Michael Kanellos 02 06 09, 3:06 PM

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Stimulus Deal Reached and Steve Chu Wants to Spend

The U.S. Senate came to a tentative deal on the Obama stimulus package today with more details expected to roll out over the next few days.

And for those of you prepping your applications for federal money, get cracking. Secretary of Energy Steve Chu says he wants to spend around half of the $30 to $40 billion coming to his department in the first year. He wants to cut the paperwork and streamline the process.

“I now have my advisers actually going down, rolling up their sleeves and saying ‘OK, let’s look at every detail … What is it that you’re requiring? Is this necessary?’ â€? Chu told the Wall Street Journal.

Don’t forget to insert how many jobs you are going to create.

Ucilia Wang 02 06 09, 11:15 AM

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Evergreen Solar’s Shares Continue to Slide

Evergreen Solar’s shares continued to get pummeled Friday as financial analysts questioned the company’s ability to survive.

The Marlboro, Mass.-based company (NSDQ: ESLR) posted losses for the fourth quarter and 2008, and its CEO Richard Feldt said yesterday the company is looking at contracting manufacturers to make solar cells and assemble them into panels. That change of strategy doesn’t sound so great to some of the analysts, who have cut their share price targets.

Evergreen’s stock slid nearly 15 percent to reach $1.90 per share in recent trading. The shares began falling after the company announced its earnings yesterday afternoon.

Evergreen is in the business of making silicon wafers, cells and panels. The company is proud to point out on its Website that it can do all three “under one roof for quality control.� It has had a tough time raising money to build its next factory, yet it needs the new capacity to deliver multibillion dollars worth of contracts over the next five years.

Outsourcing manufacturing would save the company millions, Feldt said.

His announcement over a conference call prompted a lot of questions from financial analysts, who tried to probe for details about the outsourcing costs and how this change would improve the company’s finances.

But Evergreen is only in discussions with contract manufacturers, so Feldt said he didn’t have details to offer. He said those manufacturers are looking for opportunities in the solar industry because their main business of producing electronics isn’t going so well.

Ucilia Wang 02 06 09, 10:44 AM

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1366 Technologies Puts Factory Project on Hold for Now

While we all wait for President Obama to fulfill his greentech pledges, many solar companies have been forced to change business plans and layoff employees. 1366 Technologies, a company we wrote about this week, also has suspended a plan to raise money and build its first commercial factory.

Back in October, the startup in Lexington, Mass., was looking to raise $50 million to build a factory capable of making 25 megawatts to 30 megawatts worth of crystalline silicon panels per year (see Green Light post).

Asked how that factory project is coming along this week, 1366 CEO Frank van Mierlo said the plan has been put on hold.

“The 25- to 30-megawatt was the plan before we had the financial meltdown,� van Mierlo said. “With the current climate, it’s better to continue to develop the technology and wait a little bit before trying to raise that kind of capital. The market is not helpful at the moment.�

He said when investors are more willing to open their wallets again, his company would consider building a 50- to 100-megawatt factory instead.

For now, 1366 is focusing on designing equipment capable of mass-producing solar cells. The company, which used technology first developed at MIT, said it aims to cut manufacturing costs by 25 percent by improving the cells’ ability to convert sunlight into electricity.

Ucilia Wang 02 06 09, 6:36 AM

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The Tale of Two Suntech Powers

There are two Suntech Power in the world, it turns out. But one of them has been barred from doing business, at least in Germany.

The Suntech Power Holdings Co. that is based in Wuxi, China and makes crystalline silicon panels said it just obtained a preliminary injunction against the Hong Kong-based Suntech Power Holding Co. and its two known distributors. The Hong Kong company and the distributors now can’t sell solar panels with the Suntech brand in Germany, which is one of the world's largest markets.

It wouldn’t be surprising to hear more about cases of trademark infringement or counterfeit solar panels as solar energy systems become more popular, thanks largely to generous government subsidies in places such as Germany, Spain and the United States.

There were reports of fake solar panels being sold in Uganda last year. Local retailers would change the labels of little-known brands to well-known ones, or they would alter other labels to claim a greater power output. Another news outlet said those panels originally came from China.

 

Eric Wesoff 02 05 09, 9:58 PM

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Nuclear Pep Talk/Nuke Rant

It’s Thursday in Palo Alto and that means there’s a cleantech talk being given at the Palo Alto Research Center.  Tonight’s talk was given by Dr. Rosa Yang, VP of Technology Innovation at EPRI.

EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, defines itself as an independent non-profit that does energy and environmental research.  But the deeper truth is that EPRI is funded by their members and their members are, to a great extent, the energy producers in the U.S.—the utilities. Most American utilities are coal, natural gas and nuclear-based, and they will be slow to change their energy mix.

Yang didn’t debate the reality of climate change and seemed to reluctantly accept its’ anthroprogenic source

But judging by the tenor of her talk I imagine that the EPRI offices look a bit like the war room scene in Dr. Strangelove.  According to Dr. Strangelove, I mean Dr. Yang, nuclear is “near and dear to her heart.�  Her nuclear-powered heart.

Dr. Yang’s talk was entitled “Options for Reducing C02 Emissions in the Electricity Sector,� and it looks like nuclear is one of the clear options according to Yang.

We interrupt this anti-nuke rant for some electricity stats from EPRI and EIA:

• 2007 U.S. electricity usage was 3,800 TWh
• U.S. electricity growth is estimated at 1.05 percent per year for the coming years, projected out to 2030
• That translates to 26 percent growth by 2030 = same amount of electricity now used by California, Texas, Florida and Ohio

Here are some nuclear tidbits:

• The U.S. currently has 104 nuclear reactors now in operation
• No nukes have been built in the U.S. since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979
• Nukes are the most capital intensive generation sources to construct at $5,100/kW—compare that to expensive solar troughs at $4,600/kW.  Both these options are much more expensive than coal or natural gas.

Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) normalized to 2007 dollars

• Solar thermal trough at $175/MWh
• $64/MWh for Coal
• $73/MWh for Nuclear which doesn’t appear to include the cost to dispose of the nuclear waste

How can you entertain a LCOE figure that dose not include waste disposal?  How do you conveniently externalize that small item?

“There is a renaissance in nuclear,” said Dr. Yang.  There are 34 units in the planning stages ready to produce 45 GW between 2015 to 2022.

And according to Yang: “Nuclear is on par with renewablesâ€? in terms of life cycle C02 emissions analyses.  Nuclear has “low land use” and “the cost of the fuel is very low and fairly steady.â€?

This is a blog and it allows me to profer my opinion unbound by the ethical constraints of actual journalism.  I have a knee-jerk reaction to nuclear power because of Three Mile Island, Godzilla and The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Until there is a reasonable solution to the disposal of spent nuclear fuels, until there is a solution to the security aspects of a nuclear plant, until the costs of a building a nuke plant are lowered—we should not build new nuclear plants.

Michael Kanellos reports on a nuclear resurgence in Sweden here.  Here’s a piece on a nuclear startup funded by Intellectual Ventures.  And another Nuke startup, Hyperion, in a piece by Jeff St. John.

Michael Kanellos 02 05 09, 8:32 AM

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Sweden Looks to Scrap Ban and Build Nuclear Reactors

Because it can’t find adequate alternatives, Sweden’s government has proposed a plan to get rid of a ban on new nuclear reactors and start building more of them.

The ban would reverse a 1980 law that called for Sweden to close its twelve nuclear reactors. Two were actually closed but no new ones were built. The plan has to be approved by Parliament first.

Global warming and carbon emissions are raising the profile of nuclear. Russia, the U.S. Finland, India, England and France all are building or considering new reactors. (France has long been an advocate.) In Ireland, policy makers have talked about ways of getting around that country’s ban. It could build a transmission line to the continent and bring in nuclear-generated power that way.

No word from Germany. So those “Nuclear, Nein Danke” stickers aren’t collectors’ items yet.

Nuclear’s two big drawing cards are that nuclear power plants don’t generate carbon emissions—that smoke you see rising out of them is steam—and they can provide consistent baseline power. Solar and wind are intermittent. Solar in particular is also a tough call for countries like Sweden. Another added bonus: the waste heat inside of nuclear plants can be captured and exploited as heat, or be used to run desalination plants.

The downside: safety risks, nuclear proliferation, nuclear waste and cost-overruns. Some studies have shown nuclear could be more costly than advocates claim.

Although the field has long been dominated by giants like Toshiba, nuclear start-ups are forming. Intellectual Ventures, the think tank/intellectual property outfit co-founded by former Microsoft chief scientist Nathan Myhrvold, is prepping a company called TerraPower that will specialize in sealed reactors that run on depleted and/or natural uranium.

Then there is also small nuclear specialist Hyperion Power Generation that spun out of the Los Alamos National Labs.

It’s going to be a big, ugly and ultimately serious debate.