The Clean Power Hour – a weekly clean energy headline review and commentary podcast run by Tim Montague, and yours truly – the CommercialSolarGuy – John Fitzgerald Weaver.
First of course, here’s the podcast – Episode 20.
Now, to the news!
First, the we covered an article from this website – What Biden might do for solar: 100% clean electricity (800 GW of capacity)
Well, roughly speaking, in 2019 the USA got 3% of its electricity from ~80 GW of solar power, and 8% from 100 GW of wind. If we were to split that 60% – we’d need to scale solar 10 times, and wind almost four. Should we be projecting 800 GW of solar power by 2035? Source
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Residential solar+storage creating individual resilience: How solar and batteries helped save a home, and its people, from a fire storm
’28kW solar, LG panels + Fronius inverters, 50kWh BYD batteries and Selectronic inverters’ ‘enough power supply to keep running “halo” watering system, that saturated everything around the house and protected it from embers that swirled around it’ Source
Marshall Plan for Middle America – Mayors unveil $60B plan to support Midwest energy transition
$15 billion in block grants to local governments for retrofits and conversions to make buildings more energy efficient; $15 billion in low-interest loans for clean energy production; $15 billion in tax incentives for manufacturers to develop clean energy equipment; and $15 billion in workforce development funds to help further understanding of clean energy Source
Company hoping to mine rare earths in West Texas pitching that they’ll power their operations with solar power. Feels like a land speculator swinging deep, and I do definitely salute them. Wonder what percentage of their operations could be electrified at this point. Biden did communicate during his campaigning that he would support US mining related to clean energy.
USA Rare Earth estimates it will require approximately 15 MW to support mining and processing, which it estimates will require a solar farm of approximately 45 acres. This could increase if the Company decides to relocate its sintered neo magnet manufacturing facility and associated infrastructure to the Round Top Mountain site. For perspective, the Round Top concession covers more than 60,000 acres of surface leases and land options. Source
Just a nice solar installation found by Tim –
Tennessean: Nashville announces massive solar array project with Vanderbilt University. 125 MW of solar will drive Vanderbilt to 100% clean power and Nashville to 30% – ex governor of TN, Nashville-based Silicon Ranch, founded by former Gov. Phil Bredesen. Source
The purpose of batteries is to lower CO2 generation, but making batteries – as of yet – requires CO2 generation. So, if we can limit battery waste, maximize things we’ve created – we’ll save money and CO2. That’ll accelerate the transition.
Assuming that an EV battery’s lifespan is between five to eight years and retains 80% of its usable energy capacity, Greenpeace East Asia calculates that the total weight of retired batteries in the world between 2021 and 2030 will measure out to around 12.85 million tonnes. Report also concludes that repurposed EV batteries could cover all global demand for energy storage in 2030, calculated to be around 368GWh of capacity. Total value of repurposed EV batteries from global passenger cars could reach as much as $US15 billion in 2030. Source
And – since we know Tim loves cruising YouTube for Tesla factory construction drone videos – we’ve got one of the Tesla Terafactory in Texas (TeraTexas) as it goes to three shifts a day, six days a week
Daytime Footage Source 1 and Night Time Footage Source 2
And of course, last, but not least – the actual podcast –