EGEB: California cap and trade ‘too good’, solar panel warranty logic, world’s biggest air purifier, more

Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial, and political review/analysis of important green energy news. Featured Image Source

China builds ‘world’s biggest air purifier’ (and it seems to be working) – The system works through greenhouses covering about half the size of a soccer field around the base of the tower. Polluted air is sucked into the glasshouses and heated up by solar energy. The hot air then rises through the tower and passes through multiple layers of cleaning filters. If we figure out how to remove the smog, then at least we can mitigate the damage from the fossils being burnt. I’d prefer we not need to burn the fossils, but maybe, just maybe – it’s best to always have some being mined around the world – for sake of a broad resource base. Honestly, if I had kids – I’d take them to play around the air purifier outside – I’d buy my house nearby – pick a school nearby.

Module warranty from bust manufacturers a standard problem today – He noted that after the first two years, operators can have a fairly good sense of how a project will perform for the rest of its lifetime, hence the trend for two-year guarantee periods. However, issues can still arise at a later date. To mitigate this, it is possible to arrange financial models that reserve money for challenges in the future. Though this article is focused more so on utility sized projects, I thought this quote was important to homeowners as well. If you really have a hard to answer question in front of you regarding the solar panel manufacturer – consider that most warranty issues will be gone in two years. You think the company might last for two years? That’s a much easier bullet to stomach than 10 year and 25 year warranties.

No longer termed a ‘failure,’ California’s cap-and-trade program faces a new critique: Is it too successful? – Industries could buy and hoard so many allowances to emit greenhouse gases now that they might not need to actually reduce emissions in the future, when the state’s emission target becomes especially stringent. “The allowances don’t expire, and there are more than are needed now. A large proportion of what cap-and-trade is supposed to do could be subverted.” If we’ve got too much money, and we can afford the tax that politicians are able to wrangle out – then we’re going to keep on polluting since we know how to make money so well. That’s why, my gut says any carbon tax revenue must go toward forcing shifts in emission emitting hardware. Two prongs.

The Force Is With Clean Energy: 10 Predictions for 2018 – In batteries, we estimate that lithium-ion pack prices fell by no less than 24% last year (2017). Global wind installations – onshore and offshore – were some 56GW in 2017, slightly above 2016’s 54GW but well below the record of 63GW reached the previous year. We expect the slow recovery to continue in 2018, with additions reaching about 59GW, before a new record is established in 2019 at around 67G., 2018 is scheduled to be the second biggest year in U.S. history for coal plant retirements, with 13GW of projects slated to shutter. New year, mental slate cleaned, new patterns to watch for. Wind power man – that’s a lot of juice they’re building. Solar power cleanly over 100GW. Batteries so freaking cheap the system sizes will explode this year.

Siemens invests in LO3 Energy and strengthens existing partnership – Collaboration with LO3 is bringing benefits to the Siemens Energy Management Division because LO3’s Exergy platform is based on a decentralized ledger that uses cryptographic technology to save data in a way that is tamper-proof and enables the automated execution of contracts in a scalable manner. The Blockchain is simple – data shared in a cloud computing like chain, with each link in the chain being a private person (you and I). The programming is such that if you make a change, it must be checked and tracked by many computers – and then we agree. That’s the Blockchain key – a public, trusted database of transactions. And since we all pitch in – giving our computer cycles to run the database – we distribute the costs. Now – if we are also producing electricity in a distributed manner, and offering energy storage resources in a distributed manner – maybe the tracking of our use, as we all buy from each other, in this Blockchain makes sense. A database by us, tracking our production and consumption of distributed electricity. Siemens thinks so. Thanks for the tip Mr. Driscoll.

You know who doesn’t forget to go to meetings? Lobbyists. You know who has the cell phone numbers of the politicians – and their assistants? Lobbyists. You know who knows more about the rules than you do? Lobbyists. The people in the room being paid by these power companies are there so they can influence the political – and thus legal, and revenue – structure of the energy sector of this country.

https://twitter.com/AveryGWilks/status/953308645332316161

Featured image is from the Department of Energy SunShot program. Heliostats move into position to get ready for preheat at Solar Reserve’s Crescent Dunes facility in Tonopah, NV. Photo by Ivan Boden.

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