THE Renewable Energy Thread (merged)

[Tanada]

Solar towers are great, solar PV not so much. I would also suggest that instead of replacing food crops as you did in your projection you look at the consequences of replacing the dessert cotton fields in Arizona/California with solar towers. You would eliminate a huge draw on the water supply for cotton irrigation alleviating the shortages projected to occur for potable water and not have to destroy a hectare of pristine dessert. For those who object to the loss of cotton cloth remember in this scenario diesel and gasoline demand are very low so the petroleum supply would easily produce the artificial fiber needed to replace the cotton. I also would not go with hydrogen fuel cells, though you could get the precious metals needed by recycling catalytic converters off of the automobile fleet as it retires. I would instead store the hydrogen as Ammonia liquid in tanks and burn the ammonia in combined cycle gas turbine power plants when needed. We already have hundreds of those sitting around right now burning natural gas, the valve and program changes to burn ammonia are trivial and we have been building ammonia tanks and pipelines for many decades, the technology is fully developed and safe. Worse case scenario you can add it to the soil as fertilizer.

[Cloud9]

Collapse does not mean that we revert back to stone tipped spears and atlatls. It means that the current systems fail. We have been chattering about the end of growth for three decades. Treatises on ecological collapse, economic collapse and social collapse run into millions of words. Those of us who are looking see evidence of these things all around us. The majority is still whistling past the grave yard. Collapse is the only thing that will bring about the paradigm shift necessary to bring about the future you imagine. We have enough stuff in the back yards, attics and landfills of this country to build a whole new civilization. The transition will never be made by central planners. The transition will be organic. It will be an environmental adaptation made by individuals.

[Daniel Rirdan]

I have ignored precious little of these questions, my friends. Please don’t be hasty to judge a three hundred page plan based on a one page synopsis--and of only one sector (energy), at that.
It’s always a problem to try to share a slice of a plan. Without bringing in the broader proposed plan that would transform the existing land use, economic setup, and transportation, my post opens up as many questions as it provides answers. I spent two years laying down what is arguably the most comprehensive, concrete blueprint of its kind. Those interested, do check out my book The Blueprint: Averting Global Collapse.
Yet, I will provide some answers that can stand alone without the need to bring in a few pages worth of explanations—or reproducing the entire book, for that matter.
Crunching the numbers, it turned out that PV farms have smaller land footprint per GWh generated than solar power towers, and they provide more steady output during the day, as they can also work off semi cloudy conditions.
It is not entirely true that we have not developed a catalyst cheaper than platinum.
The footprint of wind turbines in my plan is actual, net footprint of staging areas, access roads and pads, while assuming surrounding area to be indeed made up of crop.
I have read enough lifecycle analysis of the proposed technologies to confirm the obvious: the carbon footprint is vastly lower than that of present technologies. Whether it ends up being 5% of existing fossil based power generation or 11%, it matters little in the decision to make the switch to lower impact technologies. However, there is a reason I did not list the projected amount of related carbon. As there is a way to vastly reduce the carbon footprint of cement and steel production, existing lifecycle analysis overestimate the carbon footprint of my plan and cannot be used as an indicator.
I will not get into land use issue in this post, I wrote about it dozens of pages, but I will just say this: whatever degraded land that does exist in deserts of Arizona and California was accounted for, but its combined size is not enough to accommodate the installations—not by a long shot, I am afraid.
And finally, none of those solutions—or any others, for that matter—could be implemented under the existing political and economic setup. I think that much is clear to everyone on this forum. I propose in my book an alternative economic and alternative political setup that would be up to the task.

Daniel Rirdan

[Expatriot]

1. There is no such thing as a "renewable." This is LATOC principle number 1. PVs, Wind, Hydro - these all require substantial non-renewable inputs. Ergo, NOT sustainable. On this basis alone, your title is impossible.

2. The only "renewable" resource, from a human civilization perspective, is sunlight. Not PVs, mind you. Sunlight. The future will be fueled 100% by sunlight, as captured in the form of heat and carbon bonds in photosynthetic organisms.

3. Believing that there is a solution that will allow us to maintain BAU is a major part of the problem. No solution exists. BAU ends. A new paradigm emerges. But it's not really new - it's the one we had for 4 billion years before coal was discovered.

4. Electric vehicles are a dream that will never come true, at least as it pertains to attempting to maintain BAU. You will not ever run a fleet of trucks and passenger vehicles on electric and get more than a few % points of the productivity you get out of ICE vehicles today.

