Rising Oil Prices Vs Solar Energy

Rapidly rising oil prices have led to such a demand for solar energy that the industry could operate itself without subsidies in just a few years, according to industry leaders.

At the Munich solar industry trade fair, industry leaders were increasingly confident that grid parity - where electricity from the sun can be produced as cheaply as it can be bought from the grid - is now just a few years away.

Solar photovoltaics (PV), which convert sunlight into electrical power, have long been dismissed as too expensive and not efficient enough to make a meaningful contribution to the battle against climate change.

But costs are falling dramatically as PV production escalates as electricity prices rise rapidly year on year in line with soaring oil and gas prices.

Germany now has nearly half a million houses fitted with PV panels. The feed-in tariff pays people with solar panels above-market rates for selling power back to the grid. Governments around the world might well take notice of the German approach.

With high oil prices have boosting demand even more. The market will probably expand another 40% this year, according to the German solar industry association.

Previous predictions that grid parity would be reached in Germany in 5-7 years, now look very conservative since. Germanys predictions allowed for only a 3% rise in electricity prices each year. In many countries increases of 20% a year are becoming the norm.

The China-based Suntech, the world's biggest maker of PV panels, plans to double production this year.

They believe grid parity in Germany can be reached within 5 years. In California and Italy, where there is lots of sun and high electricity prices, they said grid parity for PV systems had already been achieved.

And the great thing about solar energy is that although you have an upfront cost, the fuel is free and is not controlled by another country.

PV costs are falling rapidly and will continue to do so as the efficiency of panels improve and installation costs drop. Moreover, the price of silicon - which can be 70% of panel costs - is also likely to fall as new production technology becomes available.

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Oil Freedom through Solar Energy

• A massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S.’s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050.
• A vast area of photovoltaic cells would have to be erected in the Southwest. Excess daytime energy would be stored as compressed air in underground caverns to be tapped during nighttime hours.
• Large solar concentrator power plants would be built as well.
• A new direct-current power transmission backbone would deliver solar electricity across the country.
• But $420 billion in subsidies from 2011 to 2050 would be required to fund the infrastructure and make it cost-competitive. {That is equivalent to 1 year of military expenditures}

High prices for gasoline and home heating oil are here to stay. The U.S. is at war in the Middle East at least in part to protect its foreign oil interests. And as China, India and other nations rapidly increase their demand for fossil fuels, future fighting over energy looms large. In the meantime, power plants that burn coal, oil and natural gas, as well as vehicles everywhere, continue to pour millions of tons of pollutants and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually, threatening the planet.

Well-meaning scientists, engineers, economists and politicians have proposed various steps that could slightly reduce fossil-fuel use and emissions. These steps are not enough. The U.S. needs a bold plan to free itself from fossil fuels. Our analysis convinces us that a massive switch to solar power is the logical answer.

Solar energy’s potential is off the chart. The energy in sunlight striking the earth for 40 minutes is equivalent to global energy consumption for a year. The U.S. is lucky to be endowed with a vast resource; at least 250,000 square miles of land in the Southwest alone are suitable for constructing solar power plants, and that land receives more than 4,500 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) of solar radiation a year. Converting only 2.5 percent of that radiation into electricity would match the nation’s total energy consumption in 2006.

To convert the country to solar power, huge tracts of land would have to be covered with photovoltaic panels and solar heating troughs. A direct-current (DC) transmission backbone would also have to be erected to send that energy efficiently across the nation.


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High lubricant Prices will make good for Renewables

1. Present high oil prices make life difficult in poorer countries but at the same time also help fuel development of renewable energy sources
   
2. There are several dilemmas regarding the high oil price.
   
3. It makes it difficult for the poor countries. At the same time renewable energy will be developed faster, which is good.

Higher Oil Prices Make Renewable Energy Living

Human Beings talk a more about alternative fuels being more Living with oil at such high prices. It also, however, makes other, more exotic, fossil fuel extraction techniques viable. This piece in the UK’s Independent outlines how oil reserves are understated because certain known fields are too expensive to extract at this time - and therefore are excluded from oil reserve projections (an important point that I would wager that many investors don’t understand).

The risk for green investors (and the environment for that matter) is that, if true, tapping oil reserves such as these could grow oil supply over current projections (even if its at these current high prices) - driving out the peak oil scenario longer than anticipated by Wall Street. (This is the kind of stuff investors and analysts miss all the time).

Emerging Oil Prices making Renewable Energy More Powerful

"Emerging fossil fuel prices are making renewable energy more involving in the global market"

Renewable energy can't offer much relief to drivers and companies seeing their profits evaporate because of skyrocketing oil prices, because viable green alternatives to gasoline are hard to find. Biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel aren't widely available, and hydrogen-powered cars aren't expected to hit the market for years.

Price curves
But in the electricity market, green power, especially wind, is already competing with traditional sources. At today's average wholesale prices, wind costs 4.2 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with 4 cents for coal, 6.8 cents for natural gas, 9.1 cents for oil and 10 cents for nuclear power, according to Kyle Datta, managing director at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a research group focused on eco-friendly business.

Experts estimate that at today's consumption rates, known global supplies of oil and natural gas would be depleted within decades. But prices are expected to rise significantly long before supplies run out, making those fuels too expensive to use at current levels.

"They're never going to run out, but the ability to match supply to demand may already have run out, especially for oil," said Stephen Leeb, president of Leeb Capital Management and co-author of "The Oil Factor," which predicts that oil could hit $100 a barrel by 2010.

In the short term, fossil fuel prices are being driven up by war, political instability, natural disasters and other variables. The long-term outlook is clearer — global supplies are dwindling as demand soars, particularly in China and India, where automobiles are multiplying and economies are growing a breakneck speed.

"We should treat the prices as a warning that we need to act to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy," said Ralph Cavanagh, an energy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They represent a terrible threat to the vitality of the United States."

Meanwhile, improving technology, tax credits, low interest rates and government mandates are making renewables more widely available, establishing an inexhaustible energy supply that will keep driving prices down.