Solar Power Installations Jump to a New Annual Record

WorldWatch has a report on the global solar power market - Solar Power Installations Jump to a New Annual Record.

The year 2013 saw record-breaking growth for solar electricity generation as the photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar thermal power (CSP) markets continued to grow. With over 39 gigawatts installed worldwide, the PV solar market represented one third of all newly-added renewable energy capacity, write Worldwatch’s Max Lander and Climate and Energy Intern Xiangyu Wu in the Worldwatch Institute’s latest Vital Signs Online trend (www.worldwatch.org).

Solar PV installations nearly matched those of hydropower and, for the first time, outpaced wind additions. Even though photovoltaics continue to dwarf CSP capacity, the CSP market also had another year of impressive growth. By the end of 2013, a total of 19 countries had CSP plants installed or under construction.

Consumption of power from PV and CSP plants increased by 30 percent globally in 2013 to reach 124.8 terawatt-hours. Europe accounted for the majority of global solar power consumption (67 percent), followed by Asia (23.9 percent) and North America (8.1 percent). Worldwide, solar consumption equaled 0.5 percent of electricity generation from all sources. ... In July 2014, global PV module spot prices reached an all-time low of $0.63 per watt. For the first time, Asia overtook Europe as the largest regional market.

While global PV module production increased by only 3 percent over 2012, module shipments jumped by 24 percent, signaling an easing of oversupply problems.

Prospects are bright for solar development as prices continue to fall and approach grid parity in an increasing number of contexts. Rooftop solar is already less expensive per megawatt-hour than retail electricity in Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, and Germany. Estimates now also show that PV has become price-competitive without subsidies in 15 countries. For2014, solar installations are estimated to reach 40–51 gigawatts.

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What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today

National Geographic has an article on the possible impact of a large scale solar eruption of the order of 1859s "Carrington Event" - What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today?.

On February 14 the sun erupted with the largest solar flare seen in four years—big enough to interfere with radio communications and GPS signals for airplanes on long-distance flights.

As solar storms go, the Valentines Day flare was actually modest. But the burst of activity is only the start of the upcoming solar maximum, due to peak in the next couple of years.

"The sun has an activity cycle, much like hurricane season," Tom Bogdan, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, said earlier this month at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.

"Its been hibernating for four or five years, not doing much of anything." Now the sun is waking up, and even though the upcoming solar maximum may see a record low in the overall amount of activity, the individual events could be very powerful.

In fact, the biggest solar storm on record happened in 1859, during a solar maximum about the same size as the one were entering, according to NASA.

That storm has been dubbed the Carrington Event, after British astronomer Richard Carrington, who witnessed the megaflare and was the first to realize the link between activity on the sun and geomagnetic disturbances on Earth.

During the Carrington Event, northern lights were reported as far south as Cuba and Honolulu, while southern lights were seen as far north as Santiago, Chile. (See pictures of auroras generated by the Valentines Day solar flare.)

The flares were so powerful that "people in the northeastern U.S. could read newspaper print just from the light of the aurora," Daniel Baker, of the University of Colorados Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, said at a geophysics meeting last December.

In addition, the geomagnetic disturbances were strong enough that U.S. telegraph operators reported sparks leaping from their equipment—some bad enough to set fires, said Ed Cliver, a space physicist at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Bedford, Massachusetts.

In 1859, such reports were mostly curiosities. But if something similar happened today, the worlds high-tech infrastructure could grind to a halt.

"Whats at stake," the Space Weather Prediction Centers Bogdan said, "are the advanced technologies that underlie virtually every aspect of our lives."

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Total Arctic sea ice at record low in 2010 study

Scientific American has a post on the decline of arctic sea ice - Total Arctic sea ice at record low in 2010: study.

The minimum summertime volume of Arctic sea ice fell to a record low last year, researchers said in a study to be published shortly, suggesting that thinning of the ice had outweighed a recovery in area The study estimated that last year broke the previous, 2007 record for the minimum volume of ice, which is calculated from a combination of sea ice area and thickness.

The research adds to a picture of rapid climate change at the top of the world that could see the Arctic Ocean ice-free within decades, spurring new oil exploration opportunities but possibly also disrupted weather patterns far afield and a faster rise in sea levels.

The authors developed a model predicting thickness across the Arctic Ocean based on actual observations of winds, air and ocean temperatures. "The real worrisome fact is downward trend over the last 32 years," said Axel Schweiger, lead author of the paper, referring to a satellite record of changes in the Arctic.

He was emailing Reuters at the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, in the Arctic Ocean between the Norwegian island of Svalbard and the North Pole. "(It fell) by a large enough margin to establish a statistically significant new record," said the authors in their paper titled "Uncertainty in modeled Arctic sea ice volume."

The researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle checked the model results against real readings of ice thickness using limited submarine and satellite data.

The Arctic Sea Ice Blog is a good place to keep up with what is happening in this field.

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Exxon announces record profit

The SMH has an article on Exxon’s latest record profit announcement - Oil giant earns $10b in three months

Exxon earned nearly $US11 billion ($A10.15 billion) in the first quarter, a performance likely to land it in the centre of the national debate over high gasoline prices.
The worlds largest publicly traded company on Thursday reported net income of $US10.65 billion ($A9.83 billion), or $US2.14 per share, in the first three months of the year. That compares with $US6.3 billion ($A5.81 billion), or $US1.33 per share a year ago. Revenue increased 26 per cent to $US114 billion ($A105.2 billion).

The results surpassed Wall Street estimates of $US2.04 per share on sales of $US112.6 billion ($A103.91 billion), according to FactSet.

The quarter was Exxons best since it earned a record $US14.83 billion ($A13.69 billion) in 2008s third quarter. It comes at a time when some drivers are paying $US4 or more for gas and President Obama is threatening the oil industrys multibillion-dollar tax subsidies.
Earnings grew across the companys business segments. Income from its exploration and production business gained 49 per cent to $US8.7 billion ($A8.03 billion) while the companys downstream business, which includes refineries, posted a huge 30-fold jump to more than $US1.1 billion ($A1.02 billion). …

Europes largest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, reported $US8.78 billion ($A8.1 billion) in first-quarter profits, up 60 per cent from a year ago. BP PLCs quarterly earnings rose 16 per cent to $US7.2 billion ($A6.64 billion). ConocoPhillips said net income grew 43 per cent to $US3 billion ($A2.77 billion) and Occidental Petroleum Corp said earnings climbed 46 per cent to $US1.55 billion ($A1.43 billion).

Exxon Mobil Corp increased earnings even though it produced less oil and natural gas liquids. Benchmark crude prices rose 20 per cent from a year ago.
The company has increasingly focused on producing natural gas. Exxon expects natural gas to displace coal as the second most important fuel source within the next decade, and last year it acquired XTO Energy to become the largest US natural gas producer.

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