Solergy
Without the sun's radiance, Earth would be a frozen, dark rock, sporting volcanoes and a spectacular view of the Milky Way, profound in its purposelessness. Not seen, heard, felt, smelled or tasted by any living cell. Unexploited. Unwanted.
Solergy. Solar energy. It's everywhere. It defies all claims. It shines through the fingers of grabbing hands and leaves no stains. For centuries, humankind has contorted to convert matter -- wood, coal, oil, radioisotopes -- into energy. Solergy is energy already. Pollution occurs with almost every matter-to-energy process employed today, but there is no pollution when energy is used directly.
Humanity is addicted to oil and other fossil fuels. The prevailing attitude is expressed in a braindump: "It'll last till I die." Well, Duhhhh. What about your kids? And theirs? The ignorant smile is Cheshire-feline. Long after the grinner has evolved away, the grin's image will remain in the mindscapes of our grandchildren. Can you feel their potential hatred of us? Half measures are useless. It's time to find ways to get off that sauce and those rocks.
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We glibly gab about California sunshine. For good reason. Sometimes it's too much. Denizens of the subtropics and tropics know the mean side of the sun. Sometime during May, the friend in the sky turns fierce, glowering from the zenith, fluorescing the clouds, making your brains sizzle. Can you hear it? Rub that SPF-99 on my head please.
If we keep messing with the ozone layer ... oh, well, that's for another article. California summer beats wearing clothes that make you look like the the mascot for a certain well-known tire company for six months out of the year.
Have you ever wondered how much solar energy falls on SoCal in a typical day? Hint: Direct sunlight splatters over 500 watts on every square meter of surface that gets its rays directly. Now pull out that dog-eared old state map, and find that calculator you stashed after Physics 101. Miles times miles equals square miles ... times something-or-other equals square meters ... times 500 equals watts ... multiply ... later.
Remember the Northridge quake? I don't. I wasn't here. I was in Miami, nervously watching satellite photos of the tropics after living through a direct hit by Hurricane Andrew in August, 1992. When that hurricane trashed the utility grid, it didn't leave one stray milliampere. "Nature calling South Dade: Rewire everything." I suspect the Northridge quake did not leave the power companies unaffected either.
Amateur radio operators, also known as "hams," were among the first to hook up solar panels, using them to provide emergency communications into and out of the disaster area. The sun can burn your skin through overcast. It'll make electricity through the clouds, too. Solar panels provided hundreds of watts of daylight power ... and for nightdark ... deep-cycle storage batteries found jobs more immediately useful than running golf carts. Photovoltaic (PV) systems didn't provide enough energy to blot out the stars the way full-blown city lights did ... Nature rarely works against Herself ... but it brought an awareness that civilization still existed. And it clued people in to the fact that solergy can work even when the sun isn't shining.
Five-hundred-plus watts of power per square meter in bright sunlight. Our energy worries, in theory, are groundless. If you could take all the rays that land in your yard, or on your rooftop, and convert them into electricity, you could get the power companies out of your life. You'd never have to take a cold candlelight bath again. And you wouldn't need that electric blanket to preclude nocturnal hypothermia. Replacement: a solergy-heated water bed, maybe.
Solar-energy technology is progressing. Meanwhile, we drive "high-tech" cars that propel themselves by combusting the million-year-old remains of plants and animals. Fossil fuels ... their very name is acquiring a double meaning.
We're supposed to be into trends around here, right? Yeah sure.
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[I Pick up the phone. Dial a certain number. Intent: Talk with a solar energy guru lady whose name I shall not disclose.]
Brrrrr. Brrrrr. Brrr-ping: Thank you for calling the Solergy Center ... For the Public Information Office, Press 6 -- Bleeeep ...
[Connection is established with amazing speed, considering it is done by one of those computerized telephone answering systems designed to run you around in infinite loops.]
Francisco?
Call me Fran.
This is a solergy guru lady.
Good!
You wanted to speak with me.
I'm doing an article about solar energy. The focus is "We have to look at the big picture."
Big pictures are very cool.
Solar energy is viable here, just like in Costa Rica, where I come from.
Oh, you're from Costa Rica. I have lived there.
God is merciful.
She is.
Whereabouts did you live?
San Jose.
