frflyer

The Tellurium Supernova Has Erupted

What I find interesting about this whole tellurium availablility discussion is the idea that FSLR will be the only user of Tellurium.
If you have read the article in Scientific American called Solar Grand Plan, they propose using cadmium telluride solar cells in concentrating solar power plants in the U.S. southwest.

Scientific American A Solar Grand Plan
www.sciam.com/article....

From what I've been reading about solar power plants, it appears that solar thermal plants are a better idea for this proposal, and in general. The proposal advocates using both solar thermal and concentrating Pv power plants.
But their emphasis is on concentrating PV. It you look at the progress already being made with solar thermal in California, Arizona and Nevada, you'll see that small but significant steps are already being made. Green Wombat has a bunch of stories about this.
blogs.business2.com/gr.../

I had already read your articles about the possible lack of supply of telllurium, when I read the SciAm article.
All I could think is, where do they think they are going to get enough tellurium, if it already may be an issue with just FSLR's demannd? The SciAm article shows what is possible with solar, but I think the specifics need to be rethought.

www.ecogeek.org/conten.../
"Using mirrors to focus the sun's heat on one of any various heat-to-electricity converters seems to have separated itself out as being the cheapest form of solar power."

Also their idea to use caverns filled with compressed air to store energy for nightime power generation is interesting, but other methods, like using molten salt to store the heat are probable better, with less impact on the ground near the plants. Molten salt only loses 1% of it's heat in a day, so it is very efficient at storing energy.

From Ausra solar's website:
"All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

And now Abu Dhabi is investing billions in solar thermal power plant company Torresol. Check out what Green Wombat has to say.

The irony is too rich to leave unsaid: A leading oil producer invests billions in carbon-free energy while a leading consumer of fossil fuels - the United States - continues to subsidize Big Oil while while offering only tepid support for green technology."
"It is inevitable that climate change will foster the rise of renewable energy - the only question is which countries and companies will profit from the new energy economics. It is entirely possible that the U.S. will trade energy dependence of one kind - on Middle East oil - for another - on Middle East and European solar technology - in the era of global warming. It’s no coincidence that most of the solar energy companies with contracts to build utility-scale power plants in California and the Southwest have overseas roots - Ausra hails from Australia, BrightSource was founded by American-Israeli pioneer Arnold Goldman, Solel is based in Israel and Abengoa is headquartered in Spain."

We better wake up quickly in this country. The current proposal going through congress to renew alternative energy tax credits calls for spending $6 billion over 6 years. Meanwhile, one estimate is, that we give oil companies $80 billion annually in tax credits and subsidies. The Iraq war is costing us $6 billion every two weeks, and we can barely find the political will to ok this penny ante subsidy bill for alternatives.