Objective, neutral Forecasts

1
Objective, neutral Forecasts Desired future
Backcasts Normative values Scenarios
Michael Totten Conservation International January
27, 2006
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Vaclav Smil
Chapter 3 on Against Forecasting is
superb. Essential reading about forecasting
energy supply and price.
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Off by 714 billion gallons of gasoline
1 ExaJoule6.8 billion gallons of gasoline
105 EJ
US govt.s Energy Independence legislation
Corporate government projections of total U.S.
primary energy use from the 1970s. Forecasters
clearly did not anticipate the ability of the
economy to deliver energy services with less
consumption, cost and risk..
4
Amory Lovins
1 billion gallons/day
Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols
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Multiple uncertainties uncontrollables
(forecasting)
Scenario planning is appropriate for systems in
which there is a lot of uncertainty that is not
controllable. In other cases optimal control,
hedging, or adaptive management may be
appropriate responses.
G. Peterson et al., Scenario Planning, a tool
for conservation in an uncertain world,
Conservation Biology, V. 172, April 2003
6
Cloudy Crystal Ball
BACKCASTING SCENARIOS reason from a desired
future situation and offer a number of different
strategies to reach this situation. NORMATIVE
SCENARIOS take values and interests into account.
European Environment Agency
http//europa.eu.int/
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Normative values Scenario
Select a portfolio of market-based energy service
options, policies, incentives and regulatory
measures that satisfy multiple criteria for
accruing myriad values and benefits, including

• Optimizing the delivery of efficient energy
  services at the point of use as the key goal,
  rather than simply expanding ever-larger
  resource supplies shipped over ever-longer
  distances
• Biodiversity friendly (terrestrial, freshwater,
  marine)
• Economically affordable now, or in foreseeable
  future (via RD)
• Risk resistant and risk-manageable against
  inflation, price spikes, sudden disruptions, acts
  of nature or malicious attack
• Resilient - if the energy system fails, it fails
  gracefully, not catastrophically
• Climate, Air Water Quality friendly
• Externalities and adverse impacts are minimal and
  capable of further reduction through innovation
  and best practices
• Experience Curves are robust - potential for
  significant, ongoing improvements in cost,
  performance, reduced footprint, etc. through
  ongoing RD and cumulative learning experiences

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Visualizing Planetary Overheating
Humans release greenhouse gas emissions (carbon
dioxide, CO2) equivalent to a Mount St. Helen
volcanic eruption every other day Atmospheric
CO2 concentration now 380 parts per million (ppm)
and increasing 2 ppm annually Most coral reefs
will die when atmospheric levels exceed 450 ppm
high uncontrol uncertainty
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Visualizing Rapid Overheating
1100
The present atmospheric CO2 concentration has not
been exceeded during the past 420,000 years and
likely not during the past 20 million years.
Global temperature rising 15 to 60 times faster
than historical natural rate.
Your grandchildrens lifespan
Your childrens lifespan
Your lifespan
Your parents lifespan
Today
carbon dioxide
methane
Past 400,000 years
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Species at risk of extinctionfrom climate change
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Climate Threat
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25 billion tons of CO2 emissions/year are
lowering the oceans pH and acidifying the ocean,
detrimental to organisms that secrete shell
material made of calcium carbonate, e.g.
phytoplankton and coral reefs. Scientists warn
the ocean pH change will persist for millennia
and acidified to a much greater extent than has
occurred naturally in at least 800,000 years
Royal Society UK
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http//www.ipcc.ch/
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Range of global energy-related and industrial CO2
emissions for the 40 SRES scenarios
Historically, gross CO2 emissions have increased
at an average rate of about 1.7 per year since
1900. If that historical trend continues global
emissions would double during the next three to
four decades and increase more than sixfold by
2100.
1990 range
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2005 GHG emissions 5 GtC
How much in a world twice as populated and 10X
the gross world product in 2100?
16
Stabilizing atmospheric GHG levels
Contraction Convergence . . . the logical
conclusion of a rights-based approach. IPCC
Third Assessment - June 2000
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HOW TO TRANSFORM MARKETS INTO CLEAN, SAFE,
SECURE, SUSTAINABLE ONES?
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OIL SUPPLY unSAFE, inSECURE, unSUSTAINABLE
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Oil Disruption Vulnerabilities
Below Saddam Hussein's setting fire to the oil
wells in Kuwait, February 1991. The black smoke
plumes of more than 700 individual oil well fires
are being blown to the south.
Oil tankers must run a gauntlet of narrow
sealanes. About a fourth of the non-Communist
worlds oil must pass through the Strait of
Hormuz. The Strait connects the Persian Gulf, to
the left, with the Gulf of Oman, to the right.
The mainland of Iran is at the top.
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NUCLEAR POWER?
The fascination with nuclear power is due to the
fact that 1 ton of uranium can displace 20,000
tons of coal
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Unfortunately, uranium-generated electricity
carries some intrinsic downsides that are
inherently intractable

