Greg Bove steps into his pickup truck and drives down a sandy path to where the future of Florida's renewable energy plans begin: Acres of open land filled with solar panels that will soon power thousands of homes and business.

For nearly a year, construction workers and engineers in this sleepy Florida town of citrus trees and cattle farms have been building the nation's largest solar panel energy plant. Testing will soon be complete, and the facility will begin directly converting sunlight into energy, giving Florida a momentary spot in the solar energy limelight.

The Desoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center will power a small fraction of Florida Power & Light's 4-million plus customer base; nevertheless, at 25 megawatts, it will generate nearly twice as much energy as the second-largest photovoltaic facility in the U.S.

The White House said President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit the facility Tuesday, when it officially goes online and begins producing power for the electric grid.

As demand grows and more states create mandates requiring a certain percentage of their energy come from renewable sources, the size of the plants is increasing. The southwest Florida facility will soon be eclipsed by larger projects announced in Nevada and California.

"We took a chance at it and it worked out," said Bove, construction manager at the project, set on about 180 acres of land 80 miles southeast of Tampa. "There's a lot of backyard projects, there's a lot of rooftop projects, post offices and stores. Really this is one of the first times where we've taken a technology and upsized it."

Despite its nickname, the Sunshine State hasn't been at the forefront of solar power. Less than 4 percent of Florida's energy has come from renewable sources in recent years. And unlike California and many other states, Florida lawmakers haven't agreed to setting clean energy quotas for electric companies to reach in the years ahead.

California, New Jersey and Colorado have led the country in installing photovoltaic systems; now Florida is set to jump closer to the top with the nation's largest plant yet.

The Desoto facility and two other solar projects Florida Power & Light is spearheading will generate 110 megawatts of power, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than 3.5 million tons. Combined, that's the equivalent of taking 25,000 cars off the road each year, according to figures cited by the company.

The investment isn't cheap: The Desoto project cost $150 million to build and the power it supplies to some 3,000 homes and businesses will represent just a sliver of the 4 million-plus accounts served by the state's largest electric utility.

But there are some economic benefits: It created 400 jobs for draftsmen, carpenters and others whose work dried up as the southwest Florida housing boom came to a closure and the recession set in. Once running, it will require few full-time employees.

Mike Taylor, director of research and education at the nonprofit Solar Electric Power Association in Washington, said the project puts Florida "on the map."

"It's currently the largest," Taylor said of the Desoto photovoltaic plant. "But it certainly won't be the last."

There are two means of producing electricity from the sun: photovoltaic cells that directly convert sunlight; and thermal power, which uses mirrors to heat fluid and produce steam to run a turbine power generator.

Taylor said a one- or two-megawatt project was considered large not long ago. The size has slowly increased each year.

Overall, the United States still trails other nations in building photovoltaic plants.

Spain and Germany have made larger per capita commitments to solar power because of aggressive government policies, said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. And China has announced plans to pay up to 50 percent of the price of solar power systems of more than 500 megawatts.

"If we don't get our market right and send the right market signals and really support growing this technology, we will be buying solar panels from other countries," Smith said.

In April, Arizona-based manufacturer First Solar Inc. announced plans to build a 48-megawatt plant in Nevada, producing power for about 30,000 homes. Even that pales compared to recently announced plans for a 2 gigawatt facility in China. First Solar has initial approval to build it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091023/ap_on_bi_ge/us_solar_power_plant

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That's huge. Great to see more green technology on the rise.

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Actually, I see this as industrial age thinking applied to the modern world...the concept of placing a whole bunch of solar panels in a single place as a "energy plant" is idiotic.

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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw

Where exactly are they gonna put them then? Force citizens to put them on their houses? No....

25MW represents about 0.5% of what produces a standard 5GW nuclear plant.

