Having won the fight over national health insurance, followed up by financial reform bills now in the conference stage to be reconciled between the House and Senate, to achieve the trifecta with a climate and energy act in 2010 would be a tremendous achievement for President Obama and the Democratic Party.

Every step of the way to legislative reform in the US Congress has been bitterly fought over, with the Republicans fighting rear guard action much in the way of military campaigns, with few defecting to the other side.

There is still a long way to go before the climate and energy bills become law, but some headway is being made. Here are some road signs:

* Bloomberg (May 28 2010) reports that China will likely set up a domestic market for trading carbon emissions by 2014. Polluting companies would have “half mandatory” targets for their greenhouse gases. Feng Shengbo, deputy director of the China Clean Development Mechanism Management Centre said this in an interview.

The market would be run by trade associations overseen by the government. “From the government point of view, an absolute reduction is not realistic for China at the current stage.” Feng said that he didn’t think the targets would be “very hard.”

* The E&E group which publishes a number of excellent newsletters on climate and energy policy issues reported on May 28 2010 that Senator Lindsay Graham, leader of the moderate faction of the Senate Republicans, said that “we do need to price carbon to make nuclear power and the wind and solar and some alternative technologies economically viable.”

“The electric utility industry is most in need of a market signal for pricing greenhouse gases, while other major industries could be left out of a new US carbon market, especially if it means finding enough votes to pass a bill in the Senate.”

The Greenwire unit of the E&E publishing group says “Graham maybe on to something.”

It went on to say that “Beyond Graham, several other Senate Republicans seen as critical for passing a climate bill have also expressed an interest in a less sweeping plan for controlling greenhouse gases including Senators Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, George Voinovich of Ohio and Richard Lugar of Indiana.”

There is something heroic about the new UK Coalition Government. To have a coalition between political foes is itself heroic. To go one step forward for Prime Minister David Cameron to commit the UK to have carbon emission reductions of 10% over the next 12 months.

This is at a time when many countries have either slowed down their carbon emission cutbacks timetable, or shelved them entirely, until the world economy stabilises. 

And to do this at a time, when the just announced UK Government Budget brought down by Chancellor George Osborne, for cuts of Estg 6.25 billion in the large government deficit will require a 2.5 per cent cut in the annual budget of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), while the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) will have a budget cut of 5.5 per cent.

David Cameron, who is a supporter of renewable energy keeps on asserting that despite these cuts, carbon reductions have to be made.

Housed in the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are the three largest delivery bodies, Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, Carbon Trust and Energy Savings Trust, which will face budget cuts by an average 1 per cent. The Environmental Transformation Fund, which invests in emerging low carbon technologies will see its budget cut by 22 per cent to Estg 120 million.

Business Green, the UK blog, reported that Leonnie Greene of the Renewable Energy Association is saying that producers of biomass systems, ground source heat pumps and other renewable heat technologies now urgently needed clarity on when the proposed Renewable Heat Incentive scheme will be introduced.

Two years ago, the US House of Representatives passed the Waxman Markey Bill regulating greenhouse gases. Two years later, the Senate is still wrestling with its version of the same bill.

The latest version by Senators John Kerry, the Massachusetts 2004 defeated Democratic candidate for President and Joe Lieberman, the independent senator from Connecticut introduced the American Power Act.

However, unlike last year, when the US Senate was debating climate action, and there was a powerful supporter of the legislation in Lindsey Graham, the moderate Republican from South Carolina, who holds a significant influence among the moderates, this year the coalition for the legislation has no bipartisan support.

As a result, the bill has little chance of reaching a majority of 60, the magic number preventing a minority of opposition senators from a filibuster, delaying endlessly a vote on the floor of the chamber.

The bill would mandate a 17 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases from 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 per cent by 2050. As the New York Times Green blog pointed out on March 12 2010, there are concessions for every major player.

“Loan guarantees for nuclear plant operators, incentives for use of natural gas in transportation, exemptions from emissions caps for heavy industries, free pollution permits for utilities, modest CO2 limits for oil refiners and expansion of offshore drilling for those states willing to accept the risks.”

The likelihood of an expansion in offshore drilling comes at an unfortunate time, with BP’s devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, potentially the largest oil spill on record. Coastal states worried about how drilling off the coast of one state could affect their state would have the ability to veto drilling projects.

