Zowie!!! Here is one of the most significant pieces of news in all the years I have been advocating for renewables.
A manufacturing plant built in America by an American company, costing 680m, producing 500+ jobs, and manufacturing 3300MW of solar panels PER YEAR. Why is this so significant?
The growing shift from fossil fuels requires the ramp-up of renewables and storage. Up to now, most of the solar panels utilized worldwide were manufactured in China, with their government subsidies and support dominating the industry. Building the manufacturing industry here in the US displaces the import tariffs, transportation, and availability issues, and creates not only the manufacturing jobs but all the other associated infrastructure necessary for their deployment. Lots of jobs!
But the most significant feature is a blow to the pathetic and laughable nuclear industry. Because of its intermittent availability, we (Humboldt State) showed that at the Marine Lab, 1/3 of the solar array supplied the electricity needed to run the pumps, etc, while 2/3 of the solar energy was converted to Hydrogen which was then used in a fuel cell to run the equipment at night and when the sun wasn’t shining. So, if the new manufacturing plant produces 3300MW of solar generating capacity, 1/3 could be deployed for direct use, while 2/3 could be put into storage…batteries, and more probable Hydrogen in the future.
The last big nuclear power plant being built here in the US is Vogle #3 in Georgia and it has 1100MW of capacity. Begun in 2006 with a price tag of $8 billion, it is 16 years in the making, and finishing it in the next few years will bring the price to over $14 billion. The new generation of small modular reactors are decades away from commercialization (construction of the first pilot 365MW reactor in Wyoming) has not even begun yet, and will take years to build, test to see if the new technology will actually work, certify and license with the NRC and regulating bodies, and then either manufacturing on-site, or in the “factory” to be built that would fabricate and assemble the reactor vessels which would then be shipped out and installed at some location along with all the necessary infrastructure. The specialized “new’ fuel will have to be produced, again with no thought or estimate as to what will happen to it when it is “spent.” How long for all this to happen??? Ten years? Twenty years? How much will it cost? Decommissioning? Waste disposal?
Meanwhile
back in Ohio, the First Solar plant has produced the equivalent of one nuclear
plant at the end of its first year. Those solar panels will be marketed and
installed, producing 3300MW of clean, cheap, free fuel, no radioactive waste
products… electricity added to our grid, used in small microgrids, or product exported
to other countries throughout the world.
At the end of the following year, the same amount of capacity (3300MW)
and production is added to the energy pool.
At the end of 10 years, when/if the Wyoming plant comes on-line with
365MW, First Solar will have put the equivalent of 30 of these SMRs into our
electricity mix. By then, we will have
figured out the mix of storage…be it hydrogen, batteries, pumped storage, or
whatever.
American energy, American investment, American Jobs, and the addition and replacement of dirty electricity generation with cleaner, cheaper, more sustainable, and socially acceptable energy. How many other companies will follow this path and construct new manufacturing plants? What about all the other support industries…mounting racks, inverter and software technology, grid interties, battery and fuel cell manufacturing, companies hiring installers and maintenance personnel…it goes on and on.
Adding to all this, we need to keep in mind all the other aspects of the energy we use. A huge new industry in WIND…once the product of Denmark, etc, is in the US pipeline to do the same thing, with local manufacturing, assembly, installation on and offshore, and maintenance…creating a whole new array of jobs and economy. Energy efficiency and the new technology of managing energy demand and use…all the things that have been dreamed about and advocated for years are at our doorstep. Lots of issues to deal with…political, economic, environmental, and social; but we CAN meet the growing demand for electricity in our transition from fossil fuels!
The bright light of the sun is shining through!!!
