Local Currency Chatter

The level of chatter about a local currency in Greece has increased, and the talk is becoming more specific. How will the new money originate, where will it be used, how will the banks survive? Some economists are suggesting Argentina as an example to follow, though with Argentina giving all the appearances of a new currency crisis of its own, it may be more of a cautionary example. Some of the talk of a local currency is being directed toward Spain too, after a tentative political deal yesterday that would seem to pave the road for Spain’s euro exit, perhaps simultaneous with Greece.

In spite of all the complexities, I believe local currency rather than euro exit is the right answer for the flight of money from places like Greece and Spain. It may temporarily be necessary for all wages, interest, and real estate payments to be made in the local currency. This is still better than a complete or permanent ban on commerce in euros.

250 Percent Solar

On Friday and Saturday, Germany set a new record for on-grid solar electric generation by a country. For a few hours on Saturday, solar panels were providing 50 percent of the electricity on the grid. The same electricity was generated on Friday, but it was only about 32 percent of that day’s electricity. Friday was a business day and more industrial and commercial facilities were operating, so the demand for electricity was higher.

It is not always sunny, so Germany averages just over 20 percent of electricity from all renewable sources combined. On the other hand, building owners continue to add solar capacity on a daily basis, a trend that may not stop during our lifetimes, so if peak solar output is 50 percent one day this month, it could be 55 percent next month, 70 percent in two years, and 100 percent in five years.

On a summer day when solar is providing 100 percent of the electric supply, the fuel-burning power plants could be idled for five hours in the middle of the day. It will cut into their profits but will also make maintenance easier to do.

And there is no reason for solar capacity to stop at 100 percent. In 10 years or so, solar panels at the peak of a sunny day could provide 250 percent of the grid power demand. At first, the excess power can simply be sold on. Arizona’s solar capacity, for example, is not merely compared to the demand in Arizona, but also to the much larger demand of California.

The accounting conventions of electricity virtually guarantee an excess supply, eventually. As long as you pay to have electricity delivered, on top of the cost of generating it, locally generated power (that is, from your own rooftop) will always be less expensive.

Eventually, then, we will have to have a plan for excess electricity. When electric generation exceeds demand, it will be a time to use electricity faster so it doesn’t go to waste. What could you do during a brief period of free electricity? Recharge your car, of course, but it also might be the right moment to run the clothes dryer and air-condition the attic. By consuming electricity for every use we can think of during the period of peak generation, we can reduce the demand for electricity later in the day, perhaps by as much as half.

Energy planners have talked about the need to shift electric uses into the periods of low demand, but it may be more important to shift into the periods of maximum supply. This is especially a consideration for recharging electric commuter cars. The ideal time to recharge is perhaps not at night, when no solar power is available, but in the late morning, in the employee parking lot.

A Longer Summer

Hours ago a tropical storm, nearly a hurricane, came onshore in northeast Florida. The risk of flooding from this storm will continue for the next three days in three states. It is only May, and already there have been two Atlantic tropical storms. The more typical pattern would be for the second tropical storm of the season to occur around the end of August, but the mild spring weather and especially the June-like weather in March may have advanced the start of the hurricane season. Closer to home, everyone I know who has a swimming pool has the pool already opened or will open it today. The usual start of the swimming pool season in southern Pennsylvania is around the middle of June, but this year, people have been out swimming since the second week of May.

The weather of any single year is not an indication of climate change, but the changing climate is expected to look like this someday, with long summers in places that previously experienced short summers. This will have good qualities, such as a reduced need for energy to heat buildings, and bad qualities, such as an increase in major storms that cause flooding.

Arctic Melt-Out Won’t Happen This Year

One summer nearly all the ice that floats on the Arctic Ocean will melt away. That won’t happen without some advance warning, and it won’t happen this year.

The setup for a complete Arctic ice melt will happen in May, with an unusual ice melt pattern that leaves low concentrations of ice in the southern Arctic, so that there is more uncovered water that can soak up the sun during the peak sun season of May, June, and July. That will create warmer sea surface water temperatures to melt away any stray ice that is still around in September.

Ice concentrations in the Arctic Ocean are averaging around 95 percent this month. That is low by historical standards, but enough to mostly protect the ocean from the sun.

Ice concentration is one the best indications of which ice is about to melt, but ice extent is the most reliable way to track how the ice is doing in the long run. The ice extent graph this year so far has been retracing the line from 2010. In that summer, ice extent stayed 10 percent above the all-time low. It gives another reason to imagine that this summer’s melt will be along the lines of what we have seen in the past.

Germany Sets Solar Record

Yesterday and today, Germany set new records for solar electric generation. At midday solar panels were feeding 22 gigawatts of electricity onto the grid. Today at its peak that was half of the country’s electric supply.

It is a favorable time of year for solar power in the northern hemisphere, and there was favorable weather, and those are reasons to discount this accomplishment somewhat. On the other hand, there are more reasons to be amazed. Germany, sitting at 50 degrees north latitude, is hardly an ideal case for solar power, which is stronger closer to the equator. Germany’s solar initiatives, though expensive, have never seemed large enough to shake up the country, and have taken up only a small fraction of the structural potential that the country has for solar panels. The solar generation numbers do not include other solar electricity that was used locally and not fed onto the electric grid.

What all this suggests is that the current technology is good enough. It is just a matter of time before solar panels provide 100 percent of midday electricity, then 200 percent, and not just in Germany, but in many other places besides. If solar panel technology improves and manufacturing costs decline further, as everyone expects, it will happen that much sooner. To say that this will shake up the electric power industry is an understatement.