• Ever-present target of nuclear facilities for
  military or terrorist attack
• Dual civilian-military nature of a nuclear
  reactor
• Proliferation of weapons-grade material
• Diversion of uranium fuel for military or
  terrorist use in fabricating atomic bombs
• Contaminant fuel wastes that remain radioactive
  for millennia and,
• Generating systems that can fail
  catastrophically, with disastrous human health
  and ecological consequences lasting for
  generations, and economic impacts lasting for
  centuries

high uncontrol uncertainty
Displacing coal use worldwide by 2100 would
require constructing a 100 MW nuclear reactor
every 10 hours for the entire century. It would
require reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium for
use in breeder reactors by 2050. This would
produce 5 million kilograms of plutonium per
year, equal to 500,000 atomic bombs, annually
circulating in global commerce.
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Terrorism the 21st Century Reality
After the September 11th terrorist attack with
airplanes it is a most uncertain world presenting
inherently unanswerable What-if questions.
Among the many sources of electricity, nuclear
power creates a target with the greatest risk of
major, destructive acts of terrorism and acts of
aggression by national or sub-national groups.
If not, why President Congress spending 1
trillion every 30 months on Military
Security? Wiretapping citizens? Imprisioning
uncharged, untried suspicious citizens?
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Nuclear reactors as targets?
Unlike the World Trade Center disaster, a hit on
a nuclear reactor would unleash orders of
magnitude greater damage both in scale and over
time. Over 300 BILLION IN LOSSES.
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Chernobyls triggered maliciously?
The Chernobyl accident released 100 times more
radiation than the atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It led to the permanent
evacuation of 135,000 people from an area of
nearly 3,000 square kilometers.
The accident contaminated 31,000 square
kilometers or 12,400 square miles.
It is estimated that 30,000 people may die
prematurely of cancer induced by radiation
exposure from the release
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Catastrophic, not graceful failures
Chernobyl nuclear accident caused 200 billion
losses.
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Nuclear inherently brittle power?
1000 MW reactor contains gt15 billion curies
(2,000 Hiroshima A-bombs fallout) heat and
mechanical/chemical energy facilitating release
comparable to a megaton ground burst

• Cut onsite offsite power and the core melts
• 1-kT bomb 1 km away (in parked truck) melts core
• Wide body jet or certain standoff attacks can
  release virtually the full core inventory
• Seriously contaminate 100,000 km2 for 100 to
  1000 years

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Nuclear legacy terrorist zones?
A legacy of many vulnerable targets and a looming
question of how many more will be added before
shifting to targets that fail gracefully, not
catastrophically.
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1 Trillion Costs to Decommissions Nuclear
Facilities through 2050
IAEA, 2004 Annual Report www.iaea.org/
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Nuclear waste shipment vulnerabilities
60 million people would be within one mile of the
100,000 truck and rail shipments proposed to ship
waste to Yucca Mountain .
40,000 metric tons of spent fuel discharged
from U.S. commercial nuclear reactors through
1999 is currently stored at about 70 power plant
sites around the nation (2,000 tons more
annually)
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Nuclear waste shipment accidents?
The burning railway cars that paralyzed
Baltimores traffic and bottled up the main
eastern transport and cyber-artery of the United
States in 2001, could have been carrying spent
nuclear fuel rods. The clean-up wouldn't take
weeks. It would take centuries. New Department of
Energy regulations allow for rail cars to carry
lethal nuclear fuel. Each of the 180 rail
containers of atomic waste from Calvert Cliffs
near Baltimore could hold 100 times the radiation
released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
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Megadamus negavitae
7 of total global GHG emissions, rising to 15
given potential expansion
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Fragmented River Basins
Of 227 large river basins assessed, 37 are
strongly affected by fragmentation and altered
flows, 23 are moderately affected, and 40 are
unaffected.
WRI, Ramsar, IUCN, IWMI Water Resources E Atlas,
Watersheds of the World, 2003, www.wri.org/
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Freshwater Fish Species Threatened
Fish species 8 times more threatened than mammals
or birds in the USA