US Public opinion has increasingly downplayed fears of global warming. The opinion poll, Rasmussen Reports in its April 19 2010 release said that only 54 per cent of voters “still believe global warming is a serious problem,” with “48 per cent saying global warming is caused by long term planetary trends, and only 33 per cent blaming human activity.”

A May 10 2010 Rasmussen Reports said that even after the Gulf oil spill was the dominant news item on the web, TV newscasts and newspapers front pages, 58 per cent of respondents still favoured offshore drilling.

Still a big majority for Big Oil, but a 14 per cent drop from the larger 72 per cent majority in favour of offshore drilling after Barack Obama announced at the end of March, the US Government opening new areas to exploratory offshore drilling for the first time in more than two decades.

Reuters summed up on the US public’s wavering opinions (May 10 2010): “(The oil slick) hasn’t really reached the Gulf Coast yet. Let’s start counting now to see how many polls on these contentious issues arrive before (a) the spill is cleaned up and (b) the bill either becomes law or fails to gain congressional approval.”

The European Union in a new vehicle strategy released last year is committed to spend E5 billion. The EU’s Green Car Initiative is designed in a multi prong approach to cut carbon emissions, and in providing financial support for research in electric and hybrid vehicles, encourage a growing number of electric cars on the market.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast last year that sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids should reach at least five million globally by 2020, which would catapult to a 50 per cent market share by 2050. Along these lines, Germany as the largest state in EU is planning on one million vehicles on its roads by 2020.

Nissan’s Leaf all-electric car, for release in 2011 was unveiled at the 80th Geneva International Motor Show in the March quarter 2010. Nissan has already flagged that the US price will be US$ 32,780, and there will be substantial discounts by the US and state governments.

As the first of the major car companies to offer electric cars in substantial volumes at a near affordable price, the Leaf promises zero tailpipe emissions, and a range of 160 km (100 miles) on a single lithium-ion battery charge. A 50 kW direct current charger will be available to charge the battery up to 80 per cent in under 30 minutes.

The compact AC electric motor in the front of the car driving the front wheels delivers a power output of more than 90 kW of power and 280 Nm (newton metres) of torque. Maximum speed is more than 140 km/h (90 mph).

Nissan is saying that a later model will have a range of 320 km (200 miles), but you may have to wait a long time for this to eventuate. In the meantime, US researchers are almost convinced that the next wave of electric car, with a long range on a single charge will come from a lithium air battery.

Three research laboratories- MIT in Cambridge (MA), IBM at the Almaden Research Centre in San Jose (CA), and Argonne National Laboratory, close to Chicago (IL) are all working on lithium air batteries. There is great promise about their research.

You can understand the enthusiasm when researchers say lithium-ion, the current vehicle battery choice, with its limited energy capacity, has the potential to deliver only about 585 watt-hours of electricity per kilogram. This compares with a lithium sulphur battery, with a theoretical potential of about 2,600 watt-hours, and lithium air batteries with an even higher potential of 5,000 watt-hours.

Currently, BYD, the Chinese car and battery producer has on the market an electric car with a lithium sulphur battery.

The MIT researchers in a paper published in the journal Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, demonstrated that electrodes with gold or platinum as a catalyst in lithium air prototypes would also be substantially much lighter, a key issue for electric vehicles.

The future of electric cars seems unbounded.

There is a political campaign in California to begin the unwinding of the far reaching reforms, which liberal Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger inspired and campaigned for to transform the state to a low carbon economy.

In the process of starting the transformation under Schwarzenegger, the state legislature passed trailblazing measures, never attempted before in the US. These included the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 to achieve a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the state by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020. This act has not yet come into force.

Another positive step was the Governor’s executive order in 2007 to create the world’s first Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). This requires fuel producers reduce the carbon intensity of transportation fuels sold in the state by 10 per cent to 2020. The effect of this is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 13 million metric tons a year, equivalent to taking three million cars off the road.

The third positive was establishing California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) by executive order to provide clear and permanent direction for the creation, delivery and servicing of the state’s renewable energy programs, while increasing the renewable energy use. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) will adopt regulations to increase the state’s RPS to 33 per cent by 2020.