Don't drink the cool aide. "Renewables" are an illusion that gives the water a false flavor.

[Timo]

Daniel, are you familiar with REMI? Or anyone else out there, for that matter? REMI is the acronym for Regional Economic Models, Inc. and it is really, really capable at forecasting the economic and demographic results from virtually any economic stimulus or change in policy. I used it in a former job back when this model was still DOS. Since then, it has come a long way forward, and i'm dissappointed that it is not used more widely by people who actually make government policies. I did see yesterday that the model was used to calculate the effects of the New Mexico Renewable Portfolio Standard, although the webinar detailing those results hasn't yet occurred. Just curious. Thanks.

[Daniel Rirdan]

Expatriot, it took a few thousand hours to formulate a planetary blueprint. Is it out of line to suggest you take a few hours to review it first? And if you then disagree with some points, please use a language I understand: the language of numbers—whether describing the tons of carbon or cement, whether it is of square kilometers of land or the number of man hours needed.
Solar and wind machinery are not renewable—anymore than any of the minerals we mine, extract, and…predicate our entire civilization on. Yes, in the long term, in the really long term, it is a problem. but so what of it? Do you have any better idea that you thought through? I mean, really thought through, not just a catchy paragraph suitable for the making of a bumper sticker?
Like all of you, folks, I am a passionate intellectual. I love ideas for the sake of ideas.
Yet, comes a time, when you look at your kids growing up and you realize that there is more at stake than the joy of swapping ideas in a message board. Collectively, we got to stop sitting on our hands and change course.
Expatriot, I don’t think we can keep going with business as usual (BAU). My plan is not for keeping the party going. You misunderstood. When it comes to my writing, there is no need to read between the lines; I say what I mean, I mean what I say.

[Graeme]

Bohr, Baby, Bohr! German Policies Support Enhanced Geothermal Drilling

Germany may have found the secret sauce that encourages new geothermal projects: policies that directly support drilling and financing the power plant—by lowering investor risks.

Germany’s track record with geothermal electricity has been far less dynamic than its impressive history with wind and PV. Only 7.5 megawatts of geothermal electricity have been installed to date [1], compared to over 7,000 megawatts of PV installed in 2010 alone (and again in 2011). [2]

Part of the reason is that Germany is pursuing emerging technologies such as enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) because it does not have a strong hydrothermal resource [3], [4]. EGS involves fracturing hot dry rock deep in the earth to create channels through which liquids can be circulated and heated. This heated liquid is used to generate electricity at lower temperatures, and may use a process such as the Organic Rankine Cycle.

With a weak resource and a focus on an emerging technology, Germany does not expect to secure a significant amount of its electricity from geothermal technologies in the near term. Its national plan projects just ~300 megawatts of geothermal, compared to ~51,000 megawatts of PV, by 2020. [5]

Nevertheless, Germany covers some of the geothermal development risk through two main national policies: (1) the renewable energy market incentive program that supports drilling and district heat networks and (2) the national feed-in tariff (FIT) that provides renewable projects with distinct payments. For geothermal projects, the FIT payments cover a portion of the drilling costs.

Policies that support drilling are important for new geothermal development because resource identification and confirmation drilling are riskier than resource identification for other commercialized RE technologies. Geothermal plants take four to seven years to develop, and the upfront development costs can account for more than 50 percent of total geothermal project costs [6], [7]. Moreover, geothermal prospecting -- surface exploration and exploratory drilling -- can be expensive, and success is not guaranteed. Geothermal projects have exploration success rates of 10 percent to 40 percent [8], [9], and drilling may yield only unproductive or 'dry' wells. As a result, geothermal exploration and projects face high financing costs, if they can be made bankable to interested investors, and many projects will have difficulty receiving any financing.

Therefore, Germany modified its Market Incentive Program (Marktanreizprogramm, or MAP) to assist with geothermal drilling and district heat networks. The German government decided to support drilling new wells by providing early grants and reduced-rate loans to lower the early-stage risks of geothermal development. The program does not cover the full cost of upfront resource exploration or confirmation drilling costs (it is currently being revised but is expected to cover up to 30 percent of the drilling costs). [10]. However, by providing some funding upfront, the government lowers the financial risk of drilling dry wells. There are benefits and drawbacks to an upfront program like this -- the driller needs to have some skin in the game to do their best work, but they may try to inflate costs to get more money upfront, resulting in increased taxpayer burdens.

greentechmedia

[SeaGypsy]

Thing is Daniel, this is not a good place to spruik your book.

