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Is the Future of Silicon Valley Solar?
Noryungi writes "In this provocative article, Brian McConnell argues that Silicon Valley, instead of staying in the saturated IT field, should apply its resources (including its chip-producing plants) into Solar Power/Renewable energy. Intel branded Solar Panels, anyone?"
if the war in iraq and the rising cost of oil have showed us anything, it's that we need to look into more alternative energy sources. producing our own solar energy would not only leave us less dependent on foriegn oil, but would also help the enviroment. we should also look at wind and water power also. hopefully in a few years time we'll be able to have some kind of program running that promote this type of thing.
"Solar electricity can be produced by means of photovoltaic arrays (based on the photoelectric effect discovered by Albert Einstein) or by using conventional heat engines whereby solar energy is used to power a turbine. Solar heat is simpler still, requiring only a blackbody and a mechanism for storing and transferring heat"
Einstein didn't dicsover photoelectric effect, he has EXPLAINED it (and earned a Nobel Prize for it).
What about Sun Solar Panels?
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Out here in sunny california, they have already been considering legislation to require a certain percentage of new built homes to have solar panels preinstalled on the roof by the contractor.
A house with these panels can provide most of its energy, and on sunny days even feed excess back into the grid (electric company pays YOU)
Considering the enery crisis, and terror threats to centralized power, it would seem irresponsible NOT to try and push for distributed solar power generation. It makes sense in almost every way (money, eco-friendly, security)
Anyone can post to that newsgroup. You get advertising and all sorts of off-topic posts.
I'd rather have sci.energy or even rec.energy.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
my trusty solar powered calculator is always busy keeping the chicks away.
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
The Personal Computer has always been a very compelling product. It appeals to business, parents, students, teachers, gamers, etc.
This is the reason they've sold so well.
I just don't see it happening with solar panels. Personally, I don't want to be in the electricity production business. How many people actually do?
I'm more for the advancement of Fusion technology discussed yesterday. It's clean AND it doesn't waste my time.
Intel and AMD both still run their own production facilities. In fact, Intel makes sure that the layout of the fabs is identical, so that production parameters are transferable from one fab to another. As a result, their fabs are designed for producing microprocessors, and making major changes in this general alignment would be rather difficult. IBM, on the other hand, runs a more diversified system of fabs.
You are probably confusing this with companies such as ARM. They are merely a chip design and intellectual property company now, however in spite of the "merely" this is still an enormous economic asset in today's tech arena.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
FYI, this is already done in a way, as far as Intel helping to build solar panels goes.
Astropower is a US solar panel manufacturer that gets many of its solar cell silicon wafers through recycling programs with Intel. TI, etc. See here. They basically take bad/test wafers, clean them up, and use them for silicon solar cells.
I'm building a 100% solar home and already have a kW of capacity installed, and went with Astropower for several reasons, the above included.
The article goes on and on about how Silicon Valley can capitalize on the solar energy business (and other forms of high-efficincy energy production). There are a couple new and exciting renewable energy companies in the valley.
The first order of business for an energy consumer should be to minimize energy consumption. The economics are simple: a reduction in demand will reduce costs.
Many people are shocked when they learn that it's very easy to save $1000 in energy costs a year by spending less than $100 and an hour's worth of time. This guy and this guy seemed to do just about nothing for 50% energy savings.
Even though it's always exciting to look at the state of the art in the energy business, it's more useful (but less exciting) to look at how it impacts you personally.
Intel branded Solar Panels, anyone?
Intel Outside!For now anyway. But that's the whole point of research and development: improve the product. Just because something isn't perfect to begin with, doesn't mean that it can't be improved. Look at the development of: agriculture, automobiles, computers, weaponry, etc., etc.
