Study: Solar power could add 123,000 new jobs by 2020

Development of the solar energy industry in Texas would have a significant economic impact for consumers, the environment and workers, according to a study released by the IC2 Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

Opportunity on the Horizon: Photovoltaics in Texas finds the benefits of nurturing the solar energy industry will stimulate the state's economy, reduce the cost of power for consumers and minimize greenhouse gas emissions.

"Worldwide, the cost of converting sunlight to electricity is rapidly decreasing. The right public policies, combined with emerging and increasingly efficient technologies in solar power, would create a solid opportunity for Texas to build an economic engine on this non-polluting resource," Joel Serface of Clean Energy Incubator said.

The paper cites a recent University of California-Berkeley study that finds the solar industry produces seven to 11 times as many jobs on a megawatt capacity basis as coal-fired power plants and has a larger positive trickle-down effect than wind energy.

Estimates suggest Texas could generate 123,000 new high-wage, technology-related, advanced manufacturing and electrical services jobs by 2020 by actively moving toward solar power. It is predicted these jobs would be created across the entire state as large solar farms grow in West Texas, silicon plants develop along the Gulf Coast and manufacturing centers appear in Central Texas.

The report evaluates the competitive benefits Texas has in the worldwide market and compares the overall results of Texan efforts against other states and international competitors. The study notes that although Texas consumed more energy than any other state and has the best overall climate for producing solar energy year-round, it ranked 8th in solar adoption in 2006, producing just 1/100th of the solar energy of California.

Texans pay about 13 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. It is believed that the production of photovoltaics, like other semiconductors, would follow a predictable decline in costs. Analysts predict this cost decline will translate to between 10 to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour as early as 2010.

In 1999, the Texas Legislature adopted a bill that introduced the retail competition in the sale of electricity and renewable portfolio standards (RPS) to consumers. Since 2002, electricity-users in deregulated markets have been able to choose their power providers from a multitude of retailers. The legislation requires energy providers to increase the amount of renewable energy produced through a combination of solar, wind, geothermal, hydro wave, tidal, biomass-based waste products or landfill gas.

To date, energy producers have chosen to focus on wind energy for a multitude of reasons, including federal tax incentives for producers, the large amount of wind resources in the state and the scalability of large wind projects. The report concludes that the legislation has brought many benefits to consumers across the state and can be used as a roadmap for the successful expansion of solar power across the state.

Worldwide, investors are confident in the future of solar power. The solar industry grew to $10.6 billion in revenues in 2006 and is estimated to be greater than $30 billion, with some analyst estimates as high as $72 billion for the entire solar value chain by 2010.

The report outlines several recommendations to strengthen the state's solar strategy. Starting with leadership to create the policies necessary for success, Texas could leverage its natural resources, skilled workforce, existing industries and entrepreneurial spirit to create a new energy industry, the report says.

This is where the global warming factor comes in, not to mention the (reasonable imho) objections to pollution in local areas that have coal plants. The tide is shifting where, for various reasons, coal plants are goign to be resisted a lot more heavily by interest groups and local communities than nuclear plants will be. We saw that in Texas this past year.

This is, in my opinion, unfortunate. The entire global warming (CO2) issue is political bunk, and it will be a shame that such issues continue to make their mark on the US.

Being in the electric utility industry, I've seen the negative effects that nuclear power has brought forth - no, they're not unsafe. And no, they're not really a major pollution issue. But they way they are operated - the micromanagement and procedurized methodology tends to stifle innovation and nudges thinking, intelligent people into procedure-following robots.

I've not worked in nuclear, but I've been in the power industry for almost 3 decades. I've watched as the nuclear methods trickle into the rest of the industry and I'm not impressed. Right now, I work with several newer people that, due to lack of experience in applying basic theory and innovation, are lost if there's no procedure already written for their particular situation. They simply cannot perform in unfamiliar territory. And with the proceduralized management approach, they are not given enough unfamiliar situations in which to hone their skills. Not only that but they've been made to be scared to think for themselves. Management has taken on a very "Germanic" (for lack of a better word) approach to how we operate.

...the micromanagement and procedurized methodology tends to stifle innovation and nudges thinking, intelligent people into procedure-following robots.