The state’s leadership on energy conservation and the environment led to the first step to national Green Building Standards, which will serve as a foundation for commercial buildings worldwide. Another initiative was California’s encouragement to other western states in launching the Western Climate Initiative in February 2007. The other states taking part were the governors of Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington to develop a regional strategy aiming for a uniform approach to cutting greenhouse gas.

The states of Montana and Utah, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec also saw the advantages of joining. The partners resolved to reduce greenhouse gas by 15 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, and to build compatible systems to ensure that programs could be linked for maximum environmental benefits and at the lowest cost.

All these advantages are now at threat. Schwarzenegger retires as Californian governor in January 2010, having been elected in the November 2003 state wide Recall election, after the Democrat Grey Davis was removed from office of governor by a vote of 55.4 per cent. In a second ballot, Schwarzenegger was elected by 48.6 per cent of the vote.

The most likely successor as governor is expected to be conservative Republican Meg Whitman, the one time very successful chief executive of eBay. At immediate threat is to the Global Warming Solutions Act (this is AB 32, which mandates the reduction of about 30 per cent in the state’s greenhouse gas in 2020 from 1990 levels).

Although AB 32 is unlikely to come into force before 2012, conservative Republicans want to see a 12 month moratorium on its implementation. A separate call for a legislated stay on AB32 is a movement led by two ethanol producers based in Texas, who are spending freely to get sufficient signatures to require a special state election. This bar would remain in place, until the state unemployment fell to 5 per cent. They need to get 433,000 signatures for this special election, and hopefully they may miss out.

The fact that the not so “golden state”, with a jobless rate of 12.5 per cent in January 2010, compared to the national average of 9.7 per cent makes it a daunting task for any governor to deal with, however well experienced to restore balance to the economy.

Coupled with a potential state budget deficit of $20 billion, largely due to an undue reliance on state income taxes, with property tax reserved mainly for local government, it becomes a herculean task.

In May 2009, Schwarzenegger tried to get a raft of ballot measures carried by the state’s special election process to restore some balance to the budget process. The key proposition was to place a spending cap on the budget forcing the state to more than double the amount of funds it puts away in reserves for spending during times of economic difficulties. These ballot measures failed.

California’s chief justice, Ronald George (San Francisco Chronicle Feb 20 2010) trenchantly criticise the state’s legislative process saying “unrestrained ballot lawmaking is paralysing government.”

The state and its lawmakers “have been placed in a virtual straitjacket” by a requirement of a two thirds legislative vote to raise taxes, imposed by Proposition 13 in 1978. Ronald George said other ballot measures further tied legislators’ hands by reserving specified portions of state funding for public transportation and education.

This is where the threat to unravel Schwarzenegger’s renewable energy program comes in. If AB 32 is cancelled or rescinded, who is to prevent the unravelling of the rest of Schwarzenegger’s dream of a low carbon economy.

 It’s great to see the substantial growth in wind energy installations in 2009, as the international economy struggles to get out of recession. But what is disturbing is that if the rate of growth in new wind energy capacity continues to grow at its existing pace, China the spoiler and wrecker of the Copenhagen climate change meetings in December will end up as No 1.

 For the fifth year in a row, Chinese wind energy capacity continues to double. The global wind energy association (GWEA) reported (February 3 2010) that China was the world’s biggest market in 2009, increasing capacity from 12.1 GW (that is 12,100 MW) in 2008 to 25.1 GW at the end of last year.

 Along with newly added capacity of 1.27 GW in India, and smaller additions in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, more than 14 GW of new wind energy capacity was added in Asia in 2009.

 Last year also saw a significant increase in Australia’s wind energy installed capacity by 406 MW in 2008 to 1.712 GW at the end of last year. Australia has now legislated for a mandatory 20 per cent renewable energy level by 2020.

 United States continues to shine in new wind energy capacity of 9.922 GW in 2009 to reach a cumulative total of 35.159 GW, with Texas and California still well in the lead. Canada also did well in new wind energy additions of 950 MW to a new total of 3.319 GW installed capacity, while in Latin America total installed capacity doubled over 2009 to a new level of 1.274 GW.

 Europe, the original home of windmills, and where the modern wind energy market commenced in 1976 had a good year in 2009, with new wind energy installations of 10.526 GW, of which more than 95 per cent is in the 27 countries making up the European Union.

