Is Solar Too Expensive?

9.9.11

Larry Mapes, Founder & President, Valverde Energy

A friend of mine called the other day very agitated because she heard a commentator/professor from MIT say on a national news cast "solar is too expensive". The news cast was about the nuclear plant meltdown in Fukushima, Japan.

"Too expensive?" I was at a loss for words. With over three decades of experience in the solar energy industry, this is a tag line I hear all too often from the folks who are more familiar with traditional energy sources. For some reason, people in the US have a hard time understanding that solar energy is cost effective; this is especially true if you are talking about solar heating. I sat on this for awhile; a bit annoyed and somewhat exhausted, as I looked back at how little solar energy is understood by the general public, much less a professor from a respected institution.

So I put my mathematically challenged brain to work. I decided to compare the costs of solar heating to nuclear power, by measuring the energy produced for initial cost of construction or installation -- apples for apples, real numbers.

The solar heating numbers come from a nationally certified BTU (KWH) energy meter. The meter is installed on the solar heating system that heats Valverde Energy's headquarters, which is my solar energy company. I have about 321 square feet of solar hot water collector area. This square footage would be a little more than we install on an average home. The electrical equivalent production of this solar system was about 18.9 Megawatt hours, or enough electrical equivalents to run 4 homes in the Taos, New Mexico area for this test period (note I am measuring the heat output of a solar hot water system, not a solar electric system).

Solar hot water systems produce heat only. Solar heat systems like this are 4-8 times more efficient at half the cost of solar electric systems for the same amount of roof space. Still with me? The take away here is that I am producing energy that heats water the same as electricity would, and right where it's needed. The really neat thing about solar heating is that storage of the energy is easy. No batteries! The water tank or the home is the storage system (this makes a well insulated house much more important!). I call this "point of use" storage.

Fukushima Daiichi reactor #3 output is 760 Megawatts. If I measure the output of the reactor (when it was running) for the same time frame as my solar system measurement, the reactor produces 6,876,480 Megawatt hours of energy. This is taking into account that "nuclear does it all night" and my solar system takes a break when there is no sun.

If we were to rebuild the Fukushima reactor #3 today it would cost about $3.5 billion dollars. To decommission it would cost about the same as it does to build - the total cost: $7 billion. This does not include fuel for the reactor or any issues such as core meltdown or property damage resulting from a catastrophic plant failure.

To produce the same amount of energy with solar hot water systems that Fukushima Daiichi reactor #3 produces, we would need about 363,653 solar systems similar to the one I have at Valverde Energy headquarters. At this quantity of solar systems I am figuring the cost to be about $8 billion. This does not include maintenance costs, which are the only recurring costs with solar systems. The lifespan of solar systems is similar to that of a nuclear power plant.

Some other points to note: solar heating systems will provide long term local jobs; a nuclear power plant has to be refueled about every 2-3 years; a solar heating system needs to be maintained about every 3-5 years. Locally installed solar systems do not need a huge infrastructure to deliver energy (the grid); the energy is essentially free after the solar system is installed. I also don't have a bunch of fuel rods to store or worry about as I would with a nuclear power plant, if all of the worst-imaginable catastrophic events were to happen to the solar system, my neighbor does not have to evacuate his or her home.

All of the information here is real measured numbers. The information in this article is to create food for thought and not meant to endorse one energy source over another, as most energy sources have good and bad points. I did not account for any subsidies or loan guarantees that both the solar and nuclear industries presently receive. I also did not take into account the environmental impacts of mining the raw materials and manufacturing processes for either the nuclear or solar industries -- too much math for me today! Perhaps that is best left to a professor at a respected institution like MIT.

Comments

Ferdinand E. Banks
9.9.11 There is room for solar in the optimal energy picture, and also wind. What there is NOT room for is solar and wind and a few other renewables and alternatives taking over the work of nuclear. What several of the top - and ignorant - energy bureaucrats in Sweden want is for wind and solar to carry the entire load. This is crazy.

Thirty percent of the Japanese electricity was supplied by nuclear. In twenty years that will probably be fifty. You mention subsidies. About 45% of Swedish nuclear capacity is nuclear, while probably more than 50% of energy (KWh) is nuclear. No subsidies have been involved. Taxpayers, as a group, have gained jobs and welfare rather than paid subsidies. Of course, some academics are too dumb to appreciate this, but that often is the case-

Jim Beyer
9.13.11 This is a specious argument. You can't compare the quality of energy produced from a nuclear power plant (electricity, 100% exergy) with water heated to 100 to 150 F. It's well-known that direct heating by electricity is a ghastly way to make use of that valuable resource. Better off using it to run a heat-pump (which would work well in New Mexico). That would drop the electrical costs of heating by a factor of 3 or 4.

Jennifer Zajac
9.13.11 Hi Larry:

Jim raises a good point: From my understanding of solar heating, it would take a tremendous amount of water to create such a utility-scale solar heating facility as you suggest, which would need to be piped to the Mohave Desert or similar location.

Wouldn't the costs associated with the water resources alone make solar heating too costly? I'd be interested in your response.

And thank you for writing this article. Regardless of how people view the costs associated with solar, the bottom line is that solar prices have declined over the decades.

More work is needed to drive down solar costs further. Our options for utility-scale generation are looking very limited right now. We need policies and technology development to diversify generation resources.

James Malinowski
9.13.11 It seems obvious, to me at least, that we need to get off burning fossil fuels in power plants either because of their contributions to global warming or because our generation should not be burning up so much of the worlds fossil fuel resources which future generations will need for chemical feed stocks to support our industrial base. Nuclear and renewables should both be developed to the extent they meet honest economic tests. Who has produced a comprehensive life cycle analysis of all of our energy options? How does nuclear compare with various solar and wind technologies when the energy required to manufacture, install and operate is compared to their life time energy production? The proponents of nuclear and renewables also need to recognize that the cost of storage should be included in their cost analysis if these technologies are to provide a fleet of resources that can follow load reliably.

constantin robitu
9.13.11 Dear Sir, Your money computation may be right if you speak on the same subject, I mean base electrical production plants which are nuclear or conventional. But, unfortunately you compare apples with cherries. What I mean, your comparison is not related to the equivalence of produced heat, but the final result which is not the same, meaning electrical energy. Your idea may be good if you connect a wind turbine station to an uphill pumping station in order to fill a lake and then some hydro turbines to produce electric energy and to save some produced energy. Then, you may compare the final product which is electrical energy versus spent money. I am appreciating your great interest and I may say your partisan promotion of solar solutions, meaning that you are fully dedicated to the solar energy production. With deep respect and consideration, Constantin Robitu

bill payne
9.13.11 Ballast weight for roof mount solar panels measures 6-8 pounds/square foot of panel area, we learned from Nate Campbell.

http://www.prosefights.org/nmsea08232011/nmsea08232011.htm#nate

Handyman Bobby Bridgewater is touching up our house and garage roofs.

I will ask his opinion of solar panels on roofs. :-)

Video interview with New Mexico rancher on Willard High Lonesome wind ranch, not farm, may interest readers?

http://www.prosefights.org/wind/willardwind/video/20110910121006.wmv

http://www.prosefights.org/wind/wind.htm