Switzerland's international relations seem to involve shelling and invading Lichtenstein - which seems to be the only country in Europe that fears Switzerland's navy - a converted car ferry on Lake Geneva, which though far from Lichtenstein, will probably blunder into attacking it anyway - and cheering for the Austrian claim to the dead body of a 5000 year old murder victim.
Oh yeah, and another thing Switzerland does is blab a lot about approaches to matters of energy.
They're whining a lot, I think, because of their glaciers, without which Lake Geneva will go dry, thus grounding forever their ferry/navy.
They're a nosy bunch, those Swiss, and maybe because international dictators are always socking away money in their banks, they think they can lecture everybody on the planet about anything. For instance, in a particularly nosy gesture, they proposed a 2000 watt world where the average power consumption of a citizen of the world in general would be 2000 watts, roughly 1/6 the average power consumption of an average American.
Whatever. It's none of their business what the gas mileage on my car is. Their glaciers ain't my problem and anyway, like I said, they speak lousy German.
But let me indulge them. The bothersome Swiss are yapping now about the ecological cost of stuff, including solar cells.
It is widely reported among the denialist "solar will save us" set that solar PV electricity is a major form of energy, that it is "free," and that it has little or no environmental impact. The number of true statements among the dependent clauses in the last sentence is zero.
Solar PV electricity - in fact all forms of solar energy, PV and thermal combined - have never been a major form of energy, and the predictions that it would become a major form of energy - going back decades - have all been wrong. For instance, the dumb, paid (off) dangerous fossil fuel greenwasher Amoral Lovins predicted in 1976 that by 2000 the US would obtain 16 exajoules (roughly 16 Quads) of electricity from solar energy. (cf, Lovins, Amory, "The Road Not Taken" Foreign Affairs, Oct. 1976, pp 65-96.) If you'd like to avoid wading through all 31 pages of the tripe, the 16 quad figure, taken from a National Research Council Report at the time - Lovins has not done a shred of original work in his life - the prediction is on page 76. This same report predicted US non-solar energy consumption would be at 54 quads. The actual figures as of 2007 were that non-solar US energy consumption was at 101.6 quads with the solar production figure representing 0.080 quads, not even 1/1000th of US energy demand, this in 2008, after more than 50 years of talk about how wonderful solar is. Solar energy does not produce, I think, the amount of electricity that is expended to promote it. One may ask whether, with the atmospheric concentration of dangerous fossil fuel waste now pushing 400 ppm, whether it is suddenly wise to bet the farm on similar wild, starry eyed, predictions such as one can find here, at Daily Kos, regularly, 30 years after Lovins' stupid representations.
Nor is solar electricity "free." As of this writing, the figures presented by the solar energy promotion site Solarbuzz report that the cost of solar electricity is now 21.32 cents per kwh. This compares with an average US electricity price for residential customers of 10.4 cents per kwh (as of 2006) - the highest price recorded in over a decade - and a price of 8.9 cents per kwh for all customers of the electric industry, including industrial customers. Note that the pixilated, volatile, quirky delusional voters of California were manipulated by Enron - which held a huge operating stake in the Republican party in California and Washington, D.C. - into recalling their duly elected Democratic governor, Grey Davis, and replacing him with a steroid laced, Hummer driving freak, because electricity prices in California surged to 12.2 cents per kwh. The steroid laced freak in question - Governor Arnie - was then re-elected in part because he was inexplicably declared an "environmentalist" by a credulous and often deliberately fraudulent media because of his support of a worthless poorly constructed, unworkable, unrealistic, and inflated "million solar roofs" bill, even though solar energy is almost double in price compared to the figures about which the Californians were so upset.
And what is the price of electricity in the State over which Governor Arnie now presides?
It's 14.36 cents for residential customers, higher than it was under Grey Davis - an unjustly maligned man - but still nowhere as high as the solar energy that Governor Hydrogen Hummer is pretending to install in California.
(The figures for the historical price of electricity in California can be found here.
Heckuva job California.
In case you're interested, the "environmentalist" governor of California likes to make a big show of pretending to care about climate change gas emissions, although it would appeared that basically almost all of the newly installed energy capacity in California appears to be dangerous natural gas capacity. Since Enron helped usurp the duly elected Governor of California, the capacity for power production using dangerous natural gas as a fuel has risen by 4,711 MWe, making it easily, by far, the largest form of newly installed power capacity in California. Note that newly installed capacity is a good predictor of the serious long term intent of the producers.