For instance; brushing over the Platinum question/ "It's not exactly true that fuel cells are expensive....". A rebuttal like this, sans linky to what you are talking about? We talk about this stuff all the time here, have done for years. Never seen a cheap hydrogen cell put up here, so where is it?

Ignoring Tanada's post? She is correct as far as I am aware, again on a system discussed at length here, comparing to the system you have put up. Replacement and payback time/ carbon and resource footprints for PV can't stack up against ST over the long term, even with the stated efficiency differentials.

We are not all going to go out and buy your book, to discuss ideas we have already discussed at length. Your input here is very welcome, yet I suggest you treat your book like someone else wrote it. I doubt there is enough readership here that it could do any significant damage to your sales. Perhaps the second edition might be a lot more viable having had such feedback as you have begun to generate?

[Daniel Rirdan]

SeaGypsy, your post could have been more gracious, that is, more on the mark about me and about my motives.

I did not ignore Tanada post (if you but re-read my comments) but I do not care to get into a discussion about land use or about the economy of things because we are not sharing a common framework on either. There is little point for me to talk about money, when I regard this aspect to be moot; there is little point to talk about what would happen to the cattle feed when it is utterly not needed in the first place.
And if you got nothing out of my post, then so be it. It is my hope that I did contribute nonetheless to others.

Insofar fuel cell, all right, I will explain in detail what I meant when I wrote "it is not exactly true..." Today, platinum is used as a catalyst for the PEM fuel cell. However, some research teams have used successfully the abundant molybdenum sulfide, which was found to be an efficient catalyst, or a molybdenum-oxo metal complex, which can also work with dirty or sea water, or a combination of iron, carbon, and cobalt. Platinum is on the way out. Or not. In the end the amount required is not all that significant, and it matters not. Yes, I worked out the numbers on that one also.

Daniel Rirdan

[Daniel Rirdan]

need your help Tanada, SeaGypsy, and others,

I don't really care for PV technolgy. My heart is with solar thermal. I was looking for an excuse to get rid of the PV farms in my plan. Well, this may be my lucky break.
You guys have been telling me about the follies of PV versus thermal. I am all ears. I would be grateful if you refer me to any studies that shows this. I got to have some real substantial studies under my belt.

BTW, I would LOVE you all to run and buy my book. No doubt. However, if the $6.40 I am making on a book is a major source of concern, anyone curious can view the five part, 3 hours video I produced, and put on Vimeo and YouTube (same name like my book) for all to see and enjoy. For that matter, anyone can go to my website ( http://www.danielrirdan.com ) and download 70 pages excerpt, which includes my energy scheme.

Daniel Rirdan

[SeaGypsy]

SeaGypsy, your post could have been more gracious, that is, more on the mark about me and about my motives.

I did not ignore Tanada post (if you but re-read my comments) but I do not care to get into a discussion about land use or about the economy of things because we are not sharing a common framework on either. There is little point for me to talk about money, when I regard this aspect to be moot; there is little point to talk about what would happen to the cattle feed when it is utterly not needed in the first place.
And if you got nothing out of my post, then so be it. It is my hope that I did contribute nonetheless to others.

Insofar fuel cell, all right, I will explain in detail what I meant when I wrote "it is not exactly true..." Today, platinum is used as a catalyst for the PEM fuel cell. However, some research teams have used successfully the abundant molybdenum sulfide, which was found to be an efficient catalyst, or a molybdenum-oxo metal complex, which can also work with dirty or sea water, or a combination of iron, carbon, and cobalt. Platinum is on the way out. Or not. In the end the amount required is not all that significant, and it matters not. Yes, I worked out the numbers on that one also.

Daniel Rirdan

Maybe, but you can't show a link to anything beyond research level in these new fuel cell 'possibilities'. There is no commercially available product like what you are talking about. The papers seem to suggest that Cobalt will be a mandatory component in the stabilization of the metal matrix. Cobalt is not common. 90% of the world's Cobalt is in a war torn area of eastern Congo (ex Zaire). The area has been war torn, over this resource, since at least the early 1980's. Big problem. And it does matter. There is not an unlimited supply of either that or Platinum.
(Cobalt has been as high as $100,000 a metric tonne/ where it was when the market began to crash late '07. Since then it has been bumping around the $30-40k per tonne.
Platinum peaked about the same time at over $2,200 an Oz.)