You don't have to live off-grid to make use of solar power. You already have electricity piped in from generating plants... solar is a supplement to that, to cut down on the need for additional power plants and lines to come in to growing areas. There are some areas that the electric company has realized its cheaper to get a lot of their customers to install solar than it is to build new power plants to supply the energy they'd use, and also with excess energy being sold back to the grid, it helps produce some of the electricity for them, out in the areas that consume the power.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Just because you're not getting a lot of sunlight, the fact that there is ambient light coming through the clouds still does generate some power. It may be reduced, but it is still there. If you read the related article Hacking Your Way Off The Utility Grid he approaches it from a reducing his expenditures on power, and providing a cushion for any future price increases.
Additionally, depending on where you're at in Michigan, there are varying classes of wind power available. The inputs listed in the system in the article are pure DC inputs. That means anything that generates DC at the same voltage can be used for input, being a generator, solar, wind or even a generator attached to your gutters that takes the rain and does hydro power from it. The point is that if you approach it from an overall viewpoint of reducing your power consumption from a grid, you will be helping the system. If everyone reduced their needs from the grid by 1kWH/person/month it would count for a lot.
My approach i'm taking towards my home system i'm planning is to do a combined solar+wind system. Usually where I live (in Ann Arbor/Dexter area, Michigan) the wind is blowing or there is some sunlight. The average wind speeds combined with a wind generator may help reduce the power. If you're living near one of the great lakes, the amount of wind power you can generate is quite reasonable. I know today we're under a high wind advisory (again) so if I had my wind generators up and going now, it would help offset my other electricity costs.
While not a Silicon Valley company but instead residing in The Netherlands, Philips already has a solar panels division. And it makes a lot of sense, because they're active in both lighting (solar panels are just the inverse of what they've been doing for over a century) and semiconductors (so they have lots of "waste" silicon which is useless for ICs, but not for solar panels).
;P
So, yeah: get with the times, Silicon Valley!
When this is released, they'll also be distributing hydrogen generators, enabling the average consumer to extract the gas from water at virtually no expense by using the electricity provided by such devices as wind turbines and solar panels.
Such an event would provide silicon valley with a much wider niche in the industry, should they elect to go that route.
This one's for real, folks! United Nuclear is a fairly high-profile company involved in everything from rocket science to personal defense systems.
Solar cells = gigantic volume small value added CPUs = tiny volume, huge IP value added Silicon = completely irrelevant
The article had no mention of Cypress Semiconductor, one of my poorer performing investments. Cypress has, in the last few years, made more news as a customer of photovoltaics than as a vendor. Powerlight has been converting/adding PV power to bay area buildings for over 10 years. But Cypress has a PV subsidiary ..so I am not dumping their stock just yet.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
This previous post deserves to be modded up for containing this sentence.
Yes, please consider this advice, fellow geeks: how many monitors are always on even when they're not used for hours? And who pays attention to buying energy-efficient servers? Green PCs with power-saving modes? Recently left on the light when you weren't in the room for hours? Do you drive a car that needs more gas than the state of the art per 100 km? You don't even know how much your car needs?
If only more people had constant awareness of such issues, and taught their children to treat energy as something precious that must never be wasted, then this might have a higher impact than technical advancement in engergy effectiveness.
--
Coolbeans! The patent-pending Nuggets , SMS search engine -- text your questions, get your answers from the Web.
Using these wonderful cells to power fluorescent lamps, set up the lamps to shine on the cells. Electricity out, no power in. Perpetual motion!
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Actually, solar panels last decades without deteriorating significantly._ new.htm l
Also, the payback myth is just that - a myth:
http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_solar
I have 6kw on top of my house, and I expect they will probably be working even after I'm gone. I'm only 34 now.
It also sells electricity back to the grid during peak consumption times. Perfect.
Even if that were true, [which it isn't] solar would save hugely on transmission costs.
Which is why it's already in heavy use in places where the load is small (road signs, yard lights, emergency phones) the location is remote (rural areas) or sometimes where solar is more reliable than the grid (areas far from the primary generation with heavy weather causing frequent line damage).
