100 Ways To Clean. Remember September 2018 in your personal solar almanac. With SPI coming up in a few weeks, let me know what event I should attend, and the climate change action summit this week, Governor Brown is making the news. He signed SB 100 yesterday which drives California to a 100% clean energy future. Next up is SB700 which should be signed this week. Nothing in politics is done until it’s done so if you live in CA, please make sure to call the Governor to get it across the finish line. SB100 is aspirational and a counter program to a federal policy that lacks a goal. More importantly, this sends a signal beyond subsidies and regulatory policy that California is the solar market for years and decades to come.

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Yann

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

To continue powering the United States with coal without adding any adverse climatalogical effects, 89% of the United States would have to be covered in forest, according to a new study from the Michigan Technological Institute. The study compared that route - interesting but ultimately futile - with the idea of shifting electricity generation to solar power (now you're talking) and figuring out how to sequester the carbon produced in the solar manufacturing process instead (a much more manageable task). (Kudos to the press release writer who put this subhead into the press release on the study: "The Giving Tree Won't Give Enough for Carbon Neutral Coal." Anyone with kids or parents both chuckled and teared-up at the reference.) The study's authors write:

Coal-fired power plants require 13 times more land to be carbon neutral than the manufacturing of solar panels. We'd have to use a minimum of 62% of U.S. land covered by optimal crops or cover 89 percent of the U.S. with average forests to do it.

One gets the sense that calculations like this are not going into the decision-making process of the federal bureaucrats currently trying to figure out how to save economically failing coal and nuclear plants. And that realization had at least one researcher shaking his head. "We know that climate change is a reality, but we don't want to live like cavemen," says Joshua Pearce, professor of material sciences and electrical engineering at Michigan Tech, said in the release. "We need a method to make carbon neutral electricity. It just makes no sense whatsoever to use coal when you have solar available, especially with this data." The study recommended that instead of focusing on saving coal plants, innovations should instead focus on making the solar manufacturing process less carbon intensive. That way, you're producing the best-of-all worlds - taking carbon-heavy coal plants out of generation and replacing them with more carbon-neutral solar manufacturing, leading the way to solar farms that require no carbon offset. The study says that would use 13 times less land than continuing to burn coal and trying to offset the carbon pollution used by it. The killer stat is that to offset a 1 GW coal plant, you'd need to plant a forest the size of Maryland to capture its carbon output. You can see where that is not only not feasible, but frankly untenable. Thanks to the Michigan Technological Institute, we now have even more stats to back up the contention that saving the coal plants is an insane idea. Quick, someone get Rick Perry on the line.

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Over the weekend, two of the world's most influential mayors - Bill de Blasio (mayor of New York City) and Sadiq Khan (mayor of London) - took to the pages of the British newspaper The Guardian to urge cities around the world to divest from companies that extract fossil fuels. The op-ed came ahead of the Global Climate Action Summit, a gathering of world leaders designed to discuss issues surrounding climate change and other environmental issues. The summit starts on Wednesday in San Francisco. The mayors wrote:

We believe that ending institutional investment in companies that extract fossil fuels and contribute directly to climate change can help send a very powerful message that renewables and low-carbon options are the future. If we want to fund the scale of transformation the world needs, we must foster sustainable investment and use the power of institutional investors, such as pension funds.

According to the article, less than 2% of London's pension fund - which totals $7.1 billion - is invested in fossil-fuel generating companies, with more divesting coming this year (including eliminating investments in oil companies Shell and BP). New York has just begun its own divestment and expects to be completely divested within five years, the article reports. Instead, New York touts the fact it has increased its use of solar energy six-fold since 2013 and which is the result in part from a push from the state's governor Andrew Cuomo as well as de Blasio's own progressive policies on the subject. Both mayors acknowledge that divestment is not necessarily a straight path, and that there will be twists and turns along the way. But in urging their fellow mayors to divest, they say they are setting an example for country governments to follow:

We believe we can demonstrate to the world that divestment is a powerful tool and a prudent use of resources. And that, together, our cities – New York, London and many others around the world – can send a clear message to the fossil fuel industry: change your ways now and join us in tackling climate change.

I'd like to applaud de Blasio and Khan for their forward-thinking ways and their attempts at moral suasion through the press. Here's hoping that coming out of the Global Climate Action Summit that even more cities will follow their lead and divest from fossil fuels. More: As New York and London mayors, we call on all cities to divest from fossil fuels

Community Solar In NJ. Nice to see some big potential numbers associated with the 450MW community solar goal in New Jersey. Between the jobs created, local tax revenue and dollars invested, New Jersey solar is looking like it could add billions of dollars of economic benefit. With an already healthy market for solar, community solar will add more solar advocates to the roster since the benefit of solar will be available to many more people. We’ll be sure to talk about this in Jersey City in a few months.
90GWh, Let’s Talk TWh. LG Chem is increasing its 2020 output by 29% to get to 90GWh. Keep that number in your head and let’s talk about this again a year from now. 90GWh will be nothing compared to the manufacturing capacities that are coming up a few years from now, especially from China. For solar, the storage ecosystem still needs a lot of work before the market figures itself out between the spreadsheet you’re looking at and the companies like LG that are making the battery cells.
Big Win In NM. PNM had put in place a rather unsavory solar fee but it looks like that may have turned around in solar’s favor. This came at the same time as Facebook’s announcement of their new solar farms in New Mexico and reminded me of the conversation I had with a Google exec that told the story of corporations pushing for better solar access for the consumers while they pushed for their deals. Great job to the policy folks involved in this.
Big Week In CA. Everyone is watching Governor Brown this week as SB100 and SB700 sit on his desk awaiting his signature. With a global delegation of high ranking, government officials come to SF for the climate change summit, I would expect the Governor to make the announcements on these bills during a high profile event. At least that’s what I am hoping.
Are You Coming? solarwakeuplive.com Jersey City. November 6th.

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Yann