I'm from Zancudo Beach. Golfito area.The last bastion of ecologically friendly people in the world/
Americans are addicted to fossil fuels ... gotta get off them.
The problem is how.
I guess we can either work on alternative energy now, or work on it later.
(Laughs) I tend to agree. I know some nuclear power engineers who would disagree with us.
Well, nuclear ... I'd love to see nuclear fusion. I am a little queasy about the politics of all this ...
It does come down to politics.
There are two different kinds of photovoltaic systems, right?
Rather than calling them different systems, I'd call them different kinds of applications.
Okay.
Interactive systems are connected into the utility grid. They produce electricity for all the consumers on the grid.
Uh-huh.
The stand-alone system is not tied into the grid. It has its own storage scheme, usually batteries. This storage scheme serves a load directly, a load that's right there with the system.
Suppose I want to install an interactive system?
To do that, and sell electricity to the utility, which is what you'd be doing, you'd need to work with the utility ... um ... in determing the co-generation requirements. You'd be a co-generator.
Sort of like a co-author, a sin which I have sworn on a stack of Bibles never to repeat, unless the other author is deceased.
You are lucky to have survived one strike of that hot iron.
I know. Well, getting back to the power thing, I'd call the power company to set up an interactive system, right?
Right. There is a federal law called the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act, or PURPA ...
Purple?
No ... it is an acronym ...
Ahhh. One of those.
The PURPA requires utilities to buy electricity from independent power producers in the region they serve.
Okay.
Every utility is required to make its own rules for doing this ... to protect itself ... its employees and customers ... it needs to set a price it will pay for the electricity it buys.
Oh, so companies will buy the electricity from me?
It's a rather complicated process.
On the other hand ... I could say, "Well, the heck with that. I'd like to go with a completely independent system."
You have to decide if it will be economical. Say you build a cabin in the Florida Keys, a couple of miles from the utility grid. So the grid is inaccessible and inconvenient. You're over water ... it would be near impossible to bring the utility to your place. You might say, "I'm going solar." And in that situation, solar would be more economical and more convenient than the utility.
I see. As time goes by, solar is getting more and more economical, as I see it ... cheaper and cheaper. When we start running out of fossil fuels ... Well, what would I do? Look in the yellow pages?
You'd probably come to an institution such as us! We have workshops and courses ... we can give you a list of companies who have attended these courses. Our focus is on design and installation of systems like this.
That's good to know. I have another article here about solar energy. It's from an amateur radio magazine. I'm an amateur radio operator.
Oh, you are! Good for you. We have a radio ham on the staff here who brings solar power to various disaster sites.
Yeah ... I've been a ham for over 30 years. When everything else fails ...
... ham radio works. I know.
Geekish as that hobby might be ...
No!
Lots of radio hams are using solar energy to run their "shacks" nowadays. It's great for emergency preparedness ... ham radio is often the only way to get messages into and out of a disaster area.
Yes.
So the best thing for a person interested in solar energy is to contact a society that deals with solar energy.
We have courses, and we put together manuals ... um ... you know ... all kinds of information for do-it-yourself people.
Can't think of any better way ... there are other alternative energy sources, too ... later ... So that's all, I guess.
Yeah. Nice to talk to a Tico.
I still go back there every winter. Actually, winter here is summer there.
I like the temperatures here in California.Too cold. Too cold.
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How do I build a solergy system to withstand an 8.5 quake? There's gotta be a way. A stand-alone photovoltaic system, independent of the utility grid, designed to survive a natural disaster, wouldn't blink at anything short of an asteroid impact.
If you had a stand-alone solar energy system, much of the hassle of a hurricane or earthquake would pass you by. You could have light at night. You could run an electric water pump. You could play a stereo or use a ham radio. Maybe a big fridge or a/c would be asking too much, but you could at least run a couple of fans. The late-summer and early-fall heat in SoCal might be a little rough, but it won't kill you. This isn't Texas!
And while the maddening hordes roam the rubble gleaning every gallon of gas to drive their cars around the buckled roadways, you can sit back and listen to your favorite music, tippling a tumbler of tepid tea. Maybe you can even go sailing, using only the wind for propulsion.
Wind power! A topic for another story.
Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000 by Francisco Carrera.