It is basically impossible to figure degradation rates beyond 25 years. This chart shows what some major manufacturers are saying about their products. Roughly 3% for the first year then 1% per year for the next 20 odd. This creates ugly median term equations, compared to STT, which once set up, suffers no degradation of efficiency with proper maintenance. STT is as close as we can get to a solid state solar energy system. EV is nothing of the sort; just good for remote locations mainly, private use, small scale applications.

[SeaGypsy]

You are catching up fast. Tanada is extremely well researched in alternative energy tech. You can use her tag and any relevant topic in the custom search here, she has many very pertinent posts. She is also not inclined to repetition, so it's easier to read back a bit and refer to what she has already put up elsewhere here. My expertise is in SE Asian/ Oceania geo-politics. This area, alternative technology, is an interest I can talk about, but others here know much more of. Tanada in particular.

[SeaGypsy]

A few relevant threads:

the-thorium-thread-merged-t59170.html

the-nuclear-power-thread-pt-4-merged-archived-t61698.html

the-ammonia-economy-an-easier-alternative-to-h2-t10734.html

[cephalotus]

Also, why would you put anything on top of 'Soy feed land"? Are deserts more precious than soy fields?

I would say so.

You do know how many people the USA feeds at present?

Soy fields mostly feed life stock in life stock "factories", which produce meet at such a low price that lots of it is simply thrown away by consumers.

What should they eat instead?

A lot less, but better quality meat.

To a lesser extent the same argument goes to ethanol,

Corn Ethanol is a billion US$ subsidy program for farmers. From an energy or environmental (or even ethic) perspective it's a catastrophic failure.

as there is always a choice to switch end product/ purpose, back to food if necessary.

When would this be "necessary". When hundreds of thousands of people starve because they can't afford their food. That's already happening, but filling the SUV is much more important than filling the stomach of someone else. Nobody will stop the corn ethanol project because you starve, as long as someone is willing to pay more to fill his tank.
Only politics or low energy prices will stop it.

Then you mention 'fuel cells/ hydrogen'; without having listed Platinum in your very brief set of numbers in the OP. You do realize nobody has invented a cheap catalyst/ that current technology makes fuel cells very expensive on any scale?

theer is more than just PEM fuell cells, for example you could read about SOFC fuel cells.

On the other hand a modern gas power plant from Siemens or GE can reach efficiencies up to 60%.

Then PV. Why PV? (at all) The technology is basically redundant compared to solar thermal, especially when you are talking about huge scale projects and maximum lifespan/ bang for buck and maintenance costs.

We have a few 20 year PV installations and most of those still do very well, so I would expect an average lifetime of 30-40 years, maybe less in the desert. If you go beyond 20 years life time isn't that important anymore, because investors want their money back within 10-15 years anyway (especially in a market that is difficult to forecast) and investors are those people that decide what will be built and what will not.
(btw, this is one reason why you can not find a private investor for a nuclear power plant)

PV currently is MUCH cheaper than CSP based on ct/kWh. I would say factor 3-4. Of course in the longer term you also have to calculate costs for system integration, but we are not there yet. (Germany is already at 10% average(!) PV production during May 2012 without any significant additional storage systems).

Distributet PV has not to compete aagnst fossil energy at the power plant level, but at the consumer price level. Grid parity is already reached in Germany (PV from distributed PV costs around 10-15€ct/kWh over here which is a lot cheaper compared to elctricty prices for small enterprises or consumers).
You can not stop PV anymore.
Germany will stop PV subsidies after 52GW of capacity (currently 28GW, so this could be reached within 3-4 years), it will be the first renewable energy that will not need subsidies besides large hydro energy. And we are talking about Germany, which has similar irradiation compared to Alaska.

PV works also in cloudy regions with little direct irradiation and you can also mount it on roof tops.

CSP is an interesting technology because of the possibility to include cheap storage and cheap back up gas power, but costs have to go down a lot. It's still not a multi GW market like PV, which could reach 1 TW in 10 years.

best regards

[cephalotus]

Solar towers are great, solar PV not so much.

why?

I also would not go with hydrogen fuel cells, though you could get the precious metals needed by recycling catalytic converters off of the automobile fleet as it retires.

