Sps supplement Rough Draft-endi2011 Alpharetta 2011 / Boyce, Doshi, Hermansen, Ma, Pirani
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- Politics – Solar Getting Cut
Launchers UpdateLauncher capabilities deter SBSP- each SPS needs 135 launches Joseph D. Rogue, Associate director of National Security Space Office, 2007 [“Space‐Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security”, October 10, 2007, http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/nexgen/Nexgen_Downloads/SBSPInterimAssesment0.1.pdf] Space Solar Power Satellites are very large structures and require substantially greater lift and in‐space transportation than has ever previously been attempted. Consequently, they also require a significantly expanded supporting infrastructure. The International Space Station is currently the largest structure in space with a mass of 232 MT, at an orbit of only 333 km. It has the largest solar arrays in space, with a total power of approximately 112 kW. In contrast, a single Space Solar Power Satellite is expected to be above 3,000 MT, several kilometers across, and most likely be located in GEO, at 42,124km, likely delivering between 1 to 10 GWe. From the perspective of today’s launch infrastructure, this may seem unimaginably large and ambitious, but in another sense it is well within the relative scale of other human accomplishments which at their time also seemed astounding creations‐‐the Eiffel Tower is 8,045 Tons; the Sear’s Tower 222,500 tons; the Empire State Building 365,000 – 392,000 tons, the largest of our supertankers is 650,000MT, and the Great Pyramid at Giza is 5,900,000 MT. Contemplating a space solar power satellite today is probably analogous to contemplating the building of the large hydro‐electric dams, which even today cause observers to marvel. Today the United States initiates less than 15 launches per year (at 25MT or less). Construction of a single SBSP satellite alone would require in excess of 120 such launches. That may seem like an astounding operations tempo until one considers the volume of other transportation infrastructure. For instance, in 2005, Atlanta International Airport saw 980,197 takeoffs & landings alone, an average of 1,342 takeoffs/day, or about 1 every minute 24 hours a day. In the same year, Singapore’s 41 ship cargo berths served 130,318 vessel arrivals (about 15 per hour), handling about 1.15 billion gross tons (GT), and 23.2 million twenty‐foot equivalent units (TFUs). Politics – Solar Getting CutThe solar energy sector is facing cuts and problems. Time 6-28 [Time Magazine, By BRYAN WALSH; “The Fading Era of Big Solar: Will Budget Woes Swamp the Industry?”; http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2080176,00.html; Boyce] Big solar producers should be feeling very, er, sunny. New solar power doubled last year globally, with the world adding 16 gigawatts worth of new photovoltaic energy. In the first quarter of 2011, installations of solar power increased 66% over the previous year in the U.S. Just last week the Obama Administration offered a $1.4 billion loan guarantee to help fund what will be the world's largest rooftop solar project, which put at least 733 megawatts worth of photovoltaic panels on commercial buildings across nearly 30 states while creating 10,000 jobs. Even bad news for the industry is good: a front-page story in Monday's Washington Post raised questions about why more than half of President Obama's out-of-town private-business visits had been to renewable-energy companies. Considering that the renewable-energy industry had to fight for any attention from Obama's hydrocarbon-loving predecessor, being criticized for getting too close to the White House seems like a significant step up. But there are clouds on the horizon for solar power — especially for big producers who want to build utility-scale projects, not just slap panels on rooftops. The miniboom in solar in the U.S. is being driven chiefly by U.S. Treasury grants — most funded by the 2009 stimulus — which have helped fill the gap created by the evaporation of private capital after the recession. The only problem is that stimulus funding is just about tapped out, the tax credits are set to expire in December and the mood on Capitol Hill is utterly hostile to more spending. If that government money simply vanishes and private capital fails to appear, the U.S. renewable-energy industry could be set back by years. And no one is at greater risk than those who want to build large-scale solar. (Watch "The Truth About Solar Power.") "There's a big buildup in the industry pipeline right now," says Arno Harris, the CEO of Recurrent Energy, a utility-scale solar developer. "Financing could fall off a cliff." To understand why big solar is at such risk, you have to understand the brave new world of renewable-energy financing. Solar projects and wind farms can be risky — in some cases you're dealing with new technology, and you're usually producing electricity at higher prices than your fossil-fuel competitors. So straightforward private financing isn't always easy to come by. Renewable-energy companies could claim tax credits on the money they spend on projects, but of course, until they actually begin selling electricity they have little to zero profits, and therefore no tax bill to worry about in the first place. They need that money up front. Before the recession, there was a vibrant market in banks matching up renewable developers with companies that needed to offset the tax bill on their profits — but after the recession there were, to say the least, significantly fewer profits and little need by anyone, especially in the financial sector, for tax credits. If the government hadn't stepped in, the renewable industry might have been one of many victims of the 2007-08 financial crisis and recession. Federal stimulus spending not only saved the solar industry and its partners, it actually helped them thrive. Those billions in funds and loan guarantees were especially timely because European nations had begun winding down their expensive feed-in tariffs — long-term government-set contracts for renewable energy at favorable prices — that had helped build the global renewable-energy industry. (Even now, Germany and Italy account for two-thirds of the worldwide solar market, thanks chiefly to years of government support.) As a result of stimulus spending and a bit of help from Europe's global investments, "the U.S. has 30 gigawatts of utility-scale solar in the construction and permitting pipeline," says Harris. (See photos of a solar-powered airplane.) The problem is, should those tax credits expire — as they're currently set to do by 2016 — and little additional government funding come through, solar companies could find themselves back where they were at the start of the recession. They can hope that private financing will begin to flow, but there's little evidence yet that banks are eager to lend out money for big renewable projects — especially with the national energy policy so uncertain. Big solar projects — many of which are done on federally managed land — are also held back by permitting headaches. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups have sued major solar-thermal projects in the deserts of the West on the grounds that construction may threaten endangered species. "Large-scale projects can take three to five years to get all the permits," says Kevin Smith, the CEO of SolarReserve, a California-based solar-thermal company. "That's significant." As fast as solar installation has grown in recent years, we still only get about 0.1% of the world's electricity directly from the sun. If solar energy is going to become something more than a rounding error, green groups may need to do everything they can to accelerate big-solar projects. And if private capital isn't yet ready to step up to the plate, the government needs to extend the loan guarantees and other funding that have proven so effective over the past couple of years. Otherwise we'll risk experiencing a rerun of the 1980s, when the U.S. was the undisputed world leader in solar and other renewable technology — only to surrender that supremacy when government support collapsed. "I'm optimistic, but I work in solar — I have to be optimistic," says Harris. I wish I could be so optimistic, but unless there's change of heart in Washington, the future may dim fast for American solar. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. 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