 Spain continued to lead over Germany in new wind energy capacity, followed closely by Germany. Then came in close order Italy, France and UK. Total installed wind energy capacity at the end of 2009 rose to 76.152 GW.

 As in wind energy, wind turbine manufacturing has become a very competitive battleground, with intense price competition from Chinese producers, upsetting the old leadership in which traditional world leader Vestas of Denmark was No 1 and Gamesa of Spain No2.

 With the US catching up and then outdistancing Germany, GE Energy came into the industry by acquisition, and then recently consolidated this with the takeover of Norwegian based Scan Wind, a novel producer of gearless turbines for use in the offshore wind market.

 Calendar year 2008 saw GE nearly catching up to the traditional world leader Vestas of Denmark. Gamesa of Spain was far behind in third place. Then followed in close order Enercon (Germany), Suzlon (India) and Siemens(Germany).

 The three largest Chinese producers Sinovel, Dongfang and Goldwind were a little behind, but growing very rapidly, to take advantage both of China’s leap ahead in wind energy, and a preferential tariff favouring local producers. This has enabled Chinese producers to gain a 70 per cent share of the Chinese wind turbine market.

 Even in 2008, one of every eight wind turbines produced were Chinese. But 2009 is another story again, with Vestas facing eroding market share, its share price in February 2010 falling 60 per cent from its peak 2008 value. Gamesa went backward in 2009, losing market share and falling into losses.

 The ever expanding domestic Chinese wind turbine market has enabled the domestic wind turbine producers to both expand aggressively offshore with substantial price competition, and to produce larger capacity wind turbines.

 The average Chinese wind turbine  was  until recently a 1.5 megawatt unit, with Sinovel Wind Group, the largest Chinese producer in 2009 accounting for an output of  2,400 1.5 MW wind turbines and 100 300 MW turbines.

 Sinovel commenced a production line for its 5 MW wind turbine in January, and this is expected to come on line at the end of 2010. The 300 MW and 500 MW turbines are destined for the offshore and near offshore wind power markets.

 Dongfang Turbine Co., a subsidiary of China’s largest provider of power generating equipment has a contract with American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) to develop a 5 MW wind turbine for the offshore wind market, having already supplied a 2.5 MW prototype to the Chinese.

It’s becoming readily accepted in the community that energy efficiency is important. But it isn’t really understood that the No1 priority on the road to a low carbon economy is achieving energy savings.

Investment in energy savings in buildings, industry and transportation ranks above investment in new energy sources including wind, solar, biomass and biofuels. The International Energy Agency (IEA), in its World Energy Outlook November 2009, says that end-use efficiency is the biggest contributor to the cutting back of CO2 emissions.

The agency also said that energy efficiency investment has a short payback period in fuel cost savings. Expressed as a fuel source in its own right, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), says in its report on the cost of saved energy September 2009, that energy efficiency would cost the equivalent of 1.6 cents/kilowatt hour (kWh) to 3.3 cents per kilowatt hour kWh, averaging 2.5 cents/kWh.

This compared with pulverised coal at 7 cents/kWh to 14 cents/kWh, combined cycle natural gas 7 cents/ kWh to 10 cents/kWh, and wind energy 4 cents/kWh to 9 cents/kWh.

This led the authors of the ACEEE report to say that “energy efficiency is by far the least cost resource option. They went on: “it appears to be a resource that continues to renew itself- the more energy efficiency opportunities we look for, the more we find.”

The biggest area for energy savings is in buildings, adding together industrial, commercial and residential, which collectively amounts to 38 per cent of energy use.

This is one and half times energy use in transportation. The figures are derived from a four year international survey by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD.

Energy codes and standards are largely ineffective, and safety standards are not much better. So how do you bring about change? A price on carbon, with appropriate tax incentives helps. There is a big role for research and development. But no matter how much is achieved in R & D, both with new technology and incremental change, the biggest problem remaining is the overwhelming tendency of inertia, clinging to traditional ways of doing things.

George David, chairman of the privately funded Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington (September 2009) said that “higher carbon costs and improved efficiency technologies will increase the attractiveness of investments and lessen the economic drag of otherwise lower returns. But we still need the stimulus of regulation to get us started”

Two ways of achieving energy savings provide a transformational way of approach.