Can you provide some numbers.

I would instead store the hydrogen as Ammonia liquid in tanks and burn the ammonia in combined cycle gas turbine power plants when needed.

Do you want to burn ammonia (NH3) or do you want to burn methane (CH4)? Methane = natural gas = fuel for power plants. Ammonia is used for producing fertilizers for example.

It's "quite easy" to make methane out of CO2 and H2 (Sabatier process) and there is already a huge methane infrastructure for energy usage. You can mix natural gas and synthetic methane at any rate without the need to change anything in the infrastructure (as long as hydrogen content remains below 0,5%)

You can also use methane for heating, cooking and you can run your cars on it. All of this is already in existence and sold in the thousands, if not millions.

We are now building the first plants in the MW range in Germany. Our biggest problem so far is the electrolyseurs that make use of fluctuating energy inputs.

The problem for synthetic methane in the USA is, that natural gas is ultra cheap. There is no chance that it can compete EVER at that extremely low price level, even if you get the electricity at zero costs.

[cephalotus]

Maybe, but you can't show a link to anything beyond research level in these new fuel cell 'possibilities'. There is no commercially available product like what you are talking about. The papers seem to suggest that Cobalt will be a mandatory component in the stabilization of the metal matrix. Cobalt is not common. 90% of the world's Cobalt is in a war torn area of eastern Congo (ex Zaire).

I assume that it is an American thing to believe in that next big new technology breakthrough that will change everything. Sometimes this works great and brings on new products. The German approach is to talk about things that exist and make them better. Not as innovative, but often also quite successful.

When Americans talk about the energy future they talk about fancy new stuff like fuel cells, super capacities, thorium reactors, ammonia (?), hydrogen and whatever. Germans talk about the technology that is already available.

Look at the Desertec study that greame already linked in this thread, which is mostly a German approach (have a look at the last page of the study, Desertec industry initiative is not developed in some ivory towers, but packed up by the who is who in industry and financing)

So why do you lose yourself in a Platinum / fuel cell discussion? It's simply besides any point. If fuel cells will be an option in the future they will be built, if not, they will not. But nobody NEEDS any fuel cells to build a 100% renewable grid so it isn't even worth discussing which problems could possibly exist.

Everyone will agree that methane (=natural gas) power plants will work quite well and up to 60% efficiency (just look at available technology from GE and Siemens). IF we are able to buils fuel cells at 70% efficiency in some future (which will most likely not be the standard PEM, but rather a combined SOFC with steam turbine) that's nice, if not, why bother?

For Desertec /EUMENA EVERY single technology for a 91% + natural gas renewable electricity scenario at high demand is already available, starting from HVDC transmission lines to gas power buck up power plants, to large wind turbines, to large PV power plants to (some) pumped hydro storage. There is some development and significant cost reduction needed for offshore wind and CSP technologies + 8h heat storage. Both are not mature technologies yet.

No batteries, no fuel cells, no geothermal, no fancy new nuclear reactors, no superconductor is required.

There are just two things that need to be done:
1. there must be a political will and a plan how to do it. (much easier to do for the US than for around 50 states in EUMESA)
2. you must finance it. (it's less costly and significantly less risky (financial) than nuclear...)

It is basically impossible to figure degradation rates beyond 25 years.

the 20 year old power plants still do quite well at around 85-95% of initial power (which at those times was a lot lower than the data sheets promissed, PV modules have come quite a long way in the last 20 years).
If the solar moduls fail after 25 years there is no problem at all.

Take back the solar modules, recycle them (we already do this and the new wafers are BETTER than the old ones at 1/10th of the energy needed) and put new ones back. You can still use the infrastructures around the PV moduls.

pdf (in German)

Investors today expect payback times of 10-15 years in the PV power plant sector, so 25 years lifetime is perfectly fine. With Recycling of modules and reuse of most of the infrastructure EROEI of PV power plants will be between 20:1 to 100:1 (difficult to predict now)

EV is nothing of the sort; just good for remote locations mainly, private use, small scale applications.

In the last 2 years many large ST projects have been changed to PV projects, because the ROI for PV is MUCH higher. That's all that counts in the next years.

ST power plants with storage and gas backup power could be very helpful (you need to solve the water problem in deserts), but they need to get in the GW range with significant cost reduction ASAP. Otherwise PV + battery storage will do what CSP is meant to do.

