The Phoenix Sun

The live video feed below show reactors No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 (left to right) at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. The time and date stamp are visible in the upper right-hand corner of the feed. Fukushima is 11 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time in the U.S.

So, for example, when the Fukushima screen stamp reads 2011-06-01 01:00:23, it is 23 seconds past noon in New York on the previous day (May 31st in this case).

You can read more about the camera, here.

Radiation map, Fukushima Daiichi, April 23. (TEPCO)

Piles of highly radioactive debris are spread across the grounds of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (FDI), in an area larger than New York City’s Central Park, according to a map of the site revealed at a press conference. (For a larger image of the map, go here.)

The map shows some 150 highly radioactive “hot spots” for workers to avoid, says Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) which owns and operates the plant devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Radiation levels from debris range up to 900 millisieverts an hour near reactor number 3.

A dose of 1,000 millisieverts would cause radiation sickness with symptoms including nausea, vomiting and bleeding. Exposure to as little as 100 millisieverts in a year measurably increases a person’s risk of developing cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association, an industry trade group. The likelihood of developing cancer rises with the level of radiation.

(Read the rest of the article at Forbes.com)

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.