The first example comes from George David. He quoted the example of newer elevators, which recapture and make available for re-use the energy on descent that was expended on ascent. Reducing energy consumption by 75 per cent for the same speed and load, compared to older models, with non-regenerative elevators.

The other example comes from Green Inc, the environmental blog of the New York Times. It involves the installation of a stationary fuel cell in a 69,000 sq ft supermarket in upstate New York, which has largely supplanted the electricity grid supply for the store’s lighting, heating and cooling requirements.

As the fuel cell supplier, UTC Power says fuel cells don’t have the energy waste of traditional power generation, where more than half of the energy goes up the stack as greenhouse gas. By contrast, fuel cell systems convert heat exhaust into cooling and heating, turning potential waste into usable energy, with an energy conversion efficiency exceeding 85 per cent.

by Ray Block

When Arthur J Goldman, the founder of Luz abandoned the parabolic trough for his new start up BrightSource Energy, the dominant feature is a 143-metre central power tower.

On top of the tower, 1600 double tracking heliostats (small mirrors) reflect sunlight on to a boiler to produce high temperature steam.

The company has contracts with the two largest utilities in California- PGE and SCE to deliver 2.6 GW of solar power from 2013 onward. It will start with a 100 MW unit at Ivanpah, with construction commencing in 2010. A new company Ivanpah Solar, bringing in the large specialist construction group Bechtel, as an equity partner will later be expanded to 440 MW, with the addition of three further solar plants.

BrightSource also intends to install 900 MW of solar power at Coyote Springs, Nevada, largely to fulfil contract agreements with the Californian utilities. Other expansion plans are for solar plants in Arizona and New Mexico.

With a much smaller area of land and less water usage, the power tower has cost advantages over the solar trough, and the energy efficiency can be as high as 34 per cent. But there is one major difficulty still to be overcome. The Andasol plants in Spain are fitted with thermal storage capability of 7.5 hours, which allows the operators of the power grid to rely on the solar plant to deliver power for at least two hours, irrespective of the cloud cover. BrightSource doesn’t have thermal storage capability at this stage.

Another company using the power tower concept is eSolar. Little more than two years old, founder Bill Gross, an entrepreneur in computer software has moved very quickly into CSP, with a power tower concept and thousands of small flat mirrors similar to BrightSource. A man in a hurry, Gross’ company already opened a demonstration plant in August 2009 with capacity of 5 MW in Lancaster, CA to prove that the technology produces cost effective electricity, and can be replicated.

The main cost of the plant is the steel and the actuator for controlling the small flat modular mirrors. The steel holds the mirror in shape without distorting, to stay in a perfect parabola. “Because we use a one square meter mirror, we use half the steel of a solar trough,” says Gross.

The eSolar system has computer controlled 24,000 individual mirrors, all pointing in slightly different directions to project on one spot, with each mirror having its own microprocessor to control movement. Software is made up of 50 people in a company of 135 staff. Bill Gross estimates that the build and install cost of a modular 46 MW plant will be between $2.50 and $3 per watt.

eSollar has inked in contracts for 245 MW with SCE in Southern California and one of 92 MW with El Paso Electric in New Mexico. This is quite modest compared to the latest step announced in January 20l0.

A deal with China Shandong Penglai Electric, brings eSolar into the big time. Involved is an almost certain technology transfer involving 2 GW of solar power in a $5 billion deal. The project will start off with 92 MW, with development starting in 2010.The magnitude of the whole contract is exceptional, given that the eSolar basic plant design is for 46 MW of generating capacity.

The Irish renewable energy investment company, NTR, which bought control of SES Systems and its sister company Tessera Solar in 2008 for $100 million has moved forward quickly, with an initial 1.5 MW plant in Peoria Arizona, and a 27 MW plant in San Antonio Texas, involving a 20 year power purchase agreement with CPS Energy.

SES, formerly Stirling Energy Systems, with a then struggling capital base had saddled itself in 2005 with big Californian contracts. These comprise the 900 MW Imperial Valley 1 and 2, and the 850 MW Calico 1 and 2 purchase power agreement in Southern California, with San Diego Gas & Electric and SCE. There have been difficulties with environmental lobby groups holding up regulatory approvals.