But that's the good thing. We already have ALL technologies available and even if some technologies fail in large scale there are backup options available.

best regards

[SeaGypsy]

I thought we were talking about a new paradigm and creating stable state systems, using existing technology, the thrust of Daniel's position. If we are going to start farming unicorns, that's another topic. At present, Hydrogen utility is largely experimental and speculative. The stuff is not easy to contain in massive volume and it has to be converted to some long chain hydrocarbon to be useful without fuel cells. Cheap and efficient fuel cells and Hydrogen storage don't exist. The fact they might goes beyond the parameters of the discussion. PV solar involves a continuous cycle of replacement with non renewables, whether over 30 or 100 years, this is not stable state. If you look at a 500 year outcome projection, you might forget for a moment the 'expected 15 year return'/ such a MSM BAU argument it's hardly relevant when talking about something multiple orders of magnitude of any effort ever undertaken in the history of humanity. I'm not trying to build an exhaustive treatise, just noting the what is and what could be and the disconnect in parts. I applaud Daniel's effort and hope others with more knowledge than I can bring more to the discussion.

[cephalotus]

For that matter, anyone can go to my website ( http://www.danielrirdan.com ) and download 70 pages excerpt, which includes my energy scheme.

thanks for the link and the interesting reading.

Why do you want to use super conductors for long range transmission lines? There is already a technology available for low losses for long range transmission and that's called HVDC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects

In some segments of the grid (most likely within cities!) super conducting cables already are an interesting option, because you can use much lower voltage levels which has significant economical advantages when you will build a new line within a city. (at least in Europe)

http://www.kit.edu/visit/pi_2012_8761.php (English)
http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/mediablob/de ... orgung.pdf (German)

This cable will transport ca. 40MW (10kV, 2.3kA, 3 phases), not 5GW as you assume (at 2.3kA and DC transmission you would need more than 2 million volts)

If you base the backbone of your grid on superconducting cables with liquid nitrogen cooling a grid failure could be catastrophic, because it would be very difficult to restart the grid. After critical temperature is reached in your power lines they will not be able to transport any significant amounts of electricity, so you have to restart cooling the lines without an electricity grid.

Also for long rang transmission cooling losses will be higher the losses for AC/DC conversion stations + losses within the cable from HVDC transmission

---

why did you base your load distribution on Ireland?

The US has more time zones and spreads across more different climate regions (in the South you have been consumption because of air conditioning, something that doesn't exost in Irland).

I assume that you can good data from NREL for the US?

http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/
---

"...To my knowledge, the idea of two solar towers working thus in tandem is novel..."

Why do you want to build tow towers. The tower only contains the receiver and you do not need two of them. The heat storage and the turbine are not located within the tower.

Please also notice that this power plant in Spains needs 142ha (=1,42 mio m²) to produce around 110GWh of electricity at 2.062kWh/m² irradiation.

http://www.nrel.gov/csp/troughnet/pdfs/ ... r_tres.pdf

Overall this is an efficiency of around 3,7%.

A PV power plant with fixed mounted c-Si modules can reach around 7-9% efficiency, installed on 1 axis trackers this goes down to around 5-7%. It goes down even more with 2 axis trackers, but there is little benefit to use those for PV anyway these days.

So CSP technology needs more area than PV per kWh produced.

[cephalotus]

At present, Hydrogen utility is largely experimental and speculative. The stuff is not easy to contain in massive volume

There is a huge(!) hydrogen industry since decades in the chemical sector with large pipelines, storage tanks and so on...
(but I doubt that we need large hydrogen storage systems and fuel cells for a renewable energy scenario. Liquid hydrogen could be interesting for planes...)

PV solar involves a continuous cycle of replacement with non renewables, whether over 30 or 100 years, this is not stable state.

Which point in the solar module recycling system didn't you understand?

it's hardly relevant when talking about something multiple orders of magnitude of any effort ever undertaken in the history of humanity.

Germany will have around 5% PV power at the end of 2012. This has taken use around 5 years and I can not see any special "effort", besides BAU and a some billions of Euro.

The PV additions of 7,5GW/a in 2010 and 2011 (2012 should be similar) will be MORE than is needed for a 100% renewable scenario, if those PV power plants will last 30 years.

[SeaGypsy]

Oh, I'm relieved we have 100 years to do this, Thanks Ceph, my mind is at rest now. Germany shall lead us all to the light.