Thanks for being the first person to register your valuable comments. Long time no news from you about the tidal wave project you are working on...Government of Gujarat in India will be pleased to lend you all the assistance if you desire...

Ramanathan Menon

I don't see why anyone needs to hear more than that, knowing that Sargent and Lundys LLC of Chicago has evaluated NREL data on solar thermal in detail and concluded that "If 8 GW of solar thermal could be built by 2020, the cost of generated electricity would be reduced to $0.035 to $0.062 / kwh (2002 $US)"

The only real downside risk is a major breakthrough in solar PV, but that's looking a LOT less likely now than ten years ago, given all the effort put into it in the time period with little result.

Thank you for publishing this article on potential of Solar Energy in the Middle East Countries. You have done a remarkable job in researching and putting together the future potential of Solar Energy. The cost of Solar has come down dramatically. Very soon the cost of Solar Energy will become cheaper as compared to the fossil fuels due to the volume production and the new breakthrough in technologies. Beside Middle East most Asian countries have same potential to use God's natural resources to meet their future energy needs. In addition, developing Solar Energy would create millions of jobs, sustain positive economic growth, help lift their massive population out of poverty and combat climate change.

We must all work together to bring awareness and educate the public and the Government officials to develop policies and allocate resources to tap the Renewable Energy Resources such as Solar, Wind, Hydro, Biomass, Biogas, Geothermal, and Hydrogen Economy.

Thanks.

Darshan L. Goswami,

Silicon wires, which use only 1% of the material needed to make conventional solar cells, could soon be used to make solar cells, thanks to a new method devised by a team of U.S. researchers from California Institute of Technology, USA.

The researchers hope to make thin, light solar cells that could be incorporated into clothing, for instance, but the immediate benefit is cheaper and easier-to-install solar panels, reports Nature Materials. The new material uses conventional silicon configured into micron-sized wires instead of brittle wafers and encases them in a flexible polymer that can be rolled or bent. "The idea is it would be lower-cost and easier to work with by being more flexible than conventional silicon solar cells," said Michael Kelzenberg of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who worked on the study.

Solar cells, which convert solar energy into electricity, are in high demand because of higher oil prices and concerns over climate change. Many firms, including Sharp and Germany's Q-Cells SE, are making thin-film solar cells using organic materials such as polymers, but they typically are less efficient at converting solar energy into electricity than conventional cells using silicon. The study is among the latest to combine the flexibility of the new organic or carbon-containing films with the high efficiency of silicon, which is heavy and stiff.

A new breed of electronic solar cells that harvests power from heat that could double the output of conventional panels. Solar cells that work at night. It sounds like an oxymoron, but a new breed of nanoscale light-sensitive antennas could soon make this possible, heralding a novel form of renewable energy that avoids many of the problems that beset solar cells.

The key to these new devices is their ability to harvest infrared (IR) radiation, says Steven Novack, one of the pioneers of the technology at the US Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls. Nearly half of the available energy in the solar spectrum resides in the infrared band, and IR is re-emitted by the Earth's surface after the sun has gone down, meaning that the antennas can even capture some energy during the night.

Lab tests have already shown that, under ideal conditions, the antennas can collect 84% of incoming photons. Novack's team calculates that a complete system would have an overall efficiency of 46%; the most efficient silicon solar cells are stalled at about 25%.

What's more, while those ideal conditions are relatively narrowly constrained for silicon solar cells - if the sun is in the wrong position, light reflects off a silicon solar cell instead of being absorbed - the antennas absorb radiation at a variety of angles. Solar arrays of billions of the tiny antennas have an efficiency as high as 84%.

Unlike photovoltaic cells, which use photons to liberate electrons, the new antennas resonate when hit by light waves, and that generates an alternating current that can be harnessed. To build an array that could capture both visible and infrared radiation, researchers envision multiple layers of antennas, with each layer tuned to a different optical frequency.

So far, two main challenges have stood in the way of fomenting a revolution in solar power.

First, the length of the antennas must be close to the size of the wavelength being captured, which in the case of the solar spectrum can be very small - from millimetres down to a few hundred nanometres.