It is ironic that the SES technology is the most economic of all CSP systems in the amount of land utilised and in water usage. Yet the Calico project in the Mojave Desert, if it were to gain regulatory approval would still require 34,000 solar dishes, each 40ft high and 38ft wide on 8,230 acres.

The SES CSP system doesn’t have a parabolic trough, or a power tower. But the SunCatcher solar power collection dishes, which has been re-designed with the research of Sandia National Labs’ National Solar Test Facility is now ready for commercial production. Although, there is no capability for thermal storage, it may become a winner in some markets.

The modular SunCatcher uses precision mirrors attached to a parabolic dish to focus the sun’s rays onto a receiver, which transmits the heat to a Stirling engine. The engine is a sealed system filled with hydrogen. As the gas heats and cools, its pressure rises and falls. The change in pressure drives the piston inside the engine, producing mechanical power, which in turn drives a generator to make electricity.

The new SunCatcher is much lighter than the original model, it is round instead of rectangular to allow for more efficient use of steel, has improved optics, there are 60 per cent fewer engine parts, and fewer mirrors- 40 instead of 80. Automobile manufacturing techniques have been used. To reduce costs, the reflective mirrors are formed into a parabolic shape using stamped sheet metal.

Sandia National Labs test measurement of solar to grid conversion efficiency of the SES system made in February 2008 was 31.25 per cent.

Despite the global recession, solar PV (photovoltaics) continued to grow in calendar 2009, increasing by an estimated 5 per cent. However, it largely took to the fourth quarter before the market became revitalised.

Global market estimates from forecaster Solarbuzz, is for an expected 6.37 GW PV in calendar 2009, with European demand accounting for 71 per cent of the market. Germany’s third quarter (July-September) demand of 980 MW was eclipsed by a more robust 1680 MW fourth quarter.

Germany regained the world lead from Spain, after losing the top spot in.2008, with an estimated 2.5 GW installed. After a record Spanish demand of 2.5 GW in 2008, with the inducement of an exceptional level of feed- in-tariff (FIT), the government capped demand for 2009 at 500 MW and reduced the FIT subsidy. As a result, solar companies downsized their staff from 40,000 to 4,000. With a reduced FIT, demand in 2009 fell to only 150 MW.

The Italian government has set a goal of 3 GW PV by 2016, with 2009 demand expected at 400MW. France wants to achieve PV demand of 1GW a year by 2013, with an installed capacity of 5.4 GW by 2020.

US PV demand for calendar 2009 is estimated by Solarbuzz at 556 MW up from 290 MW in 2008. Enterprise Florida and Greentechmedia, in a study of emerging trends in the US market point to the beginnings of a cost based feed-in-tariff, with California supporting a FIT of up to 750 MW total demand. A major growth factor is the enthusiasm for power utility scale PV systems. 16 states currently have a renewable portfolio standard, with specific provisions for support to solar power.

In the next four years, the utility-scale market will begin to rise markedly, outdistancing the residential market. Enterprise Florida and Greentechmedia expect with falling PV system prices to see the “gradual achievement of price convergence between utility-scale PV and wholesale peak electricity prices.” The study suggests that price convergence could occur as early as this year, initially in the No1 PV market in California.

The most remarkable solar PV company so far is First Solar of Tempe, Arizona, with its outstanding success in thin fim cadmium telluride (CdTe) modules, challenging the traditional dominance of crystalline silicon. CdTe modules don’t have the energy efficiency of silicon, but First Solar makes up for that with the ability to decrease radically the cost of solar cells per unit of generated power.

In 2009, First Solar was able to reduce the cost of solar cells to 85 cents (US) per watt, which had been never before achievable.  2009 module production was 1.1GW, almost catching up to industry leaders Q-cells of Germany and Sharp of Japan.

iSuppli forecasts that the thin-film PV module share of the overall market will rise from the 2008 global level of 14.2 per cent to an impressive 34.5 per cent by 2013. First Solar, with nearly 28 per cent of the global market in 2009 is well placed to benefit from this expected growth.

Japan, which had an installed PV capacity of 2.1 GW in 2009 aims to have 28 GW of installed PV by 2020. The government introduced a FIT taking effect on November 1 2009, requiring power utilities to purchase PV generated electricity at Y48/kWh for 10 years.