In the same period, under the allegedly "environmentalist" Hummer driving governor, renewable capacity - and it's "peak" capacity as we'll see, which is pretty much meaningless whenever we talk about renewables - has risen by 516 MWe in the same period - and is actually lower than it was in 1993.
Um, well then.
And now, with that long introduction, let's use that capacity issue to lead into a discussion of Switzerland, which is not California, even if there is some ersatz Swiss architecture in a few cheesy restaurant/hotels in the California ski resort at Mammoth Lakes, which unlike the Alps, is actually on a volcano.
The referenced paper around which this diary is built is from the scientific journal International Journal of Life Cycle Analysis. Late at night, on Independence Day, I discussed, in a little noted diary, the life cycle of Swedish pigs - it seemed like a good idea at the time - in a diary called, appropriately enough, "Life Cycle Analysis of Pigs in Sweden: An Environmental Breakdown" another article from this most interesting journal. The abstract from the paper I am going to discuss, Int. J. LCA, 10(1), 24-34, (2005) can be found here. The title of the paper is "Life Cycle Assessment for Emerging Technologies:
Case Studies for Photovoltaic and Wind Power."
So, we were talking about capacity factors, I think. One of the intellectually dishonest things that "solar will save us" advocates are always doing while they work hard to produce complacency, wishful thinking, and hype in the face of the most exigent international crisis since, at least, the time of the founding of the Qin Dynasty - or for you more Eurocentric types, the time of the rise of Rome - if not an even much, much, much longer period of time, is to pretend that solar is thriving because of the installation of some number of "kilowatts" or "megawatts" of power. One is always hearing about "world's largest" solar systems. They are always announced in units of "peak" power or worse, especially when scientifically illiterate journalists are involved, in units of "enough to power (x number) of homes." This "world's largest solar system" is being announced as 300 Mega"watts" where the quotation marks denote that this is the peak achieved at noon on a cloudless day with no dusty winds.
This latest "world's largest" plant - thus far it is all talk - is supposed a thermal plant, consisting of a huge array of mirrors in the desert hooked up to Stirling generators. Part of the external costs of this plant, besides the thousands of metric tons of glass and metal that have to be reduced, will involve fuel for the tanker trucks full of Windex that will have to go out to the Imperial Valley whenever the Santa Anna winds blow dust clouds up, or the ash from burning homes and chaparral falls, and of course the external costs of chopping down a few forests to make a few million rolls of super soft paper towels. Renewable energy advocates are always noting how renewable energy is always making jobs, although they specifically decline to state what the jobs pay. Let's just say that we're lucky that the Imperial Valley is on the route between El Salvador and Los Angeles, the efforts of our border guarding racists notwithstanding.
As of this writing, by the way, on the website of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
there is a picture of Diane Curran, representing the so called "San Luis Mothers for Peace" bitching to the commission about the threat of terrorist attacks on the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant. Note that this particular "Mother for Peace" couldn't give a rat's ass about dangerous fossil fuel war or dangerous fossil fuel terrorism. I'll bet money that she drove to the hearing, in a car fueled with oil that was partially Saudi, even though the Saudis use the money paid from billions of drivers like her to fund the Wahhabi extremist sects that engage in dangerous fossil fuel terrorism. You can bet money too, that the "San Luis Mothers for Peace" are not bitching to the "Tall Building Regulatory Commission" about the existence of skyscrapers, although large buildings seem to draw terrorist attacks with some pretty powerful health consequences. Apparently Ms. Curran feels perfectly justified arbitrarily applying selective attention to risks, elevating her imagination over reality.
You can bet money too that Ms. Curran has no intention of driving 700 miles out to the Imperial Valley with 500 drums of Windex and 10,000 rolls of paper towel to labor hour upon hour in the blazing desert sun to wipe ashes off of mirrors.
God forbid.
If she did do this driving though, I'll bet she wouldn't give a rat's ass about the terrorist or waste implications of the gasoline or diesel burned in the process.
But I said I wasn't going to talk more about California though.
NNadir is a liar, although possibly not on the same level as Governor Hydrogen Hummer and Diane Curran.
Let's talk about capacity factors. According to the Int. J. LCA paper referenced above, the following statement is true of Switzerland's solar PV power capacity:
The photovoltaic plants in operation in Switzerland show an
average yearly electricity production of 819 kWh per kWp.