It costs an ENORMOUS amount to run power even a fraction of a mile, let alone tens of miles, for a new hookup in an area not otherwise served. Even if you're only going to count the ENERGY cost, think about how much energy it takes:
- to mine the ore and process it into steel and copper for the transformer, wires, guy wires, fittings, (and that power meter...)
- to melt the sand and make it into insultors
- to cut the trees and process them into poles
- to haul it all onsite, dig holes, set poles in them, string it up, and haul the workers back and forth from home for weeks
- to build the fraction of the rest of the grid and power plant thatbecomes dedicated to supplying power to that hookup.
THAT, not the energy supplied by the panel, is the appropriate energy to compare when looking at the panel's "energy cost". The purpose of the panel is not just to extract energy from sun, but to deliver it WHERE IT'S WANTED. The grid has an energy cost far beyond the part that's actually delivered to a remote load. Modern solar panels, on the other hand, are apparently alread, not just better in some situations, but actually a net gain (despite old rumors to the contraray). They should become moreso with further technological improvement.
In the absense of government meddling (and to a large extent even WITH government meddling), price tends to be a reasonably reliable signal of how much stuff that people value (energy, raw material, people's time, environmental quality) is being used up to provide something. When total solar systems become less expensive than grid connections (with their extreme efficiencies), it's a very good sign that they have also become less of a drain on valuable resources - including energy.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
A better technology has been created. "Solar Fabrics". Several companies are using "Nano-materials" based on titanium-oxide to do "roll to roll" printing of Solar-to-electric energy fabric. Cost is less, is much more rugged ,integrates with buildings better, more usable capture space. Yield not equal to Solar Panels, but it is new and is improving. It is likely to surpass traditional panels on a volts per unit of area basis.
Two companies already doing this: konarka and nanosolar:
One possible application: building materials (roofing, exterior siding) which can generate power.
http://www.konarka.com/ http://www.nanosolar.com/
I tried to post the following ideas in a slightly different format as a story, but it was rejected. Perhaps it'll do better here:
Moderation is anonymous
I say this is a Very Bad Thing. You can compare this to Kuro5hin, where you can easily see who did what to whom. Moderation with accountability allows anyone to see when a vendetta is being pursued, or when someone is systematically modding a subject down because they disagree, rather than because the issue is actually off-topic, a flame and so forth. I cannot begin to count the number of comments I have seen that have been modded down because they were contraversial, as opposed to offtopic, flamebait, or whatever else the down-mod claimed they were. The site's editors are also anonymous and that provides a hidden power structure which isn't a particularly good thing in any venue. I have read multiple claims that this poster or that poster cannot get mod points "because they modded something [a slashdot luminary] posted some time ago." If this is an illusion, exposing who did what to whom will in turn expose the illusion. If it is not an illusion, then exposing what happened should reduce the problem, because such action would rightfully be condemned by readers if it is inappropriate. I find the idea that the site's editors might be sneaking around and quietly muzzling moderators in a punitive manner more than a little disturbing.
Dark humor: Prior to the day I submitted this as a story, I had mod points about every third or fourth day. From the day I submitted the story that most of this was taken from, I have not had mod points. It's been many weeks. Do I miss moderation? Not really... because it doesn't work for beans. I'd miss it if they fixed it, but if they fixed it, I probably would be able to moderate. :)
So my suggestion here is simply to lose moderation anonymity. My second is that if and when mod capability is removed from a user, the date of, and reason for, that action be posted right in their user page.
Many - perhaps even most - down mods are punitive or inappropriate
I suggest that the meta-moderation process be adjusted to include the ability to flag down-mods as obviously inappropriate, and to remove moderation privileges from those who commit such down-mods, as well as the down-mods themselves.
Up-mods don't need metamoderation
I suggest the outright removal of metamoderation of up-mods; if someone considers something interesting (or whatever) positive characteristic, who are we to say that this isn't so? That's the moderator's take on the comment, and up-moderation is a (very limited) opportunity for a moderator to "uplift" the story to the rest of us based on that perception. Upmods aren't harmful the way down-mods are - quite the contrary - and it seems to me to be a complete waste of time to metamoderate upmods for that very reason.
