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.

The first “letter” is actually the preface to a book about coral reefs that I wrote a decade ago. In it, I recall my first memories of these magical islands, from two decades earlier. Now, with plumes of oil threatening the reefs, my somewhat abstract concerns for the future have become immediate, real and terrifying.

The second letter is from Joel Biddle, who lives in Key West and is a coral reef advocate from way back. Joel calls on Florida Governor Charlie Crist to act now to protect the Keys. I don’t know enough about the actions Joel describes to comment on their efficacy. But Joel’s dedication to saving the Keys represents the spirit of hope in action that is our best chance — maybe our only chance — to save the world we love.

Key West, letter 1

Back in the early 1970s, when I was living the life of a beach bum in Key West, I’d go down to AT&T beach at night, stretch out upon the still-warm sand and gaze at the multi-colored lights flashing far out at sea. I knew that the flickering lights marked the coral reef five miles off-shore, but that was the extent of my knowledge then. During the day, I’d put in my full eight hours on the beach, snorkeling and drowsing in the sun, hanging out with friends. There is an Italian phrase for this sort of existence (although I didn’t learn it until much later): Dolce far niente. It means, literally, “sweet doing nothing,” and that pretty much sums up life in Key West back then.

Coming from Iowa, I was, for a time, largely content to snorkel among the crumbling pilings of the old pier near Vernon Street, where schools of fishes darted in and out of concrete blocks, and on the small patch reefs beyond the sea grass beds. But still, I wondered what lay beneath the water marked by the lights. Mysteries feed on time, and as the months went by the beacons became for me what the light at the end of Daisy’s pier was to Jay Gatsby: the symbol of an obsession.

Finally, I talked my friend Cory into taking me out in a borrowed boat. It was not the best weather for such an excursion. A tropical storm was caroming around the Caribbean and the water out at the reef was dotted with whitecaps. At one point we saw four separate water-spouts writhing like immense snakes between the sea and the leaden sky. I was having second thoughts about the trip, but Cory was a Conch, a Key West native, and so by definition a bit crazy. He wasn’t about to let a few waterspouts spoil our fun.

“Nothing to worry about,” he yelled as I kept an eye on the waterspouts. So I convinced myself that I wasn’t afraid – not much of a feat when you’re young – and dived into the water.

There is another phrase, much used today, that applied to what I experienced that afternoon on the reef: “information overload.” I actually remember very little of what I saw on that first trip. There was simply too much to see, and none of it fit into the world I had known up until then. But I vividly recall the feeling that I had somehow stumbled into a different universe, one constructed of bright colors and populated with exquisite and bizarre creatures.

I have returned many times over the past two decades and the thrill of the reef remains just as overpowering, and the miracle of life there just as ineffable as they were back then. It is this sense of wonder and magic on the reef that I want most to convey – that and the fact that this unique and enigmatic underwater realm may be fading from our world.

What follows isn’t a scholarly treatise on coral reefs. It is a natural history of coral reefs, and of humanity’s relationship to them, written by a lay person for lay people. Whether the work turns out to be an ode or an elegy is still very much an open question, and the answer lies – where else? – in our hands.

Preface to The Enchanted Braid: Coming to Terms with Nature on the Coral Reef, 1998.

Key West, letter 2

An Open Letter to Governor Crist

Florida on Saving Florida (we need an International Fleet of Supertankers now)

The State of Florida cannot count on BP or the Federal Government to stop the oil from destroying our waters and coastlines. Our fishing and tourism industries are too important to rely on their dithering. In spite of budgetary woes, Florida must save Florida now.

Here is how we can best use our money and resources:

As soon as possible, a flotilla of super tankers should be stationed areas where the oil enters the Loop Current and pump it up – not only the surface oil but also the deeper oil which will have more toxic dispersants. Tankers and fleets of commercial, recreational boats and, why not? large cruise ships should be fitted with pumps and holding tanks to assist and be ready to move when oceanography specialists see where the flow will be the heaviest. Flexibility is the key.

We should consult other countries with spill experience, especially Australia and the Scandinavian countries. Any foreign assistance should be encouraged and gratefully accepted.

This won’t get all the oil but, because the West Florida’s coasts are relatively shallow, retrieving significant amounts is feasible and we could prevent large amounts of oil from entering the Florida Straits and going up the East Coast of Florida to Maine, to Europe and beyond.

All revenues from oil captured in Florida’s waters should be used in the clean-ups that will be necessary for years to come. And a big fat bill sent to BP.

Sincerely Yours,
Joel Biddle
*Former Educational Director, Reef Relief
Key West, Florida

*Organization listed for identification purposes only

President Obama turns on the lights

With a flip of a switch, President Obama activated the largest photovoltaic plant in the country. The 25 MW plant in Arcadia, Florida was built by Florida Power and Light.

.. continue reading ..