This week i was lucky enough to notice that WTVS, my local PBS station had scheduled a Nova, local programming and a Scientific Amerian Frontiers episode, all focused on solar energy.  There is a website on the PBS site devoted to: Nova: “Saved by the Sun”.  This special walks you thru the solar industry from it’s start in the oil crisis of the 1970’s thru today where it’s being debated as to whether it is a partial or complete solution to our global warming problems.  You see the US’s first and only powerplant using solar thermal heat (located in Kramer Junction, CA) to run electric turbines and the latest in solar technology today.

A number of experts try to rain on my solar parade by claiming that solar is a partial solution, a solution that only works during “sunny days” or a “solution for rich people”.  Most of this rhetoric is a bunch of….. compost. Sure the sun doesn’t shine at night, so we use the solar electricity during the daylight to make hydrogen gas to fuel traditional style generators at night.  Water can be pump up hill into reseviors using solar electricity and run back downhill to create hydroelectric power during dark parts of the day.  My local station went onto to discuss expansion with United Solar Ovonics, part of ECD the home of Detroit’s favorite Sun: Stan Ovshinsky, with it’s CEO.  The plan is to quintuple, production of their flexible solar electric modules to 300 megawatts by 2009.  This is good news for solar power and good news for the world.

The final program of the evening, featured Alan Alda spending time with Stan Ovshinsky and learning about Ovonics panels and it’s Solid Hydrogen storage system.  It seems that while United Solar’s panels are not the most effective cells in high sunlight conditions, they do produce electricity from the sun, even in rain and cloudy weather.  Best of all, they’re smaller, thinner, lighter and more flexible than stand panels and as Ovshinsky demoed, they can produce electricity with a dozen holes drilled through a 2 sq ft panel of the material.  With Germany being the leading solar market in the world, it’s certainly possible that places like metro Detroit, with ECD inc. leading the way, can lead solar adoption in the US.  Solar Cells that work in gray days, what a perfect solution from a company that’s headquartered in the midwest.

Kyocera announced a plan to double their Solar Panel production by 2011.  The $250 Million investment will increase annual capacity from 240 megawatts of panels annually to 500 million megawatts in the next three years.  Eventhough the plant ran at 75% of capacity due to a shortage of of silicon wafers, used to manufature photovoltaices and as the bases for chips.  This shortage is expect to end in 2008.

The increase in production in the next couple of years has been widely anticipated for a couple of years as a result of expansion by silcon wafer suppliers to meet rapidly increasing demand. While it’s clear that the sales of panels will increase, it’ unclear if the increased supply will help reduce the street price. It’s my opinion, that demand will outstrip capacity until the majority of buildings worldwide are outfitted with panels.  The question isn’t whether to use solar panels, the only question is when is energy payback rate is high enough

If you follow the news of the world, whether it be politics, health, science, or business, you’ve likely heard of the dwindling supply of safe, clean drinking water.  Throughout the world, growing populations and contamination of watersheds, the air and general stupidity, by the human race, puts millions of people, possibly billions, in jeopardy of losing access to potable water.  And if you’ve gotten to know anything about me, you know i have a solution and you know it’s the SUN!

Solar stills, that is a “water distillation system” that uses the heat and light(arguably the UV light helps kill biohazards) from the sun to evaporate water from sea water or other non-potable sources and condense the pure H₂O into liquid that is collected to drink. The concept of a solar still is well known as a survival tool.  A most basic solar still can be built with a large (1 sq meter ) piece of black plastic, and a can/cup to collect the water.  Dig a hole in a sunny area, 18-36″ deep and place the cup at bottom center of the hole and cover the hole with the black plastic.  With a small stone weighting the plastic down into a cone shape, with the point of the cone directly over the water collector (the can or cup).  Secure the outside edge around the outside of the whole with rocks or wood.  During the day, the heat of the sun will evaporate water out of the ground, it will condense on the inside of the black plastic and drip inside the cup.  A square meter(about a sqare yard) of area can generate a litre of water a day.

Emeril might say “Let’s kick that up a few notches” and that would be a permanent, large scale solar still. Think of a short, glass, greenhouse covering a concrete storm drain with gutters on the side.  So build a concrete “drainage canal”, in the shape of a V, so that we maximize the surface area exposed to the sun, we make this canal 8 feet wide, with 1 foot gutters on each side, cover the today 10 foot width, with a glass, vapor capturing roof.  Then run this canal a few miles thru a desert/hot area and run seawater thru the center canal.  The sun heats the water, the water evaporates, the water vapor, condenses on the glass sealing which peaks in the middle, causing the condensed water to drop to run down the glass sealing to the edges, with then lead to the gutters.  The water captured in the gutters is salt free. 

here is a little drawing:

So, how does solar distilation cut greenhouse gas?  Well, the main cost of producing and distributing drinking water is energy.  It may take as much as 7% of world energy to produce and deliver fresh water to the world.  It takes from 5kWh to 25kWh to desalinate 1000 litre of water.  In theory a system like this could be driven by gravity and use no energy, except that needed to build the facilities.  Anywhere there is unusable desert or semi desert land, there is both space for solar distillation and likely a need for the resulting fresh water.