All About Solar | Green Energy News

June 11, 2006 – Vol.11 No.12

ALL ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news...

Unless electric vehicles make a comeback (which is possible) and solar electric power can be used to charge them, the increased use of solar energy solves only part of the world’s energy problems: the long term supply concerns of power generated from fossil fuels and growing greenhouse gas emissions related to power generation from the same.

(Power generation is only about a third of the energy consumption mix. Transportation and industry make up the other two-thirds.)

The European Science Foundation (ESF) wants the European Union and its member states to make a major commitment to solar energy to find ways to employ solar energy in the direct production of hydrogen and other fuels.

The ESF says that global energy consumption will double by 2050 about the same time as petroleum fuels begin to run out. Solar energy, they say, is the best way to make up for the loss of oil since enough solar energy reaches the planet every hour to meet the world’s energy needs.

But solar energy needs to be used to directly make transportation fuels, not just electricity, they say.

The ESF thinks three parallel avenues of solar energy research should be followed:

--- Extend and adapt current photovoltaic technology to generate clean fuels directly from solar radiation.

--- Construct artificial chemical and biomimetric devices to mimic photosynthesis to collect, direct and apply solar radiation. For example, solar devices should split water and convert atmospheric carbon dioxide to produce various forms of clean fuels. (In other words develop technology to do what plants do with the power of sunlight.)

--- Tune natural systems to produce fuels such as hydrogen and methanol directly rather than make carbohydrates that are converted into fuels in an indirect and inefficient matter. (Fuels should be directly derived from plants without having to distill them to make fuels. The $500 million investment in biofuels by BP addresses this issue, in part. See NewsLinks.)

The scientists say that it was solar-powered photosynthesis that produced all the hydrocarbon fuels that we are using today. The same processes that made fossil fuels need to be put back to work. Those processes, the ESF says, hold our salvation again. Visit the ESF at http://www.esf.org/

New, more powerful wind turbines often replace older designs to increase overall power from a wind project. Repowering with new solar technology can do the same for older solar power plants

Solel Solar Systems of Israel has announced that it has signed a contract with FPL Energy to replace 48,000 advanced solar thermal receivers at some of FPL’s Solar Energy Generating Stations (SEGS) in California’s Mojave Desert. The new receivers that Solel will supply generate up to 30 percent more thermal output than solar receivers currently installed. It’s unclear whether or not the upgrades will increase solar thermal electric output by 30 percent, however.

Visit Solel at http://www.solel.com/