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unusualmusic_lj_archiveTwo Large Solar Plants Planned in California
A start. And then we can start making them better.
With Energy in Focus, Heat Pumps Win Fans
Images by Stuart Isett, who blogs here<A href="http://www.isett.com</a>
Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.
The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.
The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the new plants, which will use photovoltaic technology to turn sunlight directly into electricity, to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants, which use the sun’s heat to boil water.
...
Neither approaches the economy of fossil-fuel burning plants, said Ms. Zerwer, the spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric. But they will be competitive with wind power and with power from solar thermal plants, which are equipped with mirrors that use the sun’s heat to boil water into steam. And prices will fall, she predicted.
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A start. And then we can start making them better.
With Energy in Focus, Heat Pumps Win Fans
Stuart Isett for The New York Times
Gerard Maloney works to install a heat pump system in a home in North Bend, Wash. By tapping geothermal warmth, heat pumps can save homeowners and businesses on heating bills.
Like other energy alternatives, ground-source heat pumps have won new admirers as energy costs have skyrocketed.
The pumps, also called geothermal heat pumps, use the relatively constant temperature just below the earth’s surface — six feet below, in many cases — to draw warm air into a building in winter and remove warm air in summer. Advocates say the systems can save building owners 25 percent to 65 percent on energy costs while reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Around the nation, owners of the small businesses that constitute most of the $2.5 billion ground-source heat pump industry report that demand for their systems and services has surged.
“We started as many jobs by April of 2008 as we had done in all of 2007,” said Bruce Wollaber, president of Comfort Engineered Systems in Nolensville, Tenn., a designer and installer of heat pump systems. Bill Beattie, co-owner of Rockford Geothermal in Rockford, Ill., said, “If we stay on track, we’re probably going to grow by about 40 percent this year.”
All this comes with some growing pains for the industry, which has its sights set on capturing 30 percent of the heating and air-conditioning market by 2030. System manufacturers have a backlog of orders, installers say. Trained workers are increasingly difficult to come by. Still, said Jim Bose, executive director of the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association, an industry and advocacy group, “it’s not a pipe dream. It can be done.”
The systems use a network of water-filled pipes laid either horizontally (6 feet under) or vertically (often 200 to 300 feet down), that attach to a heat exchanger.
The technology can be used almost anywhere, on any type of building. “We’ve got them all the way from Texas to the Arctic Circle,” said Mr. Bose, a professor of engineering technology at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.
And even without financial incentives from the government or energy utilities, says John Shonder of the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, “ground-source heat pumps have the lowest life-cycle costs in several cost studies that I’ve done” of heating and air-conditioning systems. (For details on incentives, see www.dsireusa.org.)
The systems pay for themselves in three to eight years, depending on “location and energy prices,” Mr. Shonder said.
In fact, heat pump systems may offer the greatest savings to the owners of commercial buildings, says John W. Lund, director of the Geo-Heat Center at the Oregon Institute of Technology. “For commercial buildings, where you have a fairly large heating and cooling load, the payback period could be two to three years.” More
Images by Stuart Isett, who blogs here<A href="http://www.isett.com</a>
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 02:38 pm (UTC)(Call me cynical, but it's become one of those questions that I like answered up front.)
And frankly, I really really want to see an organized push for distributed power generation: put these solar panels on Arizona and SoCal roofs. That's where they're having the trouble of "too much sunlight," and that's where they're using a good chunk of the power. The idea that you hook up to the grid and whammo! instant power! all you can use! is an outdated mental frame.
(*is cranky* *but not at you*)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 03:43 pm (UTC)My images
Date: 2009-03-31 05:51 pm (UTC)Thanks,
Stuart Isett
Re: My images
Date: 2009-04-01 01:35 am (UTC)