Are we still dealing with the fallout of the energy crisis?

The recent failure of Solyndra, a solar power equipment manufacturer who had received from the US Government $527.8 million dollars (Jim Snyder / Bloomberg, September 9) to manufacture solar panel equipment and which declared bankruptcy with liabilities of $783.8 million dollars, brings much of the US energy policy .. such as it is .. into sharp focus for us today. The decision by the Federal Government to investigate this firm for ties to the Obama administration further shines the spotlight on the situation not just for solar power manufacturers, but for the focus of the future energy policy of this country.

Even prior to the Three Mile Island accident, a growing segment of the US population felt that solar energy would be the most desirable power source for the future. If we look at a thorough work of the time, "Public Opinion and Nuclear Energy," Nealey / Melber / Rankin, Battelle Human Affairs Research Center 1983, we find, after very detailed information on many survey questions relating all kinds of energy production in the US, the summation in part reading thus:

"Since 1976 the public has given more support to solar energy compared to all other energy sources; there is strong majority consensus that efforts should be made to develop this energy source. Solar energy is selected most often as the best source for the future by the general public."

We might attribute this feeling, at this time, to the energy crisis - whether real or perceived. In this same volume on page 163 we see clearly that the public, in the 70's and early 80's believed in a real shortage both in energy supply and in raw materials. Many had felt that solar was the best answer prior to Three Mile Island; many more felt so after, even though as pointed out on this blog before at least twice, public opinion in favor of nuclear energy actually DID recover toward the positive beginning within a few years after the Three Mile Island accident. Regardless of where it was going to come from, though, the public at the time did believe everything was in short supply - except for oil, which we could not possibly control the prices of. Solar seemed the best answer for those who were averse to supply shortage (the sun still has well over three quarters of a tank of fuel left, if I may say) and were thinking in environmental terms as well.

Of course, one wonders immediately, given the strong positive feeling back then about solar energy, whether or not the public were being fed pipe dreams by either some industry components, universities with large grants to study solar, or the government. We might easily point, for such an example, to the continuing story of the perpetually "about twenty years away from practical power" area of fusion energy. The United States launched Project Sherwood prior to the end of the 1950's to work on fusion power; at that time, it was thought to be about 20 years away. Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co. and RCA had been given a contract to build a large experimental device called a Stellarator, and C-Stellarator Associates Inc. was formed with these companies to build it. Fast forward to now, today, in the year 2011; we're still said to be roughly 20 years away. This is what we call a moving target, or better yet a pipe dream.

Solar is another less severe example of a pipe dream. Certainly, very much was being pushed in favor of solar energy during those years. "The Economics of Nuclear and Coal Power," Saunders Miller / Praeger 1976, which is really a volume that attempts to make no pretense about being wholly PRO-coal and anti-nuclear, includes the following statement discussing solar power:

"Because solar power will present the consumer with at least a partial alternative to the purchase of energy from a central distribution system, the sale of electrical units by power companies may begin to decline from the future levels currently projected; as discussed in Chapter 10, this may seriously impact the financial stability of utilities."

Anyone who remembers those years remembers the fairly constant flood of information on television and in magazines about the future of solar energy - and as such, in that context, it might have been possible to believe the last statement of the above quoted paragraph.

In today's context, and knowing what has actually happened in the last thirty years, that statement is ludicrous. No one would make such a claim today. While some people are installing solar heating and solar cell electric power equipment, and some factories are doing so as well, no utility is today threatened in its core stability by scores of thousands of homes and businesses "going off the grid," which is what this statement references.

Incredible - in the original sense of the word - as that 1976 perception seems now, it is that very type of thinking that appears still to be coloring much of our energy policy. All of the intervening years of safe and reliable nuclear plant operation in the United States since Three Mile Island have incredibly increased public opinion in favor of nuclear energy but apparently the failure of solar energy to really deliver on any promises in the widest, broadest sense implied by these now thirty plus year old works seems not to have dawned on anyone.

Perhaps now it will given the failure of three solar equipment manufacturers in one year.

The statements by Solyndra indicate that at least some in the company feel that Chinese competition cannot be beaten since it is funded by the Chinese government. One wonders what percentage of valuation constitutes "federally funded" or "nationalized," since Solyndra was into the US Government for almost $530 million dollars, had a peak valuation of roughly $1 billion or a little less than twice this (meaning the federal investment was over half) and now has debts in bankruptcy of roughly $780 million. Many people will want to know just what percentage, then, of federal funding would make the business competitive with China even if not profitable. (One wonders when the anti-dumping legislation motions will be made, if Chinese zero-profit or else sales on the loss are really the culprit.)

There can be no question that in a theoretical sense there is no better way to develop two of the things we need - heat, directly and electricity either directly or indirectly - from solar energy. There is no other source that can be placed on one's roof, the roof of one's business, on the roof of a whole apartment building, or in a field, say, to power a small town with no other effect than merely the weight of its mass and the space envelope required. At this stage of the game, that is where the long-made promises of solar energy meet the delivery; at the home and at the small factory and small community level.

Simple facts concerning long-range transmission of electric power make a giant solar farm "out West" powering the country, or most of it, a pipe dream. Weather conditions make construction of more localized solar farm power plants questionable at best in terms of the amount of time they can deliver their rated capacity (known as the 'capacity factor.') This limits, at least for now, the upper size of solar generating stations to something very flexible, very tangible, but not highly profitable for utility companies and more likely owned and installed by the end user.

Our federal investing in energy sources seems, then, upside down if our larger problems are considered either as supply related (cost of oil, total supply of oil, and others) or environmentally related (i.e. global warming.) Solar is in no position at this moment, domestically produced, to combat either of these usefully on a wide scale. (One quickly wonders what buying $500 million worth of solar equipment from China might have done in an experimental large installation.) Furthermore, as evidenced by the 1100 jobs lost when Solyndra shut down, it appears too that the ongoing job crisis cannot in any substantial way be solved by employing people in the areas of solar energy, be it manufacturing or installation.

Of course, keeping with the normal focus of this blog, nuclear energy is in the position to do all of the things solar has been either promising or has had assumed for it for these thirty years. Further, nuclear energy is "shovel ready" now, and thousands could be put to work now building new plants. Vogtle is just one example of a large mobilized work force from diverse fields having been assembled from the ether to do a very large (two plant APR1000) job. These workers will develop further experience and skill that could be expanded upon by others and spread.

In the final analysis, solar energy, unlike fusion energy, is not just on the horizon but here. We know how and where it will work. However, its myth even today stands larger than its delivery, and the risk in entering business to develop it seems far riskier given the year's events than any other energy technology. Solar energy still has yet to deliver as good as promised.

2:30 PM Eastern Thursday September 15, 2011
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW