THIN FILM SOLAR PANELS

Archive for June, 2011

I can hear the nuclear power lovers coming my way now. They’ll be in the comments soon after I publish this. But publish it I think I should.

We hear all the time, “we need nuclear because it provides reliable, baseload power.” We saw last week how this wasn’t the case in Fukushima, even before the disasters that started in March (which are ongoing). Now, it’s also clearly not the case in Nebraska, where two nuclear power plants have been threatened by extreme flooding, one (at Fort Calhoun) is currently shutdown (was shutdown beforehand for refueling and must remain shut down until flood waters recede, which could mean until late Fall) and the other (in Cooper, Nebraska) may be shut down soon because of rising flood waters.

Useful comments from readers: “You might point out that solar thermal provides baseload capabilities…” and “we don’t need baseload.  We need the ability to provide power when it’s needed.  ‘Baseload’ is old skool thinking. A mix of renewables along with storage and dispatchable would work just fine.  That said, geothermal, biomass and run of the river hydro are the sorts of power the old folks call ‘baseload’.”

This is a video from June 17 on the Nebraska flooding and lack of nuclear reliability:

Now, as anyone who knows anything about climate science can tell you, flooding is expected to increase in the years to come (and we are already seeing it increase). With more and more flooding and extreme weather, nuclear power plants are not nearly as stable or reliable as they are claimed to be. Wind turbines and rooftop solar panels, on the other hand, are unaffected by this flooding from what I gather.

Some useful US Global Change Research Program excerpts from Peter Sinclair over on Climate Denial Crock of the Week:

US Global Change Research Program – Great Plains:

Projected changes in long-term climate and more frequent extreme events such as heat waves, droughts, and heavy rainfall will affect many aspects of life in the Great Plains. These include the region’s already threatened water resources, essential agricultural and ranching activities, unique natural and protected areas, and the health and prosperity of its inhabitants.

US Global Change Research Program – Midwest:

Heavy downpours are now twice as frequent as they were a century ago. Both summer and winter precipitation have been above average for the last three decades, the wettest period in a century. The Midwest has experienced two record-breaking floods in the past 15 years.

Another useful reader comment along these same lines:

Too much nuclear has been built on faulty assumptions.  In Japan it was assumed that a tsunami would never reach their reactors (even though at least one had gotten that high in the past. In France and the US  a lot of nuclear was built with the assumption that massive heat waves wouldn’t hit and cooling water would be available. “On July 8, 2010, as the temperature in downtown Decatur, Alabama climbed to a sweltering 98°F, operators at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant a few miles outside of town realized they had only one option to avoid violating their environmental permit: turn down the reactors. For days, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which owns the nuclear plant, had kept a watchful eye on the rising mercury, knowing that more heat outside could spell trouble inside the facility. When the Tennessee River, whose adjacent waters are used to cool the reactors, finally hit 90°F and forced Browns Ferry to run at only half of their regular power output, the TVA hoped the hot spell would last just a few days. Eight weeks of unrelenting heat later, the plant was still running at half its capacity” http://www.climatecentral.org/news/in-tennessee-heat-waves-frustrate-nuclear-power/ “France is expecting to have an epic heat wave this summer, which, due to a combination of political and environmental factors, will have some serious repercussions for the political scene in Paris. Spring 2011 has been exceptionally hot in France. In fact, has been the hottest in 100 years. Furthermore, it has been the driest spring in the last 50 years and therefore this summer is expected to be one of the hottest on record and that includes the 2005 and 2003 heat waves which were quite serious for France. In 2003 heat wave in France was exceptionally severe, with the French minister of health issuing a report that said that about 15,000 people may have died as result of increased temperatures…. particularly important for France during a drought is because 24 of its 58 nuclear reactors do not have cooling towers and purely depend on the flow of river water to cool the reactor cores. What this means is that if the level of water in rivers drops, it means that some of the reactors may have to be shut down especially those on the Rhone River in southwest France, where temperatures are expected to be particularly high due to its geographical location.”

Any more input on this topic?

More Nuclear Stories on CleanTechnica:

1. My Thoughts on Nuclear
2. Wind Power Beats Nuclear Power in Texas
3. Wind Power in Europe MORE Reliable than Nuclear Power in Japan
4. Renewable Energy Passed Up Nuclear in 2010
5. Some Good News From Japan

New types of storage technology will be needed in order to shift cloud storage from a backup service to a primary function, according to a panel made up of storage entrepreneurs and execs at Structure 2011 in San Francisco on Thursday. New storage technologies include more widespread use of solid state drives, new storage architectures in data centers and new storage pricing models that take performance into account.

The problem is that while cloud-based storage is commonly being used to back-up companies’ data, the cloud is not being used widely yet as the primary place to store all of a company’s data. That’s because of various concerns by companies that the cloud can’t meet the performance, security and cost needs for primary storage.

But entrepreneurs like Dave Wright, CEO of startup SolidFire, say that solid state drives, which use Flash and have no moving parts, in contrast to traditional hard drives that use spinning discs, could help cloud-based storage become more primetime. SSDs can provide far better performance with a smaller footprint, and can easily scale up, said Wright, whose company has built an SSD-based storage product.

However, one of the barriers to SSDs has been a higher cost — that’s largely why more companies don’t buy them. But Wright and Val Bercovici, Senior Director for NetApp, said that in specific cases SSDs can help lower costs. Bercovici said “When you insall SSDs correctly, they can be less expensive. For performance-centric applications you will save money. It’s almost a no-brainer to deploy it for the right applications.”

There’s also the benefit that SSDs are more energy efficient. The growing energy consumption of the cloud is becoming an increasingly important problem for both web companies’ energy bills, but also for rising carbon emissions. Bercovici said that he doesn’t think the problem of how to deal with the rising energy consumption of the cloud has been solved yet. Dheeraj Pandey, CEO of Nutanix, which builds a data center in a box, thinks that data centers need to shrink dramatically to help deal with the power problem, but also to help move primary storage into the cloud.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• In Q3, Big Data Meant Big Dollars
• A field guide to cloud computing: current trends, future opportunities
• The Case for Increased M&A in 2011: Actions and Outlooks

New types of storage technology will be needed in order to shift cloud storage from a backup service to a primary function, according to a panel made up of storage entrepreneurs and execs at Structure 2011 in San Francisco on Thursday. New storage technologies include more widespread use of solid state drives, new storage architectures in data centers and new storage pricing models that take performance into account.

The problem is that while cloud-based storage is commonly being used to back-up companies’ data, the cloud is not being used widely yet as the primary place to store all of a company’s data. That’s because of various concerns by companies that the cloud can’t meet the performance, security and cost needs for primary storage.

But entrepreneurs like Dave Wright, CEO of startup SolidFire, say that solid state drives, which use Flash and have no moving parts, in contrast to traditional hard drives that use spinning discs, could help cloud-based storage become more primetime. SSDs can provide far better performance with a smaller footprint, and can easily scale up, said Wright, whose company has built an SSD-based storage product.

However, one of the barriers to SSDs has been a higher cost — that’s largely why more companies don’t buy them. But Wright and Val Bercovici, Senior Director for NetApp, said that in specific cases SSDs can help lower costs. Bercovici said “When you insall SSDs correctly, they can be less expensive. For performance-centric applications you will save money. It’s almost a no-brainer to deploy it for the right applications.”

There’s also the benefit that SSDs are more energy efficient. The growing energy consumption of the cloud is becoming an increasingly important problem for both web companies’ energy bills, but also for rising carbon emissions. Bercovici said that he doesn’t think the problem of how to deal with the rising energy consumption of the cloud has been solved yet. Dheeraj Pandey, CEO of Nutanix, which builds a data center in a box, thinks that data centers need to shrink dramatically to help deal with the power problem, but also to help move primary storage into the cloud.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• In Q3, Big Data Meant Big Dollars
• A field guide to cloud computing: current trends, future opportunities
• The Case for Increased M&A in 2011: Actions and Outlooks

Power conversion startup Transphorm has added yet another high-profile investor to its list of backers: George Soros’ investment fund Quantum Strategic Partners. On Thursday Transphorm announced that it has raised another $25 million from Quantum Strategic Partners, as well as existing investors Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Lux Capital and Foundation Capital. Transphorm has now raised $63 million.

Four-year-old Transphorm makes energy-efficient power conversion devices out of the semiconductor material gallium nitride that can eliminate up to 90 percent of electric conversion losses. The devices are meant to compete with less-energy-efficient silicon-based power conversion gear. Using silicon for converting power for electronics, HVAC systems and computing has reached its limit, according to the CEO of startup Transphorm, Umesh Mishra.

In March Transphorm launched its first product: power diodes made of gallium nitride that can be embedded in power converters. Power diodes are a necessary component of all electronics and are made of a semiconductor material — in most cases silicon — that conducts electrons in one direction.

