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By Guy Dauncey
There’s an interesting project being proposed for a place called Ned’s Corner, just west of Mildura (Victoria State), in Australia’s outback. It consists of an enormous tower, a kilometre high, surrounded by 30 square kilometres of glass. As the sun beats down on the glass, the super-heated air will rise up the tower and drive 32 turbines, producing 200 MW of power - enough for 200,000 homes. The tallest of the two World Trade Center towers was 417 metres high.
The tower follows a successful prototype that operated in Manzares, Spain for several years. As a solar installation, it makes technical sense, and the energy will come in at 4.5 cents/kwh US, only 20% more than coal-fired energy. If all goes well, they hope to start building in 2003. Who knows? We may see similar towers being proposed for Canada’s prairies, perhaps surrounded by rings of wind turbines, to add to the mix. We urgently need some adventurous solar dreaming to pull us out of the dull mental sludge of Canada’s coal and oil barons.
The real solar revolution, however, will start on Japan’s rooftops, in 2005.
Solar energy works. It works on NASA’s Space Station, and it works on houses all over the world. Every day, the sun radiates 3,000 times more energy onto Earth’s surface than we use. There are several competing technologies - crystalline silicon and thin film silicon solar cells are the leaders - controlling 90% and 10% of the world market.
But forget these technicalities for now. The thing that matters is less the technology, more the scale of production. The early computers were the size of a room and cost $1million; now you can hold them your hand for under $1,000. It’s the same with all technology. Mass production forces the price down.
In the 1970s, solar cells cost $70/watt. Today, they cost $3.50 a watt. As production goes up, price comes down. As soon as they hit $1/watt, they will be competitive with other kinds of energy, and the solar revolution will hit the streets.
There’s just one snag, however. It won’t hit BC. It won’t even hit Australia, which receives the world’s most sunshine. No - it will hit Japan, which receives less sunshine than BC, because the Japanese pay 24 cents/kwh for their electricity, while here in BC we pay 3 cents (prices in US$). With solar cells, you buy 20 years worth of energy upfront, after which it is free. So the key question is “How long will it take to get pay-back?”
In Japan, at today’s solar price, assuming a 5% interest rate for the capital, the answer is 24 years. In BC, it’s more like 140 years. The countries with the most solar installations per person - Japan, Switzerland and Germany - all have high electricity prices. The interesting thing is that when electricity costs twice as much, you tend to become twice as efficient, which also drives the market for super-efficient appliances.
So what will it take to reduce the price of solar to $1 per watt? Mass production - or more specifically, a factory that can produce 500 MW of solar cells a year. Until last year, the world’s largest factory produced 30 MW a year. Now Sharp, the Japanese company, has opened a factory that can produce 200 MW a year.
The Japanese have a very active “70,000 solar roofs” subsidy program, and the government is going out of its way to build the domestic market, helping the Japanese solar companies to hit mass production, and the critical price of $1/watt by 2005. After that, they start cleaning up. In 2000, they sold 100 MW of new solar energy. The USA, by contrast, sold 21 MW; Canada sold 1 MW.
As soon as the Japanese companies hit mass production, the solar revolution will take off. Wherever the price of electricity is high, consumers around the world will install solar roofs, and sell their solar surplus back to the grid. It will be great news for the world, for if there is one thing we need to help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, it is cheap solar energy. And boy, do we need to reduce those emissions.
So what are the morals of this story? One - we urgently need solar energy, to replace electricity from coal, oil and gas, and help save us from global climate change. Two - we need much higher electricity prices, to make this happen. And three - the magic combination of free market competition, government supported science and policy, and green consumer purchases can indeed change the world.
Guy Dauncey is the author of Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change (New Society Publishers), and the publisher of EcoNews. His website is www.earthfuture.com.
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