Applied Materials is one of the most important U.S. companies you’ve probably never heard of. It makes the machines that make the microchips that go inside your computer. The chip business, though, is volatile, so in 2004 Mike Splinter, Applied Materials’ CEO, decided to add a new business line to take advantage of the company’s nanotechnology capabilities ”” making the machines that make solar panels. The other day, Splinter gave me a tour of the company’s Silicon Valley facility, culminating with a visit to its “war room,” where Applied maintains a real-time global interaction with all 14 solar panel factories it’s built around the world in the past two years. I could only laugh because crying would have been too embarrassing.
Not a single one is in America.
Let’s see: Five are in Germany, four are in China, one is in Spain, one is in India, one is in Italy, one is in Taiwan, and one is even in Abu Dhabi. I suggested a new company motto for Applied Materials’ solar business: “Invented here, sold there.”
The reason that all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three perquisites for growing a renewable energy industry: 1) Any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; 2) if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and 3) the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop.
And if you want another example of a state which brilliantly uses solar power, Israel.
By way of contrast, an area of the US that I know extremely well: Arizona. Although I live in the UK I have lived in AZ. As you all know, it is very sunny there. Day after day. Yet the homeowner association where I still have my condo has regulations forbidding us from drying our laundry on the patio. Instead people have to put their clothes into the tumble dryer. Crazy. You don’t have to be a climate change obsessive to realise that this is uneconomic. BTW the sight of a solar panel in Arizona is a rare thing.
Tom Friedman’s solar power piece is very powerful evidence of why the NY Times is at times informative only to the uninformed. The piece fails to take into account the following critical points:
1. Solar power has been the supposed solution for the energy crisis for over 40 years. Jimmy Carter’s decision to shun nuclear power was based, in part, on the promise held by solar energy. Yet we still await the solar age. Why?
2. First, nothing can change the fact that (a) the sun does not shine at night, or when it rains, or in the shade, and (b) even when the sun does shine, the power is diffuse. Yes, there are ways to store solar energy by converting it to something else, but sometimes people object to that something else. Anybody remember the Storm King Mountain project in NY State?
3. Second, even when the sun does shine, the conversion efficiency of solar panels oftentimes is not so great. One can wait for advances in technology, but I suspect you will be waiting quite some time before achieving a 60% conversion efficiency, no less a 100% conversion efficiency.
4. Therefore, to make a reasonable amount of electricity, you need a lot of panels — which cost a lot of money. Except in unique applications, solar energy is more costly than alternatives. If you want to be eco-friendly, buy a wood lot, and re-plant the trees you cut down for fuel. You don’t need to melt silicon to make any solar cells, thus saving energy. It will be far cheaper, as well.
4. Now to Friedman’s article, which touts the advanced state of solar power use in Germany. Germany? Has Friedman been there? There is a reason the Germans were good at digging in during the World Wars. They went to the beaches on the Baltic Sea.
5. The general reason that people in Germany, as well as elsewhere, use solar power, is not because they are smarter, or more advanced, but rather because they are paid to, or forced to. Both can be accomplished by laws and regulations. Take away those laws and regulations, and the solar industry would largely disappear. Applied Materials would go back to making fabrication equipment for the semiconductor industry, where they started. Friedman would not be taken on a tour.
6. Friedman is implicitly advocating that the U.S. government, like the others that he admires, pass more laws to “put in place the three perquisites for growing a renewable energy industry.” Obama and company are already very busy seeking to change other aspects of society as we know it, and apparently have not focused sufficiently on this boondoogle. There are after all only 24 hours in a day. Let’s hope that’s also not subject to changing legislation.
I think what you’re saying, Bob, is that what solar is really, really good at generating is a subsidy. In general, you’re completely correct, though I would agree that there are places where solar works well such as in remote locales where getting distribution would be expensive and/or in applications that have low-power requirements and easy battery storage.
#2 & 3 have it exactly right. For all its use in niche markets, and the great advances in the technology, solar power does not make sense as a general source from any economic OR environmental viewpoint except to the true believers. (Same for ethanol fuels.) Of course, Applied Materials is doing the smart thing by taking advantage of other countries which are willing to supply the subsidies. More power to them, so to speak.
Friedman’s become a true fan of coercive, statist “solutions” as of late, going to far as to hail the wonderous advantages of China’s communist oligarchy over America’s democracy in getting things gone. No messy market or push and pull of the constitutional, classically-liberal republic for him, his enthusiasm begins and ends at state compulsion, a true modern liberal at the core.
We can’t put solar panel plants in the desert! The environmentalists say it will hurt the eco-system, and they have blocked quite a few proposed sites so far.
Libraryjim, are these the same environmentalists who say that we must wean ourselves off fossil fuels? Well, perhaps we can have wind farms instead … no, wait, the environmentalists say that those are dangerous for birds …
Here is a picture of Tom Friedman’s house: http://www.mnftiu.cc/2009/01/16/thomas-friedmans-house/
Not a solar panel anywhere.
To #8 — Well, Mr. Friedman (like Mr. Gore) does not mean that [i]he[/i] should have solar panels. He means for the rest of us to.
Jeffersonian beat me to it. One really ought to read Mr. Friedman’s recent piece on the advantages of authoritarian government to capture the real flavor of this man.
Now that all that has been said — to the extent that solar can be used on rooftops etc as a supplement to other sources of electricity, have at it, as long as it makes economic sense. There is an irony, however, in the thought of developing solar-generated electricity to power clothes dryers in communities that have deed restrictions against clotheslines. The clothesline would be much more efficient.
Franz, at least in Florida, there is a law on the books that makes it illegal for Home Owners Associaitons to ban energy saving devices, such as (specifically mentioned): solar panels, windmills and clothes lines. I don’t know about other states, but at least that is the case here. But don’t expect the HOAs to advertise this fact.
Jim Elliott
north Florida
One factor not mentioned here is the US dependency on energy imports. I take it that comparatively little, if any, US electricity is generated from imported liquid gas or oil. But if I am wrong in assuming this, then subsidies for solar generation might not be such a bad idea.
As someone who has built a solar house in the USA, in Tennessee to be precise, I have been amazed by the unwillingness of most Americans, particularly those living in sunnier climes, not to consider the significance of this technology. Energy efficient houses are not difficult to build, they are comfortable to live in, and when the utility bills arrive it is clear that they are relatively inexpensive to run — we reckoned $50 a month for power in a 2800 square foot home (some months we got credits from the electric company, others we paid a little more than fifty).
Further advantages are that energy efficient homes are properly insulated, and constructed in such a way to get the most out of positioning and materials being used. We found that maintenance costs are relatively low, and our carbon footprint was significantly reduced. Yes, it cost a bit more to build the house, but with low, low utility bills that makes it possible to manage slightly higher mortgage payments.
While it didn’t help that we put the house on the market right at the beginning of the sub-prime crisis, what has puzzled us is that no one has been eager to purchase it — except for derisory offers. So, our renters are at the moment getting the benefit of our forethought. We have sadly concluded that most Americans actually enjoy paying high utility bills rather than investing in this coming technology. If I could transport my house in Tennessee to England, where I now live, I would do so in a heartbeat.
BTW, there is no reason why solar panels should be large silicon blocks on a home’s roof. These days it is perfectly possible to get panels that look like shingles and do nor mar the look of the home in those picky sort of neighborhoods.