For the inventory of flat and slanted-roof installations, only
the best 75% plants with an average production of 885 kWh/
kWp have been considered to roughly disregard the minimally efficient
installations. A façade-system with vertically oriented
panels is calculated to produce 626 kWh per kWp and year.
A power plant of any type running at 100% capacity - and virtually no type of plant other than nuclear plants ever does this - will produce, for each kW of rated power 8,766 kWh of electricity per year. Thus we can see that in Switzerland the average solar system produces less than 10% utilization of the rated peak capacity, 9.34%, to be more precise. The best 75% of the "plants" in Switzerland are slightly above 10% at 10.1%.
Thus in Switzerland, if one does not intend to be misleading or deliberately dishonest, one should report an 800 Mega"watt" solar plant as being equivalent to an 80 watt coal plant. If one wishes to be even more honest, one should confess that the solar plant can never be equivalent to the coal plant, since the coal plant can run at night, or when the weather sucks, and the solar plant can't.
But that's not what happens. People come around here all the time and claim - with contempt for reality - that solar energy is an alternative to coal. It isn't. Period.
Now let's get to the meat of the paper. "LCA" here, of course, refers to "life cycle analysis:"
LCA studies for photovoltaic power plants have a long tradition for longer than 15 years (e.g. Alsema 2000, Alsema et al. 1998, Frankl 1998, Frischknecht et al. 1996, Fthenakis et al. 1999, Hagedorn & Hellriegel 1992, Kato 1999, Knapp Jester 2000, Palz & Zibetta 1991, Pehnt et al. 2002, Phylipsen & Alsema 1995, Tsuo et al. 1998). The published studies show a high variation in results and conclusions. The main reasons for different LCI results have been evaluated in the late nineties (Jungbluth & Frischknecht 2000). Critical issues during modelling of an LCI for photovoltaic power are: modelling of silicon inputs and use of off-grade or solar grade silicon, allocation between different silicon qualities, power mixes assumed for the production processes, and process specific emissions. The production technology for photovoltaic power plants has been constantly improved over the last decades, e.g. for the efficiency of cells, the amount of silicon required, and the actual capacity of production processes. The data availability is a major problem for establishing a high quality inventory, because not many producers do provide reliable and verifiable data...
.
"...Not many producers produce reliable and verifiable data..." I'm sure, aren't you, that they're just not telling us how good they are?
Some details of what the authors looked at, stuff you don't hear much about during "solar will save us" presentations:
...The production of metallurgical grade silicon (MG-silicon) is based on a carbothermal reduction using petrol coke, charcoal and wood chips as reduction agents. The process data include also the consumption of electricity and quartz and the emission of air- and waterborne pollutants. The Norwegian power mix (with a high share of hydro power) has been considered for the LCI, because the important European producers are located in this country. MG-silicon is converted to EG silicon (electronic grade) in the Siemens process (via reaction to trichlorosilane). Inventory data are based on information available for the most important producer in Europe, located in Germany. Thus, it cannot be regarded as representative for other technologies or production sites. Electricity consumption is assumed with the in-house mix. The purification process provides three different products which are used in three different economic sectors (Fig. 2)...
Since Norwegian electricity is involved here, it behooves us to note that Norway has exhausted its hydroelectric capacity and is now in the process of building and using dangerous natural gas powered power plants. So Norway's electricity is about to get worse, not better.
...The allocation of inputs and elementary flows is based on different flow-specific principles. For material inputs of MGsilicon and hydrogen chloride, an allocation based on the mass of chemical elements(Si, H, Cl) has been chosen. The energy input is allocated based on economic parameters...
MGsilicon is "metallic grade" silicon, which needs further purification before use in solar cells.
...When the dataset 'MG silicon, to purification' is imported into the database, three additional datasets are generated, namely the unit process datasets for 'silicon, electronic grade, at plant', 'silicon, electronic grade, off-grade, at plant', and 'silicon tetrachloride, at plant'...
...A scenario for the production of solar grade (SoG) silicon has been assumed for future processes based on publications for experimental processes. The EG-silicon is molten and a mono-crystalline crystal is slowly extracted from the melting-pot. Inventory data for Czochralski grade silicon (CZ-silicon) are based on literature information and environmental reports.