Transphorm plans to make various devices that its manufacturing customers can turn into converters, power supplies, PV, motor drives and hybrid car components. In particular, Transphorm’s power diodes could be a good fit for power supply equipment makers that sell their wares to data centers.

Transphorm didn’t invent gallium nitride as a semiconductor; other companies have been tinkering with the material for years. But most companies that use gallium nitride are working on low-voltage conversion, while Transphorm is looking to crack high-voltage conversion. In terms of how much more the technology will cost compared to the standard on the market today, Mishra has said that “no new technology is cheap.”

Check out our video interview with Transphorm, one of our 10 Big Ideas winners at Green:Net 2011:

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• A field guide to cloud computing: current trends, future opportunities
• The rise of tablets in the enterprise
• The Case for Increased M&A in 2011: Actions and Outlooks

GE has unveiled the second group of winners of its smart grid challenge, this time focused on energy use in the home. GE says along with its VC partners, it’s investing another $63 million — of its $200 million fund — into 10 companies and giving $100,000 awards to 5 more. Along with the funds, GE announced a partnership to commercialize some of the technologies with Best Buy, and also announced plans to launch another smart grid challenge in China later this year.

GE launched its $200 million smart grid challenge a year ago, in conjunction with a group of venture capitalists, including Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins, RockPort Capital and the Carbon Trust. GE put up $100 million and the VCs collectively put up another $100 million, and the idea was to use the funds and the allure of partnerships with GE to help discover innovation around the smart grid, from networking technologies to new home energy management tools.

The funds announced on Thursday are the second stage of the smart grid challenge focused on home energy innovation, and the challenge previously unveiled another group of a dozen or so winners back in November. GE says with this additional $63 million the fund has allocated, or has planned to give, $134 million of the $200 million fund. In total, GE says the challenge to date has created 22 commercial partnerships, one acquisition (Irish powerline monitoring company FMC-Tech), and 5,000 submissions from 74,000 innovators.

OK, so enough of the background, and onto the winners. The 10 companies that will split $63 million are:

• Ember. Makes Zigbee chips and networking tech. Zigbee is a wireless standard used in smart meters and home energy gear.
• GMZ Energy. Develops thermoelectric material for vehicles and solar systems and services, such as applications for cooling and capturing waste heat. Kleiner Perkins had already backed this company, and GE’s investment was made alongside Kleiner Perkin’s.
• Hara. One of the more well-known carbon and energy software players. Another investment alongside Kleiner.
• Nuventix. Has developed a way to cool down LEDs without using a larger fixture size.
• On-Ramp Wireless. A smart grid wireless networking player.
• Project Frog. A building efficiency and design company. This is an investment with RockPort Capital.
• SunRun. A startup that has created a business model around home solar roofs, where it owns and maintains residential solar panels and offer solar contracts to homeowners where they can pay monthly fees over many years, with little or no upfront fee. GE’s investment in SunRun was made with Foundation Capital.
• Viridity Energy. Makes software that dynamically manages power loads on the grid in terms of energy pricing, renewable energy generation and energy storage (one of our Green:Net 2011 Big Ideas winners).
• VPhase. A U.K.-based home energy device and service maker.
• WiTricity. A wireless charging tech maker that is targeting gadgets, cell phones and electric cars.

And the 5 “Innovation winners” that received $100,000 each:

• E.quinox. A U.K.-based project to bring off grid clean power to developing countries.
• PlotWatt. First unveiled at our Green:Net 2011 event, PlotWatt has created smart meter software that deliveries energy-saving recommendations.
• Pythagoras Solar. Created solar window technology.
• Suntulit. A smarter air conditioning system that can reduce energy consumption from HVAC.
• Xergy. An efficient compressor for refrigerators and air conditioning systems.

Beyond these 15 winners, GE announced a partnership with Best Buy, which will work on commercializing the VPhase home energy device and service (check it out on their website), and the Suntulit air conditioning control system. GE has already been working with Best Buy to get its own home energy devices into Best Buy stores in 2012.

GE has a strong interest in the home energy market. At CES in January, GE showed off its new Home Energy Management business, including its Nucleus home energy device, as well as its Brillion line of smart appliances and smart thermostats. All these are meant to connect within the home to GE’s smart meters, then as a gateway to the smart grid.

Image is of GE’s own home energy device the Nucleus.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Smart Grid Apps: Six Trends That Will Shape Grid Evolution
• Infrastructure Q1: IaaS Comes Down to Earth; Big Data Takes Flight
• Cleantech Was a Market Leader in Q4