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SunPower is approaching a 23% efficient PV. This helps it take business from typical 17% efficient PV. Dr. Richard Swanson, CEO, SunPower gave the conference good reason to expect continued high growth. He pointed out that in 1975 solar modules cost $100/watt. By 2002, the cost had fallen to $3 per watt. The industry learning curve of 30 years has been consistent – each time that production doubles, cost drops 81%. Dr. Swanson expects $1.40 per watt by 2013 and 65 cents per watt by 2023.
The rapid increase in efficiency of photovoltaics coupled by the decrease in cost per watt from the '70s to the present is represented by the return on investmen tin complexity, which rises rapidly from 0,0 to C1,B1. The salient question is: what point on the curve represents the return on current marginal investment in PV complexity? Probably somewhere between C1,B1 and C2,B2. Projections, like Dr. Swanson's that assume linearity in cost decrease per watt are basing this assumption on the roughly linear increase represented by the curve between 0,0 and C1,B1. But the reality is that the benefit from each marginal investment in photovoltaics at this point will return less and less. This technology cannot save us from the ultimate ramifications of diminishing marginal returns.
There is, in fact, some evidence that PV technology is already at the peak of the diminishing marginal return curve (C2,B2). Sunpower, the same company where Dr. Swanson extolls the historical decreasing cost of photovoltaics, recently made this press release:
...Overall, these changes result in a 43 percent increase in power, said Julie Blunden, vice president of external affairs at SunPower. Each panel can generate 315 watts of electricity and will have roughly the same cost per watt as the existing line, she said.When you improve "efficiency," but the cost of doing so keeps the cost per watt stagnant, then you have peaked on the diminishing marginal returns curve. Future increases in efficiency are most likely possible, but they will become so costly as to actually increase the cost per watt. Investment in complexity is inelegant, and will always run into exactly this problem...
Every now and then I get the sense that some people see me as a “doomer.” That I’m perceived as a bit of a pessimist about the future. I don’t know why. In the face of issues like peak oil, global warming, catabolic collapse, I don’t see any need for our quality of life to decrease. I do see a need for our quantity and mode of consumption to decrease—and I think some people are confusing the two. Many people are labeled “doomer” simply because they reject the general idea that technology will be able to save us from all our problems and guarantee the maintenance (even perpetual increase) of our consumer-driven society. I think that this demonstrates a failure to grasp two critical concepts—that extreme consumption does not equate to quality of life, and that technological complexification is not, in itself, of any value.
Technology is only of value to the degree that it provides for quality of life without creating negative power-relationships that outweigh that benefit. And such technology does not have to be complex or “advanced” at all. Technology is nothing more than “knowledge of technics” or knowledge of a technique—knowledge is power. A thin photovoltaic array or a genetically engineered bacterium that converts woody biomass to ethanol both represent technology. The question that we must ask is “does the quality of life provided by this technology outweigh the decrease of our quality of life from the power-relationships that we must enter in to in order to employ this technology?” As a general rule, when the answer is yes, the result is something that may be accurately described as “elegant simplicity.” When the answer is no, as I think it is with both the example of photovoltaics and biotech-ethanol, then the result is not “elegant simplicity.” In fact, because I am using “elegant” not in the vernacular, but as a term of art, the phrase “elegant simplicity” is actually redundant: “elegant” alone will suffice, because I use that term to imply a measure of simplicity—that the benefit from an “elegant” technology outweighs burden of the incurred hierarchy, when measured from the perspective of the median (not mean) individual.
Most people who categorize me as a “doomer” do so, in my opinion, because they fail to understand this concept. I think that the “solutions” presented by most people fail the criteria for elegant simplicity. These solutions—cellulosic ethanol, thin-film photovoltaics, genetically engineered pest-resistant crops, nuclear fusion—will not solve our problems because, at their core, they ARE our problems. The root problem facing human society at present is the composite of the power-relationships that we have submitted to in order to “benefit” from such “non-elegant” technology—what I have elsewhere labeled as “hierarchy.”
While the test laid out above for “elegance” is subjective, there are hallmarks of technologies that fall into the “elegant” and “non-elegant” categories. Elegant technology is probably vernacular, general, and contained. These may not be the best three characteristics to capture the entirety of “elegant,” but they are the three that I will use for now.
Vernacular, for our purposes, means used by and accessible to commoners (the “median individual” from above). It doesn’t require a specialist to understand or implement, but rather is generally accessible.