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21st century Hydro Damming Threatens to Exceed
Last Centurys Damming -- Mostly in Biodiversity
Habitat
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Hydro dams that are costly ecologically
damaging can be displaced through lower cost
lower impact Energy Water options
Min Jiang
Dadu He
200 hydro dams planned on rivers running through
the biodiversity hotspots of Sichuan and Yunnan
provinces. Yet, China has other viable options,
such as four times more wind power than hydro
resources, and 50 water efficiency savings
through drip irrigation.
Yalong
Yangtze
Jiang
Litang He
Nu Jiang (Salween)
Jin Sha Jiang (Yangtze)
gt150 MW
50 to 150 MW
Lancang Jiang (Mekong)
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Amazon damming
75 planned dams and reservoirs in Brazils
Amazonian region
Cana Brava I on Tocantins
Source Fearnside PM. 1995. Hydroelectric dams in
the Brazilian Amazon as sources of greenhouse
gases. Environmental Conservation 22 719.
39
Net Emissions from Brazilian Reservoirs compared
with Combined Cycle Natural Gas
Source Patrick McCully, Tropical Hydropower is a
Significant Source of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Interim response to the International Hydropower
Association, International Rivers Network, June
2004
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DE-CARBONIZED FOSSIL FUELS?
Coal externalities worldwide range between 160
billion and 1.2 trillion per year that are not
reflected in coal-fired electricity prices
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Fossil-based hydrogen future?
42
Abundant Coal abundant problems
Coal is massively abundant in the world, but also
enormously problematic. In the US, more than
264,000 acres of cropland, 135,000 acres of
pasture, and 128,000 acres of forest have been
lost.
The potential cost for cleaning up US spoiled
lands runs in the tens of billions of dollars.
Still, coal companies are removing entire
mountaintops to expose the coal below. The wastes
are generally dumped in valleys and streams.
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Super-sized SUVs Driving Disasters
U.S. Perverse Tax subsidy 50 tax break for
SUVs over 3.5 tons -- Up to 100,000 tax break!!
U.S. cars average 9.3 km per liters (22 mpg),
Military Hummer imitators lt5 km/liters (ltl2 mpg)
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USA Oil Consumption patterns
Source Transportation Energy Data Book No. 23,
DOE/ORNL-6970, Oct. 2003 and EIA Annual Energy
Outlook 2004, Jan. 2004.
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The random walk of world real crude-oil price,
18811995
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Eliminating USA Oil dependency
70 billion per year net savings and create a
million net jobs in USA
Perhaps the most rigorous...analysis of what it
will take to wean us from foreign oil was tasked
by the Pentagon and carried out byRocky Mountain
Institute, a respected center of hard-headed,
market-based research. The book argues
persuasively that by 2035 we can be entirely
independent of imported oil and that it will
cost less to displace all of the oil that the
United States now uses than it will cost to buy
that oil. Robert C.McFarlane (National
Security Advisor to President Reagan), Wall
Street Journal, 20 Dec. 2004
Amory Lovins
www.oilendgame.org/
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Oil-saving Substitution Options
www.oilendgame.org/
actual
projected
_at_ 12/bbl
_at_lt 26/bbl
Accrue cost- tax-free CO2 reductions.
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70 billion per year Net Savings
www.oilendgame.org/
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Accelerated with Golden and Platinum Carrot
Incentives
Winning the Oil Endgame www.oilendgame.org/
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High-performance policies needed
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Smart Growth Less Sprawl
Collaborations Alliance for a New Transportation
Charter, Smart Growth America, Smart Growth
Network, Funders Network for Smart Growth
Livable Communities, Smart Communities Network,
Surface Transportation Policy Project, TDM
Encyclopedia
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Green Buildings ecologically sustainable,
economically superior, higher occupant
satisfaction
The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green
Buildings, A Report to Californias Sustainable
Building Task Force, Oct. 2003, by Greg Kats et
al.
Public library North Carolina
500 to 700 per m2 net present value
Oberlin College Ecology Center, Ohio
Heinz Foundation Green Building, PA
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High-E Windows displacing pipelines
Incidentally, full use of super windows in the
U.S. could save the equivalent of an Alaskan
pipeline (2 million barrels of oil per day), as
well as accrue over 10 billion per year of
savings on energy bills. .
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Daylighting could displace 100 GWs
Lighting AC to remove heat from lights consumes
half of a commercial buildings electricity.
Daylighting can provide up to 100 of day-time
lighting, eliminating massive amount of power
plants and saving tens of billions of dollars in
utility bills. Some daylight designs integrate
PV solar cells.
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Combined Heat Power (CHP)
81 GW capacity in 2004 8 of total US
generation