-It only works during the day when there are no clouds.
-You need to build coal plants of equivalent capacity to cover for when the solar plant doesnt produce.
-Photovoltaic cells are produced with fossil ressources and barely reimburse the energy used for their production at the end of their 20 years life !
-So when you use photovoltaic power you in fact mostly consume fossil energy.
-In some places it is advantageous to use photovoltaic only because it is massively subsidized.(50cents for producing photovoltaic kW, 3cents for nuke kW)

Bottom line, you need 200 of such solar plants (+backup coal plants) to produce as much as a nuke plant.
But ecologist cults arent bothered by numbers or scientific facts...

-Photovoltaic cells are produced with fossil ressources and barely reimburse the energy used for their production at the end of their 20 years life !
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I highly doubt that. Care to provide a source?



When I was young I used to pray for a bike, then I realized that God doesn't work that way, so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness.

Sorry, I dont have sources for that claim on hand immediatly. I'm going to search for these papers later.
Meanwhile, I can let you meditate on some commun knowledge:

-PV cells are mostly built with hightly purified silicium and very rare exotic materials through very energetic processes and complex chemistry. The issue of recycling PV cells is quite complexe.

-The installation of PV cells is very labor intensive relativly to their small output and linking them to the grid is by no mean a slam dunk because of the variability of the solar ressource (latitude/day/night/season/clouds).

-The cost of building future "smart electrical grids" in order to use wind and solar power (account for their variability) is stagering. From memory: for the US alone it is around $400 Billions.

- with the latest solar cells with an efficiency ratio of 15% (meaning it can recuperate 15% of the available solar radiation) at the average latitude of european countries, you need between 1.6 and 4.7 years to produce as much energy as has been nescessary for their creation.
Beware, this is an abstract number which is not accounting for any other energetic cost otherwise induced by that technology: like a "smart-grid", additionnal non-renewable plants, depolution, dismantlement, etc.

-PV cells have a maximum lifetime of 30 years and solar radiation deteriorates their efficiency by 1.5% per year.

- for every photovoltaic kW installed you need to build additionnal steady energy plants (coal, nuke, dam) able to deliver electricity when the PV cell isnt producing (75% of the time on average). ---> meaning that when you "use" PV energy, you are in fact using coal, gaz or uranium 75% of the time.


Alright, I'm talking here about photovoltaic technology and not about solar-thermal energy. The later being quite interresting in a number of cases and may also be able to "store" electricity as heat and thus avoid incredibly complex smart-grids.

Some people go as far as to suggest that photovoltaic cells are NOT a source of energy but a "vector" (as hydrogen or electrical cells): they give back the energy they have been charged with although with a lot of losses along the way.

Alright, I found it.
It isnt the original and rather old french study when solar pannels only had 11/12% efficiency and functionning at european latitudes, but a more recent Australian study with 15% efficient pannels in sunny Oz.

http://www.peakoil.org.au/news/energy_profit.htm

It demonstrates mathematically that solar pannels can't break even (energetically speaking) before 17 years (in Oz!), in spite of the fact they are publicized to produce over their 25 years lifetime 3 times as much energy as was needed for their construction.
The author uses the highly optimistic claims of the PV manufacturer and nonetheless demonstrates the ineptie of photovoltaic economy.

It doesnt take into account all the other induced costs I mentionned in my earlier post... Just the energetic cost of the production!

What else?
Just compensating for the 3% increase of energy consumption in Australia would require to invest 26% of their electrical capacity in the production of Photovoltaic pannels alone.


Let's resume:

1- Economically it seems highly counter-intuitive that a device that produces 3 times as much energy as was needed for its creation is unsustainable. However, the 2 extra-energy units must be reinvested in the production of other pannels (unless you decide to use coal) and the energy-break-even point wont be reached before the 17th years. Mathematically it means that you need 17 years before you are allowed to double your solar pannels production and remain carbon/nuke-neutral: This is an extremly low growth-rate when you start at zero.
In fact, it is sustainable if you dont take into account the time it takes to establish a "Solar Economy": at the End Of The Times is could appear profitable but it would take at least 50 years just to break even ... and just for the 3% increase in consumption. For the remaining 97%, I would not be surprised if it took the entire World's fossil fuel reserves that have ever existed just so we can build the Photovoltaic cells needed to be 100% solar.

