyond the solar panels was marked by an interesting variety of trees.

Last Saturday I was there at Solfest, "the Greenest Show on Earth," an annual cross-gathering of tribes representing appropriate technology, craftmaking, homesteading and music. This was Solfest #12, but it was my first. I've been to Solar Living Center and the store that was the seed for it all - Real Goods - on many occasions over the 24 years I've lived in California.

In many respects, Solfest is both an exhibition and party thrown by the rural residents of Mendocino County. I've got strong, working hippie roots from 12 years living on the Farm and I know there are now three generations of hippie culture thriving in the forests of northern California. Around a few small towns like Ukiah, Eureka and Fort Bragg, the settlements in this region are far flung, with a strong sense of local organization combined with homesteader-like independence and self reliance. Solar energy, composting, home gardens, building with natural materials and biofuel are not just curious experiments to these people; they are all survival technologies for the living in the boondocks.

Though Solfest may not be familiar to many outside of California (an informal raising-of-hands poll done by the founder, John Shaeffer, in his welcome speech indicated very few attendees from outside of Northern Cal.) the festival probably represents the most powerful representation of how high tech is being adapted for sustainable living. Solfest is also a great example of how adopting sustainable living practices can be celebrated rather than regarded as a desperation obligation in the face of looming catastrophe. And in that respect, it reminded me of the upside of moving in the sustainable direction.

Climate Frog is about getting out of the pot before the water gets too hot, but it's also about the joy of getting out of that confinding pot.