The mc-Si or pc-Si columns are sawn to squared wafers of 300 μm thickness. The LCI includes consumption of electricity, hard coal, water, and working material (stainless steel for saw-blades, argon gas, hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acid), production wastes and process- specific air- and waterborne pollutants based on information from literature and environmental reports. Emissions of NOx and nitrate due to surface etching with HNO3 are important and data were only available for one production site. Production of solar cells includes purification and etching of the wafers. Afterwards, wafers are endowed with phosphorus and, after further etching processes, front and rear contacts are printed. Process data include consumption of working material (acids, oxygen, nitrogen and highly purified water), electricity, and wastes. Furthermore, process specific air- and waterborne pollutants are considered. Cell efficiencies are estimated with data provided by several different producers for their actual products.
Solar cells are embedded in layers of ethyl-vinylacetate. The rear cover consists of a polyester, aluminum and polyvinylfluoride film. A 4 mm low-iron glass is used for the front cover. The sandwich is joined under pressure and heat. A connection box is installed and the panels receive an aluminum frame. The process data include construction material and energy consumption as well as the treatment of production wastes.
So much for the idea that solar energy doesn't produce wastes.
The payback time for solar plants, according to this paper, in fuels not consumed, is on the order of 5 years, but what is interesting is what the payback time for reducing human health toxicity is for solar cells when compared to dangerous natural gas. It's over 50 years in Switzerland.
There's no evidence, of course, that solar cells last 50 years. A solar cell recovering its toxicity cost right now would need to have begun operating in 1958, which was just 4 years after the invention of solar cells, and one year after the first solar cell was launched into space.
It is interesting to note how much mass of materials is involved in the production of solar cells for Switzerland. This information can be gleaned from Table 4 in the paper. A 1.65 Wp multicrystalline solar PV cell - remember the "p" refers to the misleading "peak" word - is said to require 19.2 grams of metal grade silicon to produce 11.2 grams of electronic grade silicon for the manufacture of the cell. It follows, of course, that a 1000 kW ell consumes 19.2 kg of such MG silicon.
Solar power is useless for displacing coal, as discussed, but it can displace dangerous natural gas, but there is one exception I have not mentioned. Where a country has hydroelectric capacity and less than full reservoirs, solar energy can be effectively stored by simply shutting off the turbines at the hydroelectric plant and turning them on when the energy available on the grid falls below spinning reserve requirements. Switzerland gets most of its electricity from nuclear and hydroelectricity, although the latter is clearly threatened by the disappearance of glaciers. In 2007, Switzerland produced a near record amount of nuclear power, about 26.34 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, and about 34.25 billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric.
With conventional thermal power - which consists wholly of the use of dangerous fossil fuels - Switzerland produced only 1.10 billion kwh of electricity (2006) - meaning that dangerous fossil fuels are a trivial source of electricity in Switzerland.
Even so, suppose Switzerland were to outlaw the use of dangerous fossil fuels for electricity generation - which clearly it could do easily - and suppose too that Switzerland decided to make up all of the lost power with solar electricity?
We have already seen that solar PV panels produce on average, 819 kwh of electricity per "peak" kw of power. It follows from the above figures that 25.8 million kilograms, 25,800 metric tons of metallic grade silicon would be required to displace dangerous fossil fuels used for electrical generation in a small country where such use is already trivial in percentage terms.
Quota the authors of the paper:
The analysis of the environmental impacts with different LCIA methods shows that it is quite important to include process-specific emissions of the production chain into account. It is necessary to evaluate all types of environmental impacts with different (midpoint and endpoint) LCIA methodologies, if photovoltaic power plants are to be compared with other energy systems.
Indeed.
(It would not be fair to compare California using these figures, since the capacity utilization for solar is higher in California, roughly 22% as opposed to 10% in Switzerland, and because California does not really have as much hydroelectricity in percentage terms as Switzerland. Probably the closest comparator to Switzerland would be Germany, but that's another story.)
Clearly, nevertheless, it is not true, as is generally supposed without challenge, that solar power is risk free. It is not. In fact, the profile of solar waste is very much like the profile of electronics waste, which is a huge and intractable international crisis. If one does the math, one can show, I think that solar is superior to dangerous natural gas, but that's not saying much.
One might ask, then, why the waste profile of solar PV electricity has escaped attention thus far. The real reason is not that such risk does not exist but rather than solar energy has been a trivial player in the fight against climate change. Its impact is missed precisely because it has failed miserably at doing anything meaningful in this fight.
Mostly what solar electricity does on this planet is to consume lots of electricity to power servers that power websites and bloggers saying how wonderful solar power is.
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