By all accounts, geothermal resources in the world are immense. The Union of Concerned Scientists says that within 10 km (about 33,000 feet) of the Earth’s surface, the amount of heat contains 50,000 times more energy than all the known oil and natural gas reserves in the world.

Greater effort is now being made to exploit these resources, as the need to create low carbon economies becomes more urgent. Although there is a small volume of greenhouse gases involved, geothermal energy is available 24 hours a day, providing base load power at a price almost competitive with coal.

At September 2009, United States with the largest known geothermal resources in the world, is generating geothermal electric power in eight western states. California is the long time leader, with more than 40 geothermal plants providing nearly 5 per cent of the state’s electricity.

The state’s renewable energy requirement of 33 per cent by 2020 will spur more development. Nevada, the second largest geothermal producer has a 25 per cent renewable energy target by 2020, and this will also facilitate increased production. Soon another five states will also be generating electricity.

Total US installed geothermal capacity is currently 3.1 GW. Although representing less than 1 per cent of total US electricity capacity today, the aim is to reach at least 5 per cent of US power needs by 2020, and 10 per cent by 2030. The US Geothermal Energy Association says that 144 projects are now under development in 24 states, which could provide additional electricity capacity of 7 GW.

Up to $338 million in Recovery Act funding was allotted by the Obama Administration in 2009 for the exploration and development of new geothermal fields and research into advanced geothermal technologies. These grants matched on a one-for-one basis with private and non-federal cost share funds will support 123 projects in 39 states.

Conventional US geothermal resources on private and accessible public lands has a mean estimate of 33 GW, while the latest study by the US Geological Survey of geothermal resources in hot rock technology suggest an additional mean estimate of 518 GW available.

While the capacity factor in conventional geothermal production, (the amount of electricity produced) is at least 73 per cent, and may be only 30 per cent in hot rock technology, the overall resources are so large, that one day they may be able to supply much of the country’s electricity needs.

European geothermal resources are mainly in heating and cooling, directly exploiting the aquifers (Paris leads in low and medium energy resources), where the temperature ranges between 30 degrees C. and 150 degrees C. The second way is to produce heat using geothermal ground source heat pumps. The major European producers are Sweden, Italy, France, Hungary, Germany, Denmark.

The EU-27 country geothermal electricity target for 2020 is 6 GW, and for geothermal heating installed 39 GW. Outside the EU, Iceland with about 300,000 people is the geothermal standout,with 17 per cent of its electricity and 87 per cent of its direct heating from geothermal energy.

Everywhere on Earth, the deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Some of the regions are within the “Ring of Fire,” characterised by volcanoes, hot springs and fumaroles, (vents emitting hot gases), where the heat is close to the surface. These areas are around the rim of the Pacific Coast on the US and Canadian west coast – California, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, and down the Asian coast to include Japan, China, Philippines and Indonesia.

There is also the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain stretching from Iceland and the Azores to Antarctica, the East African Rift Valley mainly around Kenya, the East Pacific Rise paralleling the west coast of South America, the Rio Grande Rift running up through New Mexico and Colorado and the Juan de Fuca Ridge (tectonic spreading centre off the coast of Washington state and the adjoining province of British Columbia.)

There are two additional levels of geothermal resources. One of these is a steady supply of milder heat available for direct space heating, at depths down to 200 metres or so, which is available in parts of Europe and North America.

There is also the very large resource at depths of 3 km to 10 km (about 2 to 10 miles), where enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), also known as hot rock technology, has opened up a virtual Pandora box of energy treasures. In addition to the US, Australia, France, Germany and Japan have R&D programs to make EGS commercially viable.

In the EGS process, a fractured reservoir is created at a depth where the rock is hot. Water is continuously injected down a well into the engineered fractures, where the water heats as it flows through. The water is then brought to the surface via production wells, and its heat is extracted to generate electricity in power plants. Finally, the water depleted of its heat, is re-injected to be heated again.

Susan Petty, President of AltaRock Energy, whose company is exploiting an EGS project in Oregon gave evidence to the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 2007.She discussed the economics of the cost of geothermal electricity at depths of 3 km, and temperature of 300 degree C.

Her experience is that EGS at current technology could be generated for a cost of about US$74 MWh. This price includes financing costs and amortising the capital investment of the well field, but before profit. With incremental technology improvement, the cost of power could be cut in half