With mod points so scarce (and I agree they should be) we are forced to pick the things we really appreciate to up-mod. I rarely see an honest need to down-mod (obvious "first post" and gay/nigger trolls excepted), but I simply do not see a need to counter an up-mod. Someone thinks this, that or the other thing is insightful or interesting or sexy or whatever? Ok, that's at least notable - and that is exactly what an up-moderated and hence higher point comment does, it becomes more notable - not more interesting, not more insightful, but more notable. It might not actually seem that the applied moderation is accurate to us on reading the modded comment, but it is interesting that so-and-so (or at least "someone", if moderator anonymity remains preserved) thought it was worthy of a mod point. Comments can argue the issue if a poster is so motivated, and that seems like plenty of recourse to me. We see this all the time anyway; why not simply make
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
As quoted in Home Power Magazine
Some skeptics of solar energy claim that it takes more energy to make a photovoltaic module (PV) than it can ever produce in its lifetime. The truth is that PVs typically recoup their embodied energy in two to four years. According to an article published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), today's single and multicrystalline modules have an energy payback of about four years, and thin-film modules about two years. Most PV modules in the field are made from hyper-pure crystalline silicon. Purifying and crystallizing the silicon consumes the most energy in making these PVs. Thin-film PVs are made from considerably less semiconductor material, and therefore have less embodied energy in them. Most of the energy consumed is in the thin-film surface. The aluminum frame on any PV accounts for about six months of its payback time. Solar energy is an amazing technology considering that PVs go on to produce clean, pollution-free energy for at least 25 to 30 years after they have achieved payback.
For more information on energy payback, see the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Web site (www.nrel.gov) and Karl Knapp & Theresa Jester's article titled "PV Payback"in HP80. --Eric Grisen eric.grisen@homepower.com
Also, concerns about lifetime and hail resistance are red herrings. Most panels are warranted for full rated output for at least 20 years and most have performed well beyond those timeframes. Also all panels are UL tested to meet UL hail resistance specifications (which I believe covers hail up to 2" in diameter).
Finally, no one bitches when a gas-fired generator fails to recoup its energy cost of manufacture--it requires billions of additional therms of natural gas over its operating lifetime to produce electricty and never pays back its manufacturing energy cost. It is disingenuous to ask that only of solar (and odd since solar can actually do it!
Or at least, not yet.
r y2.cfm ?section=about&level2=box2
The achilles heel of any current alternate energy deployment is the reliance on the grid to act as the "energy backup" when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. Unfortunately, we don't have a two way grid; nor is it smart enough to safely handle multiple energy sources being fed up into it from unplanned nodes (like your house for example). The current solar and wind systems out there can get away with it because there aren't many of them. Having to bring up "peaker" power stations on calm or cloudy days actually increases the pollution production of the combined "clean energy"/grid system considerably.
Batteries are still way to expensive and damaging to the environment to allow a significant percentage of consumers to go off of the grid entirely.
I presented a paper on distributed grids in Stockholm a few years ago. In the course of this gathering I had a chance to talk with one of the energy authorities from Denmark. Denmark gets 20% of it's power from wind farms. They were having a lot of trouble controlling the energy flows. Smart distribution is essential. Safe energy storage is also required to scale the system.
Fortunately, the US government is already working on these issues. Some things worth looking at:
The Grid 2030 conference we had two years ago:
http://www.electricity.doe.gov/about/boxsto
The Gridwise Council:
http://www.gridwise.org/
It's also interesting to note that the most efficient technology we have for power production we have right now is co-generation, and the most environmentally friendly and economical large scale power systems are nuclear. Hmmm.
-- Loudog
Instead of just sticking this here, you should email the administrator(s) and other powers-that-be. The chance that they might miss this (very good) argument if it is in a comment is too high.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...