Sunshine State Politician Says US Can’t Compete with China on Solar; Obama: “I’m Not Going to Surrender to Other Countries”

October 7th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

Wow, talk about patriotism. Despite the fact that Ernst & Young identified the U.S as the most attractive nation in the world for solar energy investment this year (by far), and we have seen tremendous growth in solar energy this year, the GOP seems to think we’ve lost to China on possibly the most important global economic market this century, and that we should just give up. Shocking! Here’s more from Jeremy Bloom on sister site Red, Green, and Blue:

Luckily, a rather important figure in the U.S., the president of the United States, doesn’t agree with the GOP at all.

Here’s Obama on that (video and then text):

I heard there was a Republican member of Congress who is engaging in oversight on this. And despite the fact that all of them in the past have been supportive of this loan guarantee program, he concluded, “You know what? We can’t compete against China when it comes to solar energy.”

Well, you know what? I don’t buy that. I’m not going to surrender to other countries the technological leads that can end up determining whether or not we are building a strong middle class in this country. So we’re going to have to keep on pushing hard to make sure the manufacturing is located here, new businesses are located here and new technologies are developed here. And there are going to be times when it doesn’t work out, but I’m not going to cave to the competition when they are heavily subsidizing all these industries.

Front Page Image via Justin Sloan

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Tags: china solar energy, Obama, obama solar, obama solar energy, obama solar power, quickies, solar china, US Solar Energy

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

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Tom Garven [Tom G.]

As someone who has worked in the power generation public utility sector for over 20 years, I can’t wait until solar PV becomes 30% or more efficient. When solar PV reaches that efficiency level in a mass production setting, that will probably be the straw that finally breaks the back of coal burning power plants.

We will be able to use hydro, geothermal, nuclear and some natural gas combined cycle plants to meet base load requirements. Solar will come on line at sunrise and provide most of the peaking power we will need and then shut itself off after dark.

Ah yes; how I love to dream – but stranger things have happened. Hundreds of megawatts of solar PV are now being installed by various utilities. Those utilities can very clearly see how well solar fits into their energy mix. It doesn’t make any noise, takes almost no one to operate it, don’t have to fight the unions, doesn’t produce environmental junk or waste needing to be stored for 100,000 years or even need safety systems to shut it down in case of a hurricane or flood. It does that all by itself at sundown.

Things are getting better from this old mans perspective. But it is moving sssssooooo darn slow.
- Anonymous
  
  Thanks for the comment. Love getting insiders views on these things
  - Tom_Garven
    
    Many people forget that regular power plants like coal and nuclear are generally only about 30-35% efficient. For example, a typical nuclear plant Boiling Water [BWR] or Pressurized Water Reactor [PWR] uses about 3000 megawatts of reactor heat to supply 1000 megawatts of electrical energy. The rest is just wasted heat lost in the condensers, pumps and piping systems. A combined cycle natural gas plant is a little better since it can approach 40-45% efficiency but then again that is just another way to burn up carbon isn’t it and we all know where that is leading us.
    
    So when solar becomes 30-40% efficient – it will most likely mean the end of coal power is near. Public utilities in California [CA} have or are in the process of eliminating all coal fired power plants in Southern California. To my knowledge there are NONE operating from San Francisco South to the Mexican border. So that means when you plug in your electric car in that part of the U.S. you are truly being green since you are most likely charging your vehicle with some form of renewable energy or nuclear power.
    
    A lot of people fail to understand that our fleet of 100+ nuclear plants are run at 100% power 24/7/365 for about 18-24 months before they are shut down for refueling. Sometimes they will be shutdown to fix something but as soon as they can, utilities will bring them back on line.
    
    So if you happen to live in California you are most likely on some form of tiered pricing which means during the day electricity can cost from $.12-.35/kW. I think you can see why so many people are installing solar in CA.
    - Anonymous
      
      “Many people forget that regular power plants like coal and nuclear are generally only about 30-35% efficient. For example, a typical nuclear plant Boiling Water [BWR] or Pressurized Water Reactor [PWR] uses about 3000 megawatts of reactor heat to supply 1000 megawatts of electrical energy. The rest is just wasted heat lost in the condensers, pumps and piping systems.”
      Tom, this is actually a shock to me. I totally understand the theory here (and think externalities and risk make nukes & coal impractical), but a for ton of people that’s not enough. I WOULD LOVE any links or more info you have on the above so that I can share that with all the people who says nuclear is over 90% efficient.
      - Tom Garven
        
        At the below website address you can get a good first look at power plant efficiencies or by searching Wikipedia. About 1/2 the way down the page [just after the first pictures of a typical plant] you will find some data on efficiencies and it doesn’t make much difference if it is a nuclear plant, coal plant or a gas turbine running off of natural gas. If you need more accurate data, you might have to take out those old dusty math book you have been saving all these years and the design manuals for the specific plant you are interesting in LOL.
        
        http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf32.html
        
        I usually caution people to not get too wrapped up in terminology. For example, you can say that the average ‘operational reliability’ of a ‘typical’ nuclear power plant is over 90% and that is certainly true, or at least it was the last time I looked. You could also say that the plant is over 90% ‘efficient’ because 90% of the time it is OPERATING which is sort of bending the truth in my opinion but it is done quite frequently.
        
        For people who work in the industry however, efficiency usually means how efficiently something is done. Energy in VS energy out. We might ask what is the ‘thermal efficiency’ of the plant? What we are asking is: “how well does your plant convert the HEAT it produces into ELECTRICITY. If we wanted to find out how ‘reliable’ a plant might be, we might ask how many hours has the plant operated since your the last shutdown and how many ‘unplanned’ shutdowns have happened in the last 5 years? We almost never use terms like 90% efficient because:
        
        The term “efficiency” can mean many different things to many people. Much like the difference between “energy conservations” and “energy efficiency”. They sound alike but have entirely different meanings. That is why when I say solar PV doesn’t have to get much better to be as ‘efficient’ as nuclear or coal – what I am saying is that the energy conversion of the HEAT into electricity in a reactor or coal boiler is about the same as the conversion rate of PROTONS to electricity in a solar panel.
        
        Anyway, there are all kinds of reasons WHY more public utilities are going to solar. But if you think about it from a utilities perspective – solar is an almost perfect source of energy. It starts up all by itself in the morning when the sun comes up and people go to work and then shuts itself off when most of those people leave work. How cool is that? It doesn’t even require some human to do anything except maybe match the power output of the solar field to the amount of electricity needed in the grid. While its not YET quite as efficient as a coal, nuclear or natural gas plant; it doesn’t burn anything either. And the last time I looked up at the daytime sky I noticed we were receiving another DELIVERY of FREE FUEL complements of our sun.
        
        Sorry this posting is so long.
      - Anonymous
        
        Thanks!
        
        Love it. Thanks for going into depth here
      - Tom Garven
        
        AShahan3:
        
        Just posed a response to your question but it went to moderation because a link was included.
        
        Tom G.
      - Anonymous
        
        yeah, got it. thanks
Anonymous

Sorry, to be quite honest, I’m not sure how that obvious mistake was made.
On the subsidies: yes, IF we take away ff subsidies, we don’t need renewable energy subsidies — but tell me when that’s going to actually happen.
Tom G.

Oh my goodness – this is so sad. In the first place Mr. Congressman the solar industry is doing just fine. Over 50 United States manufacturers and over 100,000 people work in just the manufacturing sector alone and probably many more thousands work installing the panels, selling, advertizing it, creating the web sites for it, and providing million of dollars for local cities and counties in the form of permitting or impact fees.

I don’t care if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent, we can no longer afford to send over $500 BILLION of our American dollars out of our country every year for oil regardless of where it comes from.

If you want to talk about something important lets talk about unemployment. If we paid every unemployed person $20/hr. we could hire 12 million workers for that $500 billion we are spending on oil – which by the way – happens to be about the same number of unemployed people in our country – now that’s something important.

Washington academics and politicians have never been very good at picking winner’s and loser’s. You can’t expect academics and attorneys to understand the automotive or solar industries either. The government was the one that decided we needed to solve our oil problem by building electric cars and of course by charging them with renewable energy like solar. They provided incentives for individuals and companies to invested in solar, wind and battery manufacturing and related industries.

What they did not do is ASK who in the heck would be able to buy them when everything was said and done. We sell about 1,000 Volts every month, maybe a few hundred more Leaf’s and a few thousand Prius. But this is such a small percentage of the MILLIONS of vehicles we sell every year it doesn’t even appear as a dot on a sales forecast.

Now don’t get me wrong – I am all for electric cars and probably in 30 years from now that will all any one will sell. BUT – for the next 10-20 years people are going to be shopping for cheap gasoline powered cars and that is where I think WE WENT WRONG. Current battery technology is just TOO EXPENSIVE and may be for 10 more years. You have to understand that many economists believe the reason our recovery is so slow is that very few people have any money left after the crash of 2007 to buy stuff with. So trying to sell $30-35,000 cars is tough. In about another 10-20 years that might change. Until then I believe we should have developed the Hydraulic Hybrid. They are significantly less expensive to build, capture more of the energy lost breaking and are simpler to service since they are mostly just pumps, valves and tanks we have been building for over a 100 years.

There are companies like UPS, FedEx, trash collection companies which are working on prototypes. Ford is, Chrysler is – have these companies realized that we just aren’t ready for battery powered hybrid electric vehicles?

I really hate to place blame BUT what I think we should have done is funded the heck out of our colleges and universities FIRST to see what our bright young minds could have come up with. Then maybe our automotive companies could have implemented an interim solution until battery technology caught up.

I thing some people who are so in love with certain media outlets who continuously bad mouth ONE failed solar company should start looking around for some real facts to report. Of course I don’t like the way the whole Solyndra thing went down. It could be the result of really poor management, a poor technology or even the fault of someone in government. But that has nothing to do with the rest of the industry when they talk about Solyndra and show a product manufactured by another manufacturer who is doing well.

O.K. this is way to long but this type of nonsense really bugs the heck out of me.

We can and do compete with China and beat them on many different fronts. Not only that; we are learning how to beat them at their own game even while THEIR government supports their efforts while OUR governments seems to try and kill ours.
- Anonymous
  
  How about we visit the cost of EVs for a moment?
  
  Let’s assume you’ve got three choices, a $32,350 Nissan Leaf EV, a $23,520 Toyota Prius, and a $20,000 30MPG generic ICEV.
  
  No subsidies.
  
  You charge the EV with off-peak electricity at $0.08/kWh and the two liquid fuel vehicles with $4/gallon gas. Electricity and gas rise at a 4% inflation rate (probably low for gas). Figure in $100 for oil/filter changes for the fuel cars.
  
  No money down. Five year loans at 4%.
  
  Drive 12,000 miles per year (about the US average).
  
  The first year the Leaf will cost about $150 more per month than the generic fuel burner, about $200 more than the Prius. By the fifth year that difference will have dropped to about $100/$170.
  
  The sixth year the Leaf will cost you about $160 ICEV/$80 Prius LESS to drive. Those savings will increase each year and at the end of twelve years the Leaf will cost over $8,000 less to own and drive than the $20k ICEV and around $3,400 less than the Prius.
  
  If one takes the long look, EVs are already cheaper.
  
  Battery prices are already coming down. A couple of years ago battery packs were around $1,000/kW and now they are somewhere under $400/kW. Prices will continue to fall as production levels increase, dedicated battery factories are just now coming on line.
  
  In fact, prices will likely fall rapidly. Battery plants were planned prior to realizing how deep and lengthy the recession recovery would be. Car sales of all types will be depressed for a while. That will mean surplus battery production which will cause battery plants to cut margins in order to not stand idle.
  
  (What might keep battery prices from dropping very rapidly is utility companies starting to buy them in quantity for grid smoothing.)
  
  I’m going to suggest that within two years enough people will be driving EVs for many drivers to learn about EVs and whether they would work for them. By 2015 I think a significant segment of new car buyers will be looking favorably at EVs. Get the price down only a few thousand dollars so that the monthly cost for payments plus gas/electricity are roughly even for comparably outfitted EVs and ICEVs and I think EVs sales will zoom.
  - Tom G.
    
    I sure hope you are right Bob. I get so sick and tired of reading about all of the money we are sending out of our country for oil. Thank you very much for the excellent cost analysis.
    
    Just think what we could do if we had $500 billion MORE to spend every year if more people bought and drove EV’s. More money for education, healthcare, research and development – and hundreds of other things. Dare I even mention we could pay off some of our debt, LOL.
    
    I happen to love the little MIT City Car. It doesn’t have to fold up for parking or have 4 wheel steering, I will take one without those features. The little 2 passenger electric vehicle is something more than a golf cart but still less than a 5 passenger vehicle. It would cover about 95% of my driving needs.
    
    Have a great day Bob and thank you for commenting.
    
    Tom G.
Lfg30

If there is a witch hunt by the GOP why did the DOE offical who approved the loan resign? Or is that Bush’s fault?