Second, the currents produced will be alternating at frequencies too high to be of use unless they are first converted into a steady direct current. The problem here is that silicon diodes, which are crucial to the conversion, typically don't operate at the high frequencies required, says Aimin Song, a nanoelectronic engineer at the University of Manchester, UK.

Both of these barriers are now being broken down. Earlier this year, Novack and colleagues perfected a technique for creating arrays of billions of antennas. Although these antennas were only just small enough to harvest energy at the far end of the infrared spectrum, Novack says it should be possible to modify the process and build smaller antennas to work with mid and near-infrared.

Meanwhile Song, and Garret Moddel's team at the University of Colorado in Boulder, have independently taken a significant step in tackling the current-conversion problem by creating novel diodes capable of handling high optical frequencies. Both groups expect to combine the diodes and antennas into working prototypes within months.

Semiconductor diodes act like valves, converting alternating current into direct current. To work with the novel antennas, they have to operate at the AC frequencies being received and match the conductive properties of the antenna.

Semiconductors are ill-suited for this, as they tend to become less conductive when shrunk to the size of the antennas. Several groups have tackled this problem, creating diodes based on different concepts. One is that at tiny scales, the physical geometry of the device influences current flow: by creating asymmetry in the geometry, electrons can be funnelled to flow one way only.

Go with what works now. This technology will be ready to replace it when these installs have fully amortized their capital and are ready for replacement.

In Canada forget it. Solar installations here are (as we speak) covered with snow and ice. Not sure how much solar radiation gets through it but I think not much.

Breakthroughs in solar technology always seem about 10 years away - rather like fusion on the nuclear side of things - that is always 50 years away isn't it.

No problem with building such plants where the climate allows but not a sensible idea in northern climes.

If we adopt Len's concept of build what works (totally agree) - suggest like the Chinese - we build more nuclear plants. We know those work very well. Sixty three new plants now under construction worldwide (see World Nuclear Association website for details) and many more to come.

Malcolm

What is likely driving countries in the Middle East is the knowledge that sooner or later their oil wells will run dry. I suspect that is much closer than any of us think. Since there is nothing much else in the way of natural resources in these countries it makes perfect sense to develop other energy industries using revenues from the oil business.

Malcolm

http://home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/eprishumard/howard/howard.htm#currie

'Makes one wonder why the United Arab Emirates has just signed a contract with South Korea to build 4 nuclear power plants though doesn't it.'

Uranium supply Internet posts warn

According to the Times, China's "civilian nuclear power industry" (and rest assured there's a Chinese military nuclear power industry as well) has 11 operating reactors, with as many as 10 new reactors per year planned for the next 15 years. That's 150 new reactors just in China.

So where will the world nuclear industry obtain the uranium fuel for all these new reactors? That's a darn good question. Just in the US, annual uranium use for the nuclear power industry is about 55 million pounds. The US produces less than 4 million pounds of this fuel - about 7% - and imports the rest.

and

Uranium supply shortage is real, and "Peak Uranium" is harder to deny than "Peak Oil".This year's world uranium mine output could or might attain 55000 tons, but demand will be about 68000 tons. It is difficult to imagine what would happen to world oil, coal or gas prices if their world supply was 20% lower than their world demand.

according to Byron King and Andrew McKillop.

Google references

Not actually, bill. There's a LOT of U in the world. Just the EASY reserves have been tapped to date.

For at least a decade more, no nuclear plant will be a minute late starting for lack of available U. [Stockpiles are enough to operate them all for several years.] Production will ramp up as soon as market prices signal that demand is really up to the levels required to bring medium-cost reserves into reproduction. When further demand requires it, there's maybe a thousand years worth of U dissolved in the world's oceans ... the price necessary to produce that material will be a bit higher.

However, medium and higher cost reserves will NOT price nuclear power into the range necessary for the pie-in-the-sky next-gen PV to be competitive on a 24-hr basis. I agree that fusion will probably be generating before the ideal PV/storage is base-load competitive.

