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Concentrated Photovoltaicsradically reduced energy costsBy William Mook

It costs about a dollar a square

inch for a wafer of silicon.

Expose that silicon to sunlight and

youd need about eleven square

inches to make one watt of power

in full sunlight. This translates to

over fifty-cents per kilowatt-hour

of energy, about seven times more

costly than electricity you buy

from your local utility. Even

though there is no fuel burned in

the process.

Others have attempted to

reduce the cost of solar panels by

reducing the cost of that square

inch. Using surplus silicon taken

from the consumer electronics

industry has cut costs in half,

while limiting the amount of

silicon available for solar use.

Using less costly polysilicon

also reduces costs, but the

efficiencies are reduced as well.

This achieves costs of one-third

that attained by using wafer

silicon. Yet, new uses of

polysilicon in manufacturing

MEMs devices and HDTVs has

caused a rise in prices of

polysilicon as solar use grows.

Companies like Nanosolar

have taken silicon dust mixed in a

binder to create printable solar

panels that have the potential to

lower costs to one-fifth the cost of

wafer silicon systems.

I have been working for

fifteen years on another idea.

What if we could concentrate

light to a tiny spot and build a

photocell to convert light to

electricity at that tiny spot? How

inexpensively could solar panels

be made if we did that? The

answer is, less than a penny a

peak watt!! This is hundreds of

times less costly than any system

now contemplated, and changes

the paradigm of solar from one o

many high-cost alternatives to

existing energy systems, making

solar the primary energy of the

twenty-first century capable of

replacing fossil fuels while

lowering energy costs overall.

2009 marks fifteenyears experience indesigning and buildingCPV (Concentrated

Photo Voltaic) systemsthat produce electricalpower at substantiallyreduced cossts whencompared toconventional photovoltaic systems.MKENERGY hasachieved costs ofseven cents per peakwatt. At these priceshydrogen is made at$0.11 per kg andgasoline from CO2 for$0.20 per gallon.

MKENERGY

July11,

2009

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Balance of System Costthe other cost center

Electricity is a high-value

commodity. So why use it to make a low

value fuel that when burned makes heat?

AC electricity available on demand

is certainly a high-value commodity. But,

what about DC electricity available only

when the sun shines? That is not so

valuable. In fact, considerable processing

of DC electricity is needed to make

practical use of it at all.

To work efficiently, a solar panel

must be tied to a balanced load. Too

much load, and you have a brown out.

Too little load, and you have a burn out.

So, energy load, and energy source must

be balanced to work efficiently and safely

To achieve this balance requires a

substantial investment in balance of

system costs. So, even if solar panelswere free along with solar energy, these

costs make solar energy non-competitive

with even todays energy prices.

Is there a solution?

Certainly! Dont use DC electricity

to make AC electricity. Use DC

electricity instead to make hydrogen from

water. Why hydrogen? Because

hydrogen can be used to make fuels we

use today at less cost than we pay today.

Solar cheaper than oil?our society is built onlow-cost energy

From 1850 through 1950 the cost of

primary energy decreased from an

inflation adjusted $150 per barrel to $2

per barrel!! Over this period a society

built on low-cost energy arose to replace

a society based on slavery. Since 1950the price of oil has risen to exceed $50

per barrel and social progress has ended.

Despite massive computerization,

automation and extensive use of

robotics, the rising cost of energy has

stalled the rise in living standards

enjoyed through the 1950s and has put

on permanent hold many of the

futuristic dreams of the 1950s. At

present, alternatives to fossil fuels are

expected to cost far more than fossil fuels

while lowered expectations are sold as a

natural consequence of environmental

concerns. Meanwhile, more people work

more hours for less, while energy

companies report record profits which is

a direct consequence of higher cost

energy.

Why are energy costs rising?

Because the amount of fuels our industry

is set up to use are limited. If you believe

the energy companies there are no good

alternatives. This is not true. Why

would the energy companies lie to us?

