Category Archives: Nuclear

Posted on by

Solar Power | Coming on Strong

PV America event (Courtesy of PV America)

Even before Japan’s nuclear nightmare began, the solar power market in the U.S. and abroad were set for another year of remarkable growth, according to several analysts and industry leaders.

One such individual suggested recently that the only close analogy to the coming surge in solar photovoltaic panels (PV) is Apple, Inc.’s performance last year after the iPad took off.

Excitement over solar’s continuing growth-spurt served as background music for a PV industry gathering that ended in Philadelphia last night.

“The solar industry is the fastest growing industry in America!” Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), told some 3,000 conference-goers. “We are growing faster than wind energy, faster than telecommunications, and, thank goodness, we are even growing faster than the mortgage foreclosure industry!”

Bob Gibson, VP for market intelligence at the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA), pointed to one large source of growth for the industry: utilities expanding their energy mix to include solar.

“In very real and growing ways,” said Gibson, “electric utilities … across the country are part of the renewable energy industry, and in particular, the business of building and providing solar power.”

The Numbers

Figure 1. Top 10 States for PV installtions, 2010. (The Phoenix Sun)

And there are a lot of data to support such enthusiasm.

While the U.S. GDP grew just 2.8% in 2010, the domestic solar market jumped by 67% last year, according to GTM Research.

The GTM/SEIA U.S. Solar Market Insight, 2010 Year in Review holds a lot more good new for the solar sector. For example, grid-connected PV installations rose to 878 MW (megawatts) last year, a 102% increase over 2009.

While the pattern of growth was widespread, ten states account for over 60% of all new installations (see the breakdown in figure 1).

Notice that California grabbed the lion’s share, at 35% of the total. And that was before the state legislature passed a bill (on March 30) mandating that utilities obtain one-third of their electricity from renewable energy sources, including solar power, by the end of 2020.

(To be fair, former CA Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had issued an executive order calling for the same goal, in 2009. That EO, however, could have been overturned by another governor and so didn’t provide the level of predictability utilities need to make significant investments in solar- a stability they now have.)

Other positive indicators cited in the GTM report:

  • A marked increase in U.S. PV component manufacturing: 97% for wafers, 81% for silicon cells, and 62% for PV modules.
  • The largest Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant built in two decades went online. (Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center, 75-MW, in southeastern Florida.
  • The installation of nearly 29,500 solar pool heating systems and 35,500 hot water systems.

You can read the entire article, complete with more images and at no charge, at Forbes.com.

Posted on by

Japan’s Nuclear Crisis is Far from Over

Headlines about Japan’s stricken nuclear power plant are becoming rare. But that says more about fickle nature of the media than it does about the tremulous state of affairs at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant (FDI). Despite progress in restoring electricity to some areas of FDI, a member of the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority commented yesterday, “We still judge the situation to be critical.”

The truth is, Japan’s nuclear crisis is far from over. Not buying it? Here’s the evidence:

1. Radiation at FDI reactor No. 2 spiked yesterday to 500 microsieverts per hour — the highest level since the crisis began on March 11. Officials say they don’t know the source of the radiation, but likely suspects include the reactor’s containment vessel, the suppression chamber or the spent fuel rod pool — all of which could have been damaged in the explosion of hydrogen gas.

The gas was generated when the outer layer of the fuel rods overheated because of a lack of coolant (i.e., water).

2. Good news/bad news. The good news is that thermometers inside the reactors are back up and running. The bad news is what they show. The reactors are designed to operate at 302°C (575°F). According to the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which owns and operates the plant, Reactor No. 1 hit 394°C (741°F).

That spells trouble.

3. The high temperature is especially troublesome at a power plant with a long history of rigging safety tests to produce desired outcomes, falsifying safety records, and lacking even a minimal sense of the catastrophic possibilities associated with nuclear power production.

According to its own admission, between 1986 and 2001, TEPCO committed major safety violations 16 times. These included illegally injecting air into the primary containment vessel of Reactor No. 1 while testing the unit’s “leakage rate.” (This occurred in 1991 and 1992.)

After these actions became public, the company prepared a document in 2004, titled, “Lesson Learned From TEPCO Nuclear Power Scandal.” It makes for some pretty sober reading, especially under the current circumstances. In looking at the root causes of the scandal, the report cited “nuclear engineers’ over-confidence of their nuclear knowledge.”

Even more troublesome is TEPCO’s admission that “we had no clear rules to judge whether equipment was fit for service.”

You can read the rest of the article at Forbes.com.

Posted on by

Breaking: First Photos From Inside the Crippled Japanese Nuclear Plant

The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) has released the first photographs from inside the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex. The plant was severely damaged after being hit by a 9.0 earthquake, followed by a tsunami that rendered the nuclear plant’s emergency power generators inoperable. The pictures (which were taken late yesterday) show the extent of the damage from both the natural disasters and the hydrogen explosions that rocked the plant when fuel rods burst into flames due to lack of cooling water.

The situation at the plant remains critical, and may not be fully stabilized for weeks or months.

TEMPCO workers inside the damaged control room of Unit 1 or 2.

The rest of the pictures and my Forbes coverage of the nuclear crisis are here.