Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

I'm sure that this disaster will have an effect on the Japanese publics embrace of nuclear power once the costs of cleaning up and decommissioning 6 ruined reactors is realized. That may lead to Japan developing more solar and wind power generation facilities.

Little to no impact

None of the components of a typical solar installation are made in Japan so it won't effect the supply side.

Japan is a tiny country, even if they jumped on Solar in a big way, it wouldn't be a significant amount of the world market so the demand side won't change much either.

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

i have to address some of these points.

BB. wrote: »

The US lost over 3,000 people (plus ~double that from 2 recent wars, not including the locals of the region many times over suffering the results of war/terrorism) from 9-11-01 by an act of ~19 people...

the loss of life no matter the cause is sad and not very desirable.

Japan has possibly lost >10,000 people from a single act of nature (and ~several hundred thousand from a first hand view of nuclear war).

yes, it was a risk that something big could do them harm, but it's not like they didn't know they were prone and they took some steps i'm sure.

Trying to be careful what I say here (non-political forum--plus I don't want to use anyone's suffering to score political points)--But the risks of human civilization are real. Nuclear power is part of that risk--but so is driving a car, coal mining, oil production, and even forestry...

i don't see what this has to do with politics at all. do know there isn't a comparison to a car accident and similar scenarios with small harm potentials with what has happened with nuclear power accidents. i see you are trying to head off my pms to you with my opinions on having nuclear reactors in earthquake prone areas as you feel it is worth the risk. it is not when a catastrophic failure occurs and it is a much higher risk akin to having a glass house with rocks randomly thrown at it from time to time. radioactivity is a different kind of accident in that one does not see the damage quickly or definitively except in very high doses and that radiation is often times spread via winds and waters. it's true this can thin out some of the radiation the farther it is spread out, but some you just can't shake as it stays with you to continue doing damage.

i for one would not deny anybody the ability to produce power, but nuclear is a different kind of risk. if they had, say, coal generators (not selling that they should have them) that the quake and subsequent tsunami would not have posed any further threats other than as in any other building in those zones.

old reactors i'm sure have had retrofits and upgrades as they knew that anything that they did would help if the big one hits. they did not pull many punches when it came to trying to make them safer and i'm certain their reactors were far safer than ours are. my hats off to them for that effort as they put aside some of the bottom-line thinking for safety. i'm quite sure that the result over there would have been many times worse had they not taken steps, but it was not enough and may never be enough for an earthquake prone area. no reactor is earthquake proof.

Fortunately, we do not have that many mass populations to collect data on from radiation exposure--And I certainly would hope that we never do (again).

it is quite well known what the long-term as well as the short term effects of radioactivity are and they have had known accidents to confirm this even though you will not be given these results as you'd sue the you know what out of them and make it not a very cost effective way to produce power. believe it or not it is not a cost effective way to produce power and your tax dollars paid for most of our reactors even in the private sectors. talk about incentives.:roll:

-Bill

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

i'm not going to continue this much farther as i am not getting information through "contemporary news articles" and as i told you i did some work in the nuclear field years back. i know first hand how much contamination is actually there and it is far more than any releases encountered by coal. every tool, every piece of clothing, in fact anything in there is contaminated. do you think they just reuse the clothes, tools, etc.? do you have any idea what they do with contaminated items or the quantity of them? no, you don't as you are limited in your knowledge to the very same you accuse me of having and that being "contemporary news articles". i don't profess to be an expert, but i do know your arguments for nuclear under prone circumstances are weak and not based in fact. you do make feeble comparisons of risk and further shows you have no idea what you are dealing with with nuclear and this radiation is not being naturally produced or just a bad toxic chemical normally found in nature. there is no comparison to radiation found in nature except for that by nature's nuclear fusion found in stars. nuclear fission is not natural as it does not occur in nature and has releases far far above nature's background radiation through natural decays. even uranium as it is in nature is radioactive, but many of you probably did not know you could hold it in your hand in its natural state. i'll even go as far as to say radon gas is probably the worst nature has for us on earth and that's bad enough.

enough on the education, but it is still my opinion that the risks are not worth it in earthquake prone areas. the fact that the tsunami, in your opinion, did the worst of the damages is irrelevant as tsunamis go hand in hand with large earthquakes in and near water and they knew that risk too making the risk compounded.

what this boils down to is a difference of opinion on risk as you would take the risk and i would not. unfortunately, the risk isn't always just to those willing to build and live in an earthquake area and not very many of them that do, know the real score to properly evaluate the risks they are taking.

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

I believe the demand for solar panels will increase as a result of this tragedy and as a result the short term price will rise, however, the increased demand will also cause them to be produced in larger volume after the current stock is depleted and this should bring cost down, perhaps to prices even lower than before the tragedy. I base this on the information that Germany today has announced they are going to take offline several aging nuclear plants as a precaution. Germany is a manufacturer of solar panels and will likely offset a portion of the lost production capacity with solar capacity. This will likely be emulated worldwide and in the US this will probably further lengthen the approval wait time for the nuclear plants that were slated to be built here.

I believe that the days for large centralized power plants, no matter what the fuel source, are numbered. Nuclear, gas, coal, biomass, hydro, waste etc. all pose dangers. As the NIMBY mentality increases, a modular distributed power system becomes a much more practical approach and is much more efficient in the long run.

I work in Lynchburg, VA home of B&W Nuclear technologies and Areva. I own property within 15 mi. of one of the largest Uranium deposits in North America which is located in Axton, VA. I am not a stranger to nuclear technologies and have many friends which are on the cutting edge of nuclear energy development. The field has changed immensely just the last 10 years. Most of the talking heads you see on TV are people who worked in the business years ago and have no idea what can be done today and how it can be done.

Nuclear power can be done very safely, cleanly and efficiently and the waste is no longer a problem today like it was years ago due to improved re-processing techniques. The waste generated years ago from a plant would fill a freight car, today, the waste generated after producing several times the amount of power would barely fill a vial. Additionally it is no longer neccessary to have dangerous, huge, multi reactor commercial power plants.

In todays modern world, sealed, self-contained nuclear power generation systems can be built that are not much larger than a big backyard hot tub. They produce between 10 and 30 megawatts of electricity and have enough fuel to last between 15 and 30 years. They require no maintenance and are fully self-operational until the fuel is depleted. Once fuel is depleted the manufacturer comes and pickes it up, connects a new one and refuels the old one for redistribution.

One such reactor is being tested less than 10 mi. from where I sit writing this. These reactors are passively cooled and pose no potential for "melt-down".

The required testing and safety features that are required on this type of reactor are the only thing that has slowed its arrival to the market. You will probably first see them being purchased to power industrial sites as commercial power costs continue to rise. By using a self-contained reactor a manufacturer can guarantee reliable and clean power without having to purchase maintain and fuel diesel or NG powered gensets. They can lock in their energy costs. There is no carbon emmission from them and heat is the only environmental byproduct which can captured and used for processing.

As these become smaller and more affordable, small towns and communities will be able to purchase then and get rid of unsightly transmission lines and the environmental impact of stretching miles of them across the countryside from a large commercial scale power plant. Larger cities will install them to replace substations every few blocks.

This will lessen our dependency on foreign oil, be more resistant to attack and more robust without so many single points of failure as our current aging grid.

Wind, solar and hydro all have a place as transitional energy and clean power for individual homes well into the future, they will never be reliable enough however to fuel a mobile, industrialized civilization.

This reactor incidence in Japan is not a warning about what dangers nuclear energy poses, it is a warning about what trying to exist with old technology and failure to move forward with safer, clean power can do.

I have no political agenda, I think all forms of energy have a critical place in a thriving economy. It is intelligent and efficient use of all of our resources that is important to our environment and our way of life as well as our safety.

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

My hobby is satelite scanning. Right now there is a lot of broadcasting from Japan on NHK. I heard today the reason the diesel generators didn,t start was the electronics that start them got flooded out. So maybe there needs to be updates for sealed witeing ect. Also a few years ago I saw a program on NHK about home power units. It is suposed to be good for areas that have lots of natural gas. Instead of the grid your home power unit makes energy for your home. It was about the size of a refrigerator and you could have it in a power room or outside. Somehow it converted nat gas to electric throug some kind of chemical reaction and didn,t use a primemover. Has anyone ever heard about it besides me. Sounds a little like what hardway was talking about but I don,t think it was nucular.
Also on DW tv from Germany they said that the earthquake in Japan might affect thier assembly lines for BMW because they get some of thier components from Japan. Also I heard that some of the Japan carmakers in USA might suffer production cutbacks because a large part of the parts come from Japan. Also I heard it could help GM as there won,t be as many Japanese cars for sale for awhile. Not trying to be political, but It looks like the earthquake in Japan is going to have far reachs to other countrys as lots of products made in other countrys get a lot of thier components from Japan.
Solarvic

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

Solarvic,

You are correct in what you say about the Japanese auto plants. Honda and Toyota have shut down production lines. It is quite possible for the domestic lines to hurt too, do so many of the parts being sourced from Japan. This snowball has just started rolling on so many levels.

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

solarvic wrote: »

Also a few years ago I saw a program on NHK about home power units. It is suposed to be good for areas that have lots of natural gas. Instead of the grid your home power unit makes energy for your home. It was about the size of a refrigerator and you could have it in a power room or outside. Somehow it converted nat gas to electric throug some kind of chemical reaction and didn,t use a primemover. Has anyone ever heard about it besides me. Sounds a little like what hardway was talking about but I don,t think it was nucular.
Solarvic

http://bloomenergy.com/ maybe? Too big it looks like. Maybe this one http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/stories/first-hydrogen-fuel-cell-for-the-home Or this http://clearedgepower.com/categories/home-owner/pages/faq

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

I think what I saw on NHK was on the lune of the system like Panasonic. If we would have had them available here I night have bought one. Cheaper than a solar system. Neil Most citys and urban areas have gas lines anyway, so these could be viable. solarvic

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

here is some interesting information on an alternative fuel / reactor design

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/

Re: Price of Solar Panels in view of Japan's problems?

westbranch wrote: »

here is some interesting information on an alternative fuel / reactor design

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/

Lightbridge(Symbol LTBR) is the publicly traded poster boy of thorium nukes. Only interest so far has come from, you guessed it--the middle east.