Because it benefits them for energy coststo rise. They sell a commodity that is in

short supply. The only way they can

maintain high profits is to sell what they

have at high prices. Low cost alternatives

break this cycle. Thats why low-cost

alternatives have been routinely ignored

and marginalized. In 1956 King

Hubbert chief geologist for Shell

reported that he was able to compute the

logistic curve for oil production in the US

and throughout the world. All geologists

know about the logistic curve. It applies

to anything you look for. Whether

quarters in a change jar, or oil in the

ground. In 1956 enough data wasavailable to know conclusively that oil

production in the USA would peak in

1970 and oil production would peak in

the world in 2015. Thats why in 1956

Louis Strauss, said to science reporters

during questions asked at a press

conference that, By 1970 power would

be too cheap to meter Who was Louis

Strauss? Director of the Atomic Energy

Commission. Dr. Strauss was replaced

later that year by Eisenhower.

Since that time Hubberts findings as

well as low-cost nuclear, have been

marginalized while alternatives like solar

are approached in ways that avoid or

ignore their potential to lower overallenergy costs. Before the 1990s CPV

wasnt even considered a viable

alternative because many felt wrongly it

was impossible to increase intensity on

PV cells to more than 2x ambient.

MKENERGYJuly

11,

2009

Hydrogen at $110 permetric ton makes gasoline,diesel fuel, and jet fuelfrom coal at $0.20 pergallon today while buildinga hydrogen infrastructurethat does away with oil andcoal altogether in less thanten years.

William Mook, founder MKENERGY

Electrolytic Hydrogen

Fifty-two megawatt-hours of DC solar electricitymakes a metric ton of hydrogen from ninemetric tons of deionized water when the sunshines at less than $110.

US Primary Fuel Production

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9,800 square miles of ultra-low-cost solar panels

installed on a handful of abandoned mine lands in

the US West is sufficient to produce 300 million tons

of hydrogen gas from 2,700 million kiloliters ofwater each year.

The 300 million tons is piped to all of the

nations 1,036 coal fired power plants. There, 180

million tons of hydrogen is burned to replace the

1.14 billion tons of coal now burned at these plants.

Meanwhile, another 120 million tons of hydrogen is

combined directly with the coal at each of these

plants to produce 7 billion barrels of liquid fuel

products, including gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel.

For an assured supply of hydrogen gas under all

weather conditions and seasonal variations, a 100

day supply of hydrogen gas is stored in spent oil

wells across the nation. This process mobilizesimmobile oil now trapped underground. This oil,

added to conventional oil production allows the

United States to export two billion barrels of liquid

fuel products even while consuming 6.8 billion

barrels of liquid fuels each year.

Since this approach to energy requires the

production, storage and distribution of massive

quantities of hydrogen gas, the development of a

hydrogen economy is a natural consequence of this

approach.

Eliminating the burning of coal reduces

Americas carbon footprint by half. The

development of hydrogen sources from sunlight and

water sets up the beginnings of a hydrogen economy

which eliminates the balance of fossil fuel use

throughout the world with hydrogen exported from

the USA.

The USA today has the capacity toarrange its existing resources so that itbecomes the worlds largest exporter of

oil products.William Mook

USA as an energy exporterCoal water and sunlight

MKENERGYJuly

11,

2009

Ultra-low-cost

Solar panels costingless than $28 persquare yard feedinglow cost variable loadelectrolyzers producehydrogen at less than$110 per metric ton.

Low cost hydrogendelivered by pipeline toAmericas 1,036 coalfired power plants is

burned instead of coaleliminating most of ourcountrys carbonemissions.

The stranded coal isconverted at the coalfired power plant intogasoline, diesel fueland jet fuel inquantities largeenough for the USA toexport these fuels toAsia.

Add water to sunlight and get low-costhydrogen. Send that hydrogen to coal firedpower plants to be burned to eliminate half ourcarbon footprint. Convert the unburned coal to

gasoline to eliminate our oil import problem.Export excess along with hydrogen to balanceour economy.