The regulators beat a lot of operators into this mindset, everything had to be procedurized, right down to how you made a fart. One of my jobs as a consultant was to write a set of scram response procedures for a power reactor, wherein the response to a whole set of scram conditions was the same ("Acknowledge the annunciator. Affirm that rods are on the bottom. Consult ATOG display for plant evolution. Etc. ..."). I asked the operations manager if he really wanted 20 or 30 pages in his procedure manual that said essentially the same thing, stuff that any operator trainee would know. His response was, yes, we had to do it, because Mr. So-And-So (NRC resident inspector) says we have to.

Those of us working stiffs in the electric utility industry predicted that natural gas rates would skyrocket, which they did. Adding a large chunk of demand vs. a slowly-changing supply did the trick.

Probably one of the most bone-headed disasters this country ever undertook, using NG in central power stations, whether it be baseload, GT, or combined cycle, whatever. Anyone with an elementary knowledge of economics could see the fallout. Huge increase in demand and a limited supply means skyrocketing prices and shortages. The wackos won't allow any increase in supply (try siting an LNG terminal, which makes siting a nuclear plant seem like child's play). So costs go up, supply dwindles. Yep, sure takes a brainiac to figure that one out.

So we're diverting a perfectly transportable fuel, one very well matched to end use in many applications (building heating, cooking, some industrial processes) and burning it up making electricity, which involves losses, and transporting that, which incurs further losses. The very first thing a nuclear revival, if it happens, should displace, is use of NG in utility applications, as much as possible. And if that means spending some effort improving the load-following capability of nuclear plants, I say do it, and save the NG for better uses.

As one who heats their home primarily with natural gas, I could not agree more! I'm almost inclined to get a cast-iron stove and burn wood and/or coal for primary heat, utilizing gas for secondary. I'm not sure how the neighbors would react to that wonderful scent of slowly-burning coal in the air, though. :)

Indeed, gas serves best for home heating and special industrial furnace applications where precise heat control is needed. Fortunately, both utilities I've worked for utilize primarily coal for generation, but several of the plants are getting quite old. NG is sometimes useful for quick-start emergency generation, filling a need for short-term peaks or until fossil, hydro, or nuclear generation can be brought up to displace it. But it's value as a longer-term generation for baseload or even daily peak is poor, due to the fuel cost.

I'm not 100% certain of the dynamics of gas transportation, but I would venture to say that for long-range transportation, natural gas is relatively lossless compared to AC power transmission. Wire capacity is seldom the most critical factor - once a transmission line is loaded beyond its surge impedance loading, it absorbes reactive power (not to be confused with nuclear reactors, of course) and voltage support must be supplied to the line to maintain efficient movement of power.

This is a problem with locating generation far from the load center, and is counterproductive to the NIMBY arguement. It is also probably one of the reasons that NG generation became popular 10 or so years ago. I can't imagine building a 500-1000 megawatt coal-fired plant right in the middle of downtown Cleveland or Orlando. But a couple of 100 megawatt peakers near the city are an easy, cheap substitute - except for the price of gas, that is.

A little of both.

Well, despite "deregulating" authoritarians, in terms of the physics, generation and transmission work together.

I put 'deregulating' in quotation marks because the industry has not been deregulated - it has been regulated in a different manner, and not necessarily one that molds itself well to the physical characteristics of power system dynamics. When I was at TVA, which wasn't quite as drastically affected by deregulation, I could yell across the room to the hydro power dispatcher if I needed a change in generation allocation to alleviate a congestion problem without consequence. Try that with today's ISO!

NIMBYs often advocate distant siting of generating facilities, yet never seem to give a thought to the implications of that on transmission infrastructure and line losses. Whenever I bring this up in "debates" with NIMBYs, all I get is the deer-in-the-headlights look. One that really got my goat was a proposal by the windy NIMBYs for locating windmills offshore along a stretch of the east coast running from the New England region to just south of Cape Hatteras. I can't imagine the nightmare that would be for siting, building, and maintaining transmission infrastructure.

In my state alone a local transmission operator has just given up the ghost on siting a HV line from the southern part of the state to the northeastern part, which would help alleviate some of the bottleneck in the Great Lakes regional grid power flows. They worked for 10 years on it. The NIMBYs crawled out of the woodwork on that one, raising issues from killing trees to affecting the lifestyle of the Amish in the northern part of the state.

We share a state! I recall a transmission line project that was proposed in the 1970's but was stopped by court action in the 1980's - it was a north-south route into the Cleveland area that, had it been built, would likely have prevented the blackout of August, 2003. One of the reasons for cancellation cited in the court hearing was the cancellation of a second generating unit at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant.

There is a definite need for either more south-north transmission in Ohio, or more generating capacity along lake Erie. There are other major population areas with similar problems, of course.

Yeah, I think that was the one. The attorneys dragged in the Amish complaints for their settlements in the Northeast. While I admire the Amish work ethic, I couldn't quite get on board with their complaints about the HV line. I mean, they don't have to use the power, just be a good neighbor to the transmission towers. They do that all the time with highways, air traffic, and other industrial infrastructure.

The anti-nukes got on board because of the Perry relationship. Anything to make it more difficult for utilities, I guess.

You were at the TVA dispatch center? Ever seen the one at AEP? Pretty impressive.

I'm not convinced that it was the Amish that were so strongly against the transmission line as it was leftist groups that hijacked the Amish cause to fight the line. At any rate, lawyers defeated the line and left the grid in it's present condition.

You were at the TVA dispatch center? Ever seen the one at AEP? Pretty impressive.

The TVA dispatch center was very nice in terms of aesthetics. Built for looks (and almost daily tours), though functionally, it was a bit less desireable. TVA used these long station blueprints, folded up like an accordian. You couldn't open an entire print on the table space provided, which made it difficult to write switching procedures. Plus, TVA decided 3 years ago that we needed cameras looking over our shoulders 24/7 "for our own protection" (which is one reason that I left).

FirstEnergy's control center is also quite nice, after having been completely rebuilt. Unfortunately, there is also great concern for aesthetics at the expense of functionality there as well. But it works fairly well.

I've never seen AEP's control center, though I was quite interested in looking at their operation a year ago. The word around the industry is that their pay scales are lower than average for these jobs, so I was a bit reluctant to look there. But, having become vested in TVA's retirement plan, I was actively circulating my resume and had I not had a line at FE, I would certainly have expanded my search to include AEP and others.

The Amish were used by the intervenors and that was probably why they were involved. I think someone used some kind of fear tactic to browbeat them into joining the lawsuits. Typical intervenor tactics.

I'd have to agree with your response to the "cameras over the shoulder" business. Just another tool autocratic management can use to keep employees in line. We had to fight that battle where I am now only the excuse then was "security".

AEP may pay less than others, I'm not sure. They have a lot of youngish types there now so I think that supports that conjecture. They're building (or maybe have built by now) a new standalone center and they just went apesh*t on security. Things like a moat surrounding the facility with fake, collapsible bridges to trap any unauthorized vehicles that might try to drive up to the place unescorted, that kind of thing. Not as stringent as at a nuclear plant, but close.

It was especially troubling being at TVA. The management seemed intent to watch us, but they let plenty of people abuse their sick time (it was a pre-retirement ritual to use up ones' sick time) and had a tendency to promote those that couldn't perform the job just to get them out of a position where they could potentially hurt somebody. They continually kissed the union's butt and rewrote our procedures over and over again to accomodate the weakest link.

We weren't ever given a solid reason for the cameras, but security was one of the inferred reasons. My answer to that was that if they were concerned about security, they ought to issue everybody a sidearm (of course, being in Tennessee, about half of us were armed anyway).

I guess it falls under the same reasoning they used to obtain hazmat suits with air tanks, but only supplied enough of them for about 1/2 of the people in the room (presumably, the 1/2 that were armed would have a higher chance of getting one of these if events dictated their necessity). Those only lasted a couple of years since they didn't keep up our annual training at donning and doffing the suits. Your homeland security tax dollars at work!

Hyper security is the latest trend. I have to pass my card 5 times to get into the control room here at FE, and had to do so twice and scan my palm at TVA. But our guard is not armed, and we have signs all over the building here in FE that state that firearms are not permitted on the premises. I don't know about you, but I'd feel a lot more secure if half the workforce had the means to sling lead at any wannabe bad guy that got in the building.

As many background checks as you need to pass to get into these facilities to work, I'm sure they'd pass a firearms permit background check. It is my belief that people with access to the Vital Areas should be armed. Certainly the security people should.

This is strange. At Davis-Besse and Point Beach the security forces were armed to the teeth. Kewaunee also. In fact, at almost every nuclear plant I have been to they were heavily armed and ran training exercises all the time, hostage-taking, threats to structures, outside force intrusion, etc. Even the Battelle Research Labs had armed security personnel.

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