• NEW POTENTIAL
• 150,000 MW by 2020
• Equals all US hydronuclear
• 50 billion net savings
• 110 million tons CO2 cuts

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Importance of Policy drivers
Since 1974, California electric use per capita
has stayed flat at 7000 kWh. Mainly through
building and appliance standards and utility
conservation programs, saving billions of
dollars. But USA electric use has grown 50.
If the USA had followed Calif. it would use
1/3 less electricity, equivalent to 10 Arctic
National Wildlife Refuges, and be saving over
100 billion annually. To relate to the
proposed Kyoto CO2 treaty, 1/3 of US electricity
saved 230 MtC, more than half of the 400 MtC
needed to comply by 2010.
Source Art Rosenfeld, Commissioner, California
Energy Commission, 2002, ARosenfe_at_Energy.State.CA.
US
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Efficiency -- thwarted ignored
Could satisfy half of all new global supply, but
Perverse dis-incentives
Abysmally low RD
source World Energy Assessment, Energy and the
Challenge of Sustainability, UNDP, 2000
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Biodiversity-friendly climate solutions
Solar wind perennial biomass appear most
benign at large-scale over long term
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Climate-useful, but Biodiversity-Unfriendly
CROPS FOR ENERGY
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Semi-efficient, ambitious renewable scenario
Biomass
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Biofuels for US cars on no new land?
TODAY BUSINESS AS USUAL
NEXT DECADE FUTURE
30 million hectares soy
30 million hectares switchgrass
Switchgrass 1 to 3x protein productivity 5 to
10 x mass productivity of soybeans
animal protein feed
Cellulose hydrolyzed into 30 billion gallons
ethanol
oils
animal protein feed
oils
Professor Lee Lynd, Big or Little Potatoes? Role
of Biomass in Americas Energy Future, Feb. 2004,
http//thayer.dartmouth.edu/thayer/rbaef/.
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Biodiversity friendly Bioenergy?
Perennial prairie grasses
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Growing Americas energy future?
A 2004 assessment by the National Energy
Commission concluded that a vigorous effort in
the USA to develop cellulosic biofuels between
now and 2015 could

• Produce the first billion gallons at costs
  approaching those of gasoline and diesel.
• Establish the capacity to produce biofuels at
  very competitive pump prices equivalent to
  roughly 8 million barrels of oil per day -- 122
  billion gallons per year -- by 2025.

Nathaniel Greene et al., Growing Energy,
www.bioproducts-bioenergy.gov/pdfs/NRDC-Growing-En
ergy-Final.3.pdf.
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Growing Americas energy future?
Multiple benefits would accrue

• Rural American farmers producing these fuel crops
  would see 5 billion of increased profits per
  year.
• Consumers would see future pump savings of 20
  billion per year on fuel costs.
• Society would see CO2 emissions reduced by 6.2
  billion tons per year, equal to 80 of U.S.
  transportation-related CO2 emissions in 2002.