General, for our purposes, means broadly applicable. An elegant technology is one that can be applied to a broad set of circumstances, not something that is only applicable to a single and unique set of circumstances.
Contained means giving rise, on balance, to negative feedback loops. A contained technology solves one problem without creating two different and greater problems.
These three characteristics of elegant technologies—vernacular, general, and contained—are broad and subjective, but provide a framework for evaluating technologies. To put it as plainly as possible, such evaluation is critical because technologies that are elegant are part of the solution to the problems facing human society. Technologies that are not elegant are part of the problem. Let’s take a look at a specific area of technology: Solar Energy.
Non-Elegant Solar: We’ll start with a negative example—a non-elegant technology for the use of solar energy: photovoltaics. Photovoltaics are not vernacular. Do you know how to make one? Probably not, but even if you do, I’m quite sure that you don’t know how to make all of the machines and tools necessary to create photovoltaics. This is important because when a technology is outside the realm of the vernacular, use (specifically ‘reliance on’) that technology creates a dependency relationship between the user and the provider. Are photovoltaics a general technology? Probably—while they only serve to produce electricity, that is a pretty generally useful thing in our modern world. Are photovoltaics contained? No, for exactly the reasons cited above: such specialized and complex technology relies on a specialized and industrial society. Even if we deem specialization and industrialization to be positive benefits, the mere scope of these non-contained impacts makes this technology non-elegant. Ultimately, photovoltaics require a hierarchal society for implementation, and the problems incumbent in such hierarchy make the technology itself non-elegant.
Elegant Solar: So if photovoltaics are not elegant, does that make any use of solar energy non-elegant? No. Let’s take a particularly clear case. Solar orientation: the understanding that the sun transits a broadly east-west path, and that, north of the tropics, the sun shines primarily on the south side of anything. Is this even a technology? It may not fit the way we commonly think of that term, but it is clearly knowledge of a technique—that specific orientation has a specific effect in terms of solar gain. Is it vernacular? Yes, both potentially (everyone can understand it), and in reality as it is widely used in vernacular architecture. Is it general? Yes—it is quite broadly applicable in terms of architecture, agriculture, energy production, etc. Is it contained? Yes—this technology can be used without creating any outside impact. I can be as simple as planting a frost-sensitive tree on the south side of a rock wall instead of the north side, but it certainly doesn’t require specialization or industrialization. So, solar orientation is an excellent example of an elegant technology.
What is the broader relevance of this definition of “elegance”? Elegance is a solution to the problems of hierarchy. Because elegance is, by this definition, contained, it will foster localized, self-sufficient, and independent societies. Elegance is the feedstock of rhizome. And elegance is a concept that, if we set it as our goal, can steer the vast potential of human innovation to a positive, sustainable end that is compatible with human ontogeny. So I don’t think of myself as a “doomer.” I just think that dreams of a “Star Trek” future where “high” (read non-elegant) technology solves all of our problems is pure fantasy. And I don’t think that this is a bad thing.
Does solar energy—specifically photovoltaic (PV) panels—ever produce as much energy as the energy that was initially invested in their manufacture? Industry, academia, and government all seem to be in agreement that the answer is “yes.” (1)(2)(3) The consensus seems to be that PV produces as much energy as was used in its creation in a time period of 1-5 years, allowing PV to produce between 6 and 30 times more energy over its life than was used in its creation. These two answers—that PV produces more energy than is used in manufacture, and that PV provides an Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) of between 6:1 (2) and 30:1 (2)—suggest that photovoltaics can be and should be a cornerstone of our efforts to replace our reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels.
There are serious problems, however, with the methodology used at present to calculate the EROEI of solar panels. Some authors claim that life-span EROEI for photovoltaics is as high as 50, but provide no information for how that figure is calculated. (4) Others, such as
* Installation: PV does not good sitting in the factory. It must be installed, and this takes labor. There are various ways of accounting for the energy represented by such labor, but it certainly takes energy.
* Transportation: PV has to get to the installation site. Efficient manufacture is only possible if it is centralized, but this means that it must be shipped—usually by truck, which requires both the fuel directly consumed by shipping, plus the energy consumed in the entire chain of operation necessary to construct the truck, as well as the labor cost of the driver, which also represents an energy input.