What you will see from the WNA site is that what is available depends on the price. That is the trump card of nuclear. The price of nuclear electricity is not affected by the price of Uranium to any meaningful degree. Even if the price quadrupled it would have hardly any effect on the price of nuclear electricity.

But a quadrupling of price would make uneconomic reserves viable and therefore the amount available at the higher price increases.

Peter talks about U in seawater. U is present at about 0.003 ppm in seawater. A rough calculation shows that even at that low concentration there is about 41,400 years worth at 100,000 te/yr consumption rate. Japanese scientists already have developed the process for getting it out but it is expensive and not economic at todays spot prices. But increase the price of Uranium 5 or tenfold and it is economic.

Also people that use the argument that we are running out of uranium fail to understand even the basic physics of the nuclear fuel cycle. Firstly most reactors only consume roughly 2% of the U235 fissile isotope. That means 98% is not used when it is discharged from the reactor. Only a few countries recycle and reuse this fuel but of course the inventory of "waste" fuel is not counted in the fuel availability calculations and there is of course enough fissile material in the waste to keep every reactor operating for at leat the next hundred years. Just by recycling what we have already mined. Secondly Uranium is NOT the only fuel cycle available to nuclear reactor designers. Thorium can be used in low neutron absorbing reactors like CANDU and the availability of Thorium is far larger than U. Thirdly fast breeder reactors can produce new fuel from plentiful U238 by using the extra neutron given off in the fission of plutonium. This technology was proven at Dounreay in the UK and the Chinese are building such a reactor as we speak. This technology can extend the available Uranium supplies by hundreds of years.

Now I do expect there to be a temporary shortfall in Uranium supplies around 2013 when the missile warhead to nuclear reactor fuel program winds down. That will create a shortfall between what is available from mines and what is consumed so Uranium companies will be a great investment over the next few years. But it will be temporary since higher prices will spur greater exploration and larger supplies of U will result. That is a fact.

So rest assured that the world is NOT running out of Uranium and any assertion to the contrary is based on biassed political opinion and not fact.

Malcolm

Also the US is developing new supplies of Uranium of its own using in situ leaching methods. Cameco has built a plant in Wyoming to do that and goes into production soon.

So there is no shortage of Uranium and as Peter rightly states no reactor will be a single day late due to fuel supply. Of course the Chinese being the forward thinkers that they are are stockpiling Uranium at todays low prices so they will not run short.

Malcolm

So I expect spot prices to go way up in the short term but we will not run out of Uranium and"Peak Uranium" is complete bunk.

Malcolm

I agree that nuclear energy is part of the transition beyond coal and natural gas, but so are a LOT of other systems not "considered economic" by the narrowest minded, blind-to-future investor classes.

Well Len while I have not mentioned it in these pages before I have made millions from strategic investments in energy. So please PLEASE dont talk to me being blind to future investments. I know what it takes to m ake money in energy far better than you ever will. Had you invested in Cameco as I did when it was just $14 per share you would have almost tripled your money. It is now trading at $40 per share. You would be wise to head my advice and put your money into nuclear companies. To paraphrase what you said earlier it is something we know works.

Only a fool would invest their money in solar. It is not economic now and will never be economic because the power source is too diverse. The ONLY reason that hydroelectric power plants are economic is because mother nature does the lifting for us.

Solar power is being bought here at 80c/kwh which is 20 times the price of nuclear including all the decommissioning a waste fuel storage costs.

But you invest your money in blind alleys and I will continue to invest in those things that are economic and do make money.

Malcolm

Let me also say that I am no friend of breeders as long as governments are run by fools.

Uranium 238 is converted into Plutonium 239 in conventional reactors, with about 95% of the new fuel actually Uranium 238 and about 5% Uranium 235. Spent nuclear fuel contains large amounts of plutonium which can be chemically removed.

A breeder reactor can create more fuel than it uses, but the reactors are technically challenging (and expensive).

In any case, we have ample supplies of fissionable materials for the distant future, with cost the real driving force as to which fissile materials are used. For the foreseeable future, using Uranium 235 is less expensive than removing Plutonium from spent nuclear fuel and making new fuel assemblies. Breeders are even more expensive.