Nathaniel Greene et al., Growing Energy, How
Biofuels Can help end Americas oil dependence,
www.bioproducts-bioenergy.gov/pdfs/NRDC-Growing-En
ergy-Final.3.pdf.
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Fuel Efficiency Impact on USA Land Requirements
for Biofuel Production
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Of the practically exploitable U.S.wind resources
of moderate or better quality, 95 are located in
the sparsely populated 12 Great Plains states,
where the generation potential is three times
total U.S.electricity generation at present.
69
Wind Royalties 2nd source of income
Crop revenue
Govt. subsidy
Wind profits
Williams, Robert, Nuclear and Alternative Energy
Supply Options for an Environmentally Constrained
World, April 9, 2001, Thttp//www.nci.org/T
70
Federal electricity subsidies

• Federal subsidies to nuclear, photovoltaic, solar
  thermal electric, and wind electricity
  technologies and to the industries as a whole
  totaled
• 200 billion between 1947 and 1999 (in 2005
  dollars).
• Nuclear received 96, while solar power received
  less than 3 and wind power less than 1.

Source Renewable Energy Policy Project,
www.repp.org/
71
PV meeting US electricity - distributed
10 efficient commercial PV systems can supply
all US electricity (about 800 GW) from 2 million
hectares distributed throughout the 50 states.
Larry Kazmerski, Dispelling the 7 Myths of Solar
Electricity, 2001, National Renewable Energy Lab,
www.nrel.gov
Larry Kazmerski, Dispelling the 7 Myths of Solar
Electricity, 2001, National Renewable Energy Lab,
www.nrel.gov/
72
Where PV systems stand in the USA
Source Christy Herig, Customer-Sited
Photovoltaics Focusing on Markets that Really
Shine, NREL, www.nrel.gov/research/pv/cust-sited.h
tml

• Photovoltaics are cost-effective at today's
  prices of about 6 to 7 per watt.

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Attributes of breakeven PV systems

• Compensation for power at retail electric rates
• Tax credits
• Financing, leasing, and depreciation options
• Net-metering options and/or rate-based incentives
  
• Building credits for architectural applications
• Willingness to pay for clean power and innovation
  
• Quality of solar resource and customer load match
  
• Progressive state government, regulatory, and
  utility support.

PVs are cost-effective at 6 to 7 per watt.
74
Economics of Commercial BIPV
Reference costs of facade-cladding materials
Eiffert, P., Guidelines for the Economic
Evaluation of Building-Integrated Photovoltaic
Power Systems, International Energy Agency PVPS
Task 7 Photovoltaic Power Systems in the Built
Environment, Jan. 2003, National Renewable Energy
Lab, NREL/TP-550-31977, www.nrel.gov/
75
Economics of Commercial BIPV
Net Present Values, Benefit-Cost Ratios and
Payback Periods for Architectural BIPV (Thin
Film, Wall-Mounted PV) in Beijing and Shanghai
(assuming a 15 Investment Tax Credit)
SunSlate Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV)
commercial building in Switzerland
Byrne et al, Economics of Building Integrated PV
in China, July 2001, Univ. of Delaware, Center
for Energy and Environmental Policy,
Twww.udel.edu/ceep/T
76
Electricity Potential from BIPV
Stefan Nowak, The IEA PVPS Programme into the
second decade of International Co-operation
Results and Challenges, www.iea.org/
77
Using LCD manufacturing techniques
Solar PV electricity at 3 to 5 cents/kWh
Key to achieving competitive PV systems (i.e., 1
per Watt fully installed) is to use a similar
cluster production model used so successfully in
achieving breakthrough cost reductions and
extraordinary productivity gains in Liquid
Crystal Display (LCD) manufacturing. The result
would make PV systems a highly competitive
electricity choice. At the price of 1.00 per
peak watt for a complete and installed system,
the payback time in states like California is
under 5 years. Therefore, we expect the demand
for solar energy systems to explode. With a 30
year lifetime, assuming 6 interest, a solar farm
costing 1.00 per peak watt installed will
generate electricity at 3 to 5 cents per kWh
across much of the U.S.
Marvin S. Keshner and Rajiv Arya, Study of
Potential Reductions Resulting from
Super-Large-Scale Manufacturing of PV Modules,
National Renewable Energy Lab Report
NREL/SR-520-36846, October 2004,
http//www.nrel.gov/ncpv/thin_film/.
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12 million hectares of 10 eff. PV systems could
supply US total energy needs fuels and
electricity
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A concept called a solution space was used as
part of the citiesPLUS process to identify the
pathway to reach each sustainability target.
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Forging a Sustainable Energy System in Greater
Vancouver Suggested Approach and Preliminary
Policy Directions for the GVRD (July 2003),
prepared by Sheltair Group, 2003,
www.citiesplus.ca/