* Manufacturing plant: EROEI calculations usually account for the energy consumption of the manufacturing plant, but not for the construction of the manufacturing plant itself, as well as the construction of all the machines used on the PV assembly line (PV advocates often point out that silicon is the most abundant element on earth and therefore requires very little energy to acquire—but this is NOT true for the highly advanced manufacturing machinery necessary to create PV cells, usually made from metals that require great energy input for extraction). If we take the total energy required to create one PV manufacturing plant as well as its expected lifetime production, we can then calculate how much of that energy should be attributed to a given quantity of PV panel.
* Labor: One of the key components in the production of PV panels is human input, and yet this energy cost is not accounted for in standard EROEI calculations. I’m not referring to the actual calories expended operating an assembly line, or answer the phones in the front office, but rather the energy consumed in the course of these people’s daily lives—energy that must be accounted for because it is part of the support structure necessary to create a PV panel. No employees, no PV.
These embodied energy costs in the creation of a PV panel (called “emergy”) are difficult to calculate. We can regress infinitely, eventually going so far as to account for the portion of energy consumed by a rice farmer in China in order to fill the belly of a Merchant Marine captain shipping machine parts across the Pacific, ad infinitum. How do we actually get a composite sense of the total embodied energy in PV production? One way—and certainly not a perfect way—is to use the market’s ability to set prices as an equivalent for embodied energy. This is what I am calling “Price-Estimated EROEI Theory.” It basically suggests that the most accurate representation of the total energy embodied in ANY product is the price of that product. In our example above, the energy required to install PV can be accounted for by the cost of that service. The energy required to transport, to build a manufacturing plant, to employ workers, etc.—all component energy contributions in the production of PV increase the market price of the resulting product.
So what is the Price-estimated EROEI of PV? If we accept that the price of an installed PV system is representative of the energy used, then we can compare that price with the quantity of energy produced over the lifetime of that system (which also has a market price) and reach an EROEI ratio. There are variables involved here, but when we use market-price to account for the full spectrum of energy “invested” in PV, we reach an EROEI of approximately 1:1 (*see full calculations below). This is dramatically different than the 6:1, 30:1, or 40:1 suggested by most sources. Which figure should we rely upon? While I recognize that price-estimated EROEI is not a perfect calculation, at least it attempts to account for the full spectrum of energy inputs, and the precautionary principle suggests that we should err on the side of this number (1:1) as opposed to the quite optimistic figures coming from the PV industry or the government.
Ultimately there is only one way to definitively answer this questions: The bootstrap challenge. I have previously stated that when I see an ethanol plant that distills their ethanol USING ethanol (not natural gas or coal), then I will seriously reconsider the merits of that alternative energy source. Likewise, when I see a PV production plant that is powered entirely by PV, containing machines manufactured at plants powered entirely by PV, machines composed of materials mined, refined, and shipped entirely under PV power, etc., then I will believe that PV has an EROEI greater than 1:1. With an EROEI like 30:1, this should be no problem . . . so the fact that this is not the case is yet another argument, at least in my mind, that reality stands closer to the 1:1 figure.
EROEI is not just a nifty academic exercise. The outcome of the debate on EROEI—whether for PV panels, ethanol production, nuclear fission—is critically important for the future of our economy and society. Regardless of the exact timeline, it is not seriously disputed that non-renewable energy sources such as oil, gas, and coal—all with high EROEI—are running out. There is a commonplace assumption that we will create alternatives to replace them, but at present these alternatives—from PV to ethanol—are all being produced with the very fossil fuels that are disappearing. When they are effectively gone, only energy sources with an EROEI of greater than 1:1 will be viable—and even then, our economy, with its demand for constant growth, cannot survive on energy with an EROEI of 2:1 or 5:1. For that reason, it is critical that we more carefully address this EROEI debate today. If alternative, truly renewable sources of energy cannot match—and eventually improve upon—the EROEI of today’s energy sources, then we must conduct a serious reappraisal of the fundamental structure of our society. My analysis suggests that we must do exactly that.
* CALCULATION: 2 KW complete PV system installed in
REFERENCES:
(1) http://jupiter.clarion.edu/~jpearce/Papers/netenergy.pdf
(2) http://www.nrel.gov/ncpv/energy_payback.html
(3) http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/smt310-handouts/solarpan/pvpayback.htm
(4) http://www.solar2006.org/presentations/forums/f36-swenson.pdf