2- Physically, one can understand the problem of solar power by its very low energy density. You need to build extremly large devices for solar power when compared to what is needed for chemical power, let alone nuclear. The ratio between Solar and nuclear hardware for the same amount of energy is probably around a thousand.

Hope it answers your doubts Eric

Thank you for your effort!

I do agree with you that solar panels are not the way to go. Solar energy is useful for some things, like putting them in small calculators or to power satellites but it's far from ideal for cities. The same is true for wind turbines. Unfortunately or fortunately we are now in a "green period" where the media pushes absurd things like this and politicians jump on the wagon to make themselves popular.



When I was young I used to pray for a bike, then I realized that God doesn't work that way, so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness.

There are plans for a very thin, almost paper like, very cheap solar panel, with a very low efficiency (less than 10%).

But the idea is to cover everything with it: roofs, bridges, public transport, factories, buildings, under the idea that such large quantity of available space would be competitive in economical terms.

And is as practical as to paint every surface white in order to decrease global warming

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A German Soldier doesnt die, he goes to hell and regroups !

Fusion power is the future, not this photosynthetis crap lol.




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"Made from 100% Quality Korean Genes"

And is as practical as to paint every surface white in order to decrease global warming
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Don't laugh. Not so long ago I saw on Discover or NG a group of scientists putting some special coating over ice to prevent it from melting. It took 10 hours to cover an area the size of 2 football fields. Of course, a lot of fuel was needed to bring the team where they needed to be (the north pole).



When I was young I used to pray for a bike, then I realized that God doesn't work that way, so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness.

Remember it's in Florida where it's always sunny haha. In other places they have wind farms. We already have a nuke plant down here. A coal plant would require coal to be shipped down to florida. I'd like to see something that harnesses wave power to generate electricity. We have plenty of water to use. We could top those with solar panels to get solar and wave power :D

"Where exactly are they gonna put them then? Force citizens to put them on their houses? No...."

So your saying that if they develop a solar panel that works as well as your roof and pays for itself inside of its lifetime...you won't buy it? What about 10 years? 7 years? Or is it a matter of principle, "damn it, unless it is belching thick black noxious smoke and makes my monthly expenses higher, I don't want it generating my power!"

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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw

So, Who's savin the planet now ?!!!

Grammes of carbon per kWh of electricity by source

Recently there was an assertion that nuclear energy does not help in the battle against global warming as it generates more CO2 during mining and fuel fabrication that it saves during power generation.

The most authoritative study we can find is provided by the British Government's Energy Technology Support Unit which shows that nuclear is the cleanest per unit of electricity produced over its life cycle, taking into account mining, processing and transport. The figures which have been confirmed by the OECD are:


Generation Type........................g/kWh

Nuclear................................4
wind...................................8
Large.scale.hydro......................8
Small.scale.hydro......................9
Energy.crops..........................17
Geothermal............................79
Solar................................133
Gas..................................430
Diesel...............................772
Oil..................................828
Coal.................................955





See alsohttp://bravenewclimate.com/

It's a crazy world we live in ain't it? Counting on solar and wind to power the world is like tying a lone Chihuahua to your sled and expecting it to take you across Alaska.

F.uck an eye for an eye. You take my eye, and I will kill you, and all those you care about. That is our policy.

Agree....agree....agree.

The French have gotten it completely right and the U.S. has it completely backwards.

 

The problem in the U.S. is the environmental lobby who believes that every nuke plant is a 3 Mile Island in waiting and they've managed to wrangle enough lobbying effort in D.C. to turn mod/leftist pols against them.  Instead, we're trying to apply the insane wind and solar models for power generation that are terribly inefficient and lacking. 

It's a joke here in the U.S....it really is. 

"The problem in the U.S. is the environmental lobby..."

Don't forget to add the coal and oil lobbyists.

I swear I am going to create a gambling pool on various bills passing through the US government, since I'm fairly sure I can develop accurate predictions on the outcome (based on the amount of money spent by lobbyists on both sides) and then skew the odds to favour the "house" (i.e. me!)...but alas I digress.

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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw