California regulators went out of this world today and gave the go-ahead to a power-purchase agreement involving the nation's first solar power plant in space. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the state's largest utility, will proceed with a 15-year contract with Manhattan Beach start-up Solaren Corp., after receiving approval from the California Public Utilities Commission. The project, which is expected to go live in 2016, will use solar cells from Solaren on orbiting satellites to convert energy from the sun into radio-frequency waves. The waves will be transmitted to a receiving station near Fresno and reverted back into electricity. The project should produce 1,700 gigawatt-hours of energy each year, according to the commission. The Japanese government said this summer that it intends to pursue a similar space-based solar program. California hopes that utilities will pull 20% of their power from renewable sources by 2010. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a directive in September pushing for a 33% by 2020 goal.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the state's largest utility, will proceed with a 15-year contract with Manhattan Beach start-up Solaren Corp., after receiving approval from the California Public Utilities Commission.
The project, which is expected to go live in 2016, will use solar cells from Solaren on orbiting satellites to convert energy from the sun into radio-frequency waves. The waves will be transmitted to a receiving station near Fresno and reverted back into electricity.
The project should produce 1,700 gigawatt-hours of energy each year, according to the commission. The Japanese government said this summer that it intends to pursue a similar space-based solar program. California hopes that utilities will pull 20% of their power from renewable sources by 2010. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a directive in September pushing for a 33% by 2020 goal.
The first article shows PG&E buying a soon to be developed wind park, developed at risk by a daughter of a European utility who has spearheaded renewables, Iberdrola. Shouldn't this be a big deal for PG&E?
Why no. PG&E already has more experience with windpower than any in the world, nearly 30 years, and just now owning their first plant. They had the first modern 2MW turbine as their research machine in 1980, a Boeing Mod 2-A, since blown up. They had the first commercial wind turbine amurka, in 1981, a Carter 25kw which i project managed for the Cali Energy Commission. And they had the first commercial wind parks in the world, the Altamont Pass, begun also in 1981.
wish i could find a video of this turbine being dynamited
From the end of the 70's onward, PG&E had to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept and pay for wind kwh's at a reasonable price. It took a $7M (?) fine from the PUC to get them negotiating at all. It took some 30 companies 4 years of lawyers to finally get a standard contract.
Throughout the birth years of windpower in the 80's, PG&E and their Cali sister Southern Cali Edison had more wind energy on their system than anyone in the world, until the mid-90's or later. They never stopped throwing obstacles in the way, at every opportunity, including owning a Senator (Feinstein) and a legislature (California.)
There are two dozen or more utilities in the US alone who own far more wind than PG&E will when the single fuckin project is completed. Perhaps they felt windpower was too risky, so they waited until there are nearly 150 Frickin Gigawatts already installed in the world.
Though their own nuke, Diablo Canyon, wasn't considered too risky to invest, even when it was found the containment blueprints were reversed, backwards, fail.
Now they are the first to invest in commercial space solar, whoo hoo, no risk there. We'll pretend the world is a Chinese food take-out, one from Column A and two from Column B. As long as it's centralized.
PG&E caused me no end to grief throughout my career, even after our Howden project became their reference as the first utility scale effort. Fuckers.
But then what would you expect from a utility which began at the end of the 1800s by taking over gold country hydro plants at gunpoint from the individual mining efforts. Literally.
Bah fuckin Humbug.
(PS. This is the sedate professional analytical view, you should hear me when i really get going.) "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaďs Nin
This is the sedate professional analytical view, you should hear me when i really get going.
...Bah fuckin Humbug.
Anti' it. Someone care to explain why it is cheaper to shoot those solar cells into the sky rather than put them on roofs? (I don't think the higher yield justifies the extra cost.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
PG&E, Edison (SCE) and the former San Diego G&E have stymied every effort of Cali's renewable community to implement the technologies that fit so well with Cali's climate. If it wasn't for Sacramento's SMUD, who shut down a working nuke in favor of solar/wind, and slowly, LADWP, we wouldn't even be this far.
But the big boys like the shiny toys, partly because they allow direct control of the power. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaďs Nin
So,
Why? In addition, whay if it could produce in a larger volume for rooftops?
:: :: :: :: ::
There is of course another problem with space-based solar power stations in general: the microwave downlink could be used as a weapon... or cause deadly accidents. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
So place that in one column and getting them into space, producing them in a way that stands for being in space, higher maintenance costs and higher transmission losses from panel to application in the other.
Then reflect on another way to get 5 times more input to a cell: parabolic mirrors with 5 times larger opening then the cell. Mirrors or rockets, which might be more expensive?
Last time I checked (admittedly years ago) the reason you rarely use mirrors to increase input to cells is that they have maximum levels of conversion. You get various technical difficulties instead of more power. Which would of course be harder to repair in space...
This is such an obvious scam. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
You have mail. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
The contractor likely dealt with this the same way the owner of the first contracting company I ever worked for handled a simple error in the underground cable plant at a high school: wait until the contract is let and work has begun on a "time is money" clock to "discover" the error and bring it to the attention of the project manager. Then the contractor could get top dollar for fixing the problem. No time to argue about cost. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
