By VICTORIA A. HAYS
She is a free lance journalist residing in Rochester.
Possibilities and politics
SUN POWER
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We are in middle feasibility area for application of solar space and water heating. A solar house has been built at Eureka; U. of I. professor is studying solar energy to dry crops; Ottawa's silica sand is available for making solar cells to convert sun's rays directly into electricity. But research is needed to make costs competitive with other fuels
IN THE complicated realm of energy policymaking, solar energy is "out there waiting in the weeds," one state official says. Illinois is usually considered a coal-oriented state with weather unsuited to widespread use of the sun's energy. Yet solar power doesn't have the environmental black eyes that strip-mining and air pollution have given the state's high-sulfur coal. Nor, according to its proponents, is the use of solar energy inconsistent with Midwestern weather. |
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Illinois is in the middle feasibility area for application of solar space and water heating. Dr. Yahya B. Safdari, president of Sun Systems, Inc., and professor of mechanical engineering at Bradley University in Peoria, indicates that solar roof panels placed at a 45-degree angle in Illinois receive about "1,000 Btus (British thermal units) per hour per square foot average for those months when you think the sun isn't shining." One thousand Btus is approximately the amount of energy needed to light a 75-watt bulb for one hour. The sun provides about 1,400 Btus average daily radiation per hour over every square foot of the United States. Sun Systems, which completed Illinois' first solar house last spring, has also discovered that "when there is snow on the ground we get 30 per cent more radiation because of the reflection."
The potential economic impact of solar energy development is staggering. The United States consumed the equivalent of 40 million barrels of petroleum daily in 1975, and nearly 22 per cent of that amount was consumed for space heating and cooling. The Stanford Research Institute has predicted that solar space heating and cooling could develop into a $2 billion per year industry within the next 15 years.
Prof. Gene C. Shove of the Agriculture Engineering Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is investigating the application of solar energy to crop drying. In October and November, when crops are dried, Shove notes, "we're not too bad off.... we do not have the sunshine here in Illinois that we have in the Southwest . . . but we get a lot of sunshine and we think we can capture it and do some crop drying with it." To facilitate storage, virtually all of the corn and an increasing percentage of the soybean crop are dried after harvesting. Illinois raises nearly one billion bushels of corn and 300 million bushels of soybeans annually. These crops are now dried with heat produced by burning nonrenewable fossil fuels.
No magic in the technology
Even fast food restaurants — long
considered bastions of high-energy
consumption — are investigating the
use of solar power. The Burger King
Corporation has announced plans to
build a restaurant in New Jersey which
would use a solar collector system and
previously wasted heat from the broilers
to provide heating and cooling.
A report by the Arthur D. Little, Inc.,
consulting firm indicates that utility
companies which generate electric
power could save up to $750 million if
they utilized solar space heating and
cooling. And what of the consumer?
Three New England electric utility
companies are offering their customers
the opportunity to have domestic water
heated by solar energy. The initial cost
would be $200 per installation during
the experimental program, but Robert
W. Jost, solar energy consultant for the
Massachusetts, Narragansett, and
Greenwich State Electric Companies,
says their customers currently spend
$150 to $300 annually for water heating.
18 / May 1976 / Illinois Issues
The amount of solar energy which falls on the continental United States is estimated to be 700 times our current energy consumption. The capture of some of this energy, either as directly usable heat or for conversion into electrical power, involves no technological breakthroughs. "There is no magic to developing solar energy technology," says Ross N. Rubin, assistant director of the Illinois Division of Energy. The practical means exist now to capture, use, and convert solar energy for space and water heating.
Why, then, hasn't solar energy been used more extensively? The obvious response is that conventional energy sources, fossil fuels like coal, petroleum, and natural gas, have always been available at affordable prices. But Drs. John A. Duffie and William A. Beck- man, directors of the Solar Energy Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, cite the lack of public pressure to develop solar energy. They report in the January 16, 1976, issue of Science that "a large, concerned constituency . . . pushed for development of peaceful uses of atomic energy. The result was a program supported by billions of dollars of federal funds over the course of three decades. Solar energy, in contrast, had no such support . . .."
Assuming that federal funding improves, researchers will be looking for ways to reduce the costs of what Forbes Magazine calls "the sky-high price of the little electronic devices that convert the sun's energy directly into electricity." The little devices are solar cells, and it now costs about $400 to buy enough solar cells to provide enough electricity to operate a black-and-white portable television set on a sunny day in central Illinois.
A whole branch of research known as photovoltaics deals with the development of solar cells. Solar cells are made from pure silicon crystals grown in laboratories to exacting specifications and sliced, like sausages, into thin round layers. The slices are then treated so that an electrical current is generated when sunlight hits their surfaces. The electricity generated by the cells can be stored in batteries. To reduce the cost of solar cells, researchers are finding ways to reduce the cost of extracting and purifying the silicon, and are developing means to increase the amount of sunlight each cell can collect.
Illinois appears to be well suited to these endeavors. To produce silicon, silica sand is reacted with coke, a byproduct of coal gasification. "We have the coal here in Illinois, and we have the silica sand from Ottawa, Ill., and we have the world's largest silicon producer about 125 miles from the capital in St. Peters, Mo.," says Ronald W. Ignatius, president of the M7 International Corporation of Arlington Heights, which manufactures solar cells.
To make the solar cell more efficient, both the Argonne National Laboratory and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory at Batavia are investigating the use of mirrors and curved surfaces to increase and concentrate the amount of sunlight beamed onto the cells. By increasing the amount of sunlight each cell receives to convert into electricity, it is possible to decrease the number of the costly cells needed.
Solar panels, storage tanks
Collector panels are used in both
passive and active solar systems. A
passive system employs the direct use of
solar energy to heat space or water. The
heating of water in drums on the roofs of
buildings in tropical countries or the use
of picture windows facing the sun are
examples of simple passive systems.
Such a system can be improved by the
addition of storage capacity to provide
heat on cloudy days and during the
night. A slab of concrete or a steel drum
filled with water and placed behind the
sunny window becomes a rudimentary
storage unit, maintaining heat long after
nightfall. If the panel and its storage unit
were located on the roof or out in the
sunniest part of the yard, it would
collect even more sunlight but the heat
would have to be transported to the
house. To solve this problem, pipes
filled with air or liquid are used to
replace the concrete slab or the drum,
and when the liquid or air becomes hot,
it is pumped into the house's heating system. With the addition of a mechanical pump, the passive system becomes an active system. Active solar systems usually incorporate insulated storage tanks. If the
system uses hot water, the water itself is
stored in the tank and circulated to heat
the house just as a conventional heating
system would circulate hot water in
radiators. If the pipes are filled with air,
the storage tank is filled with a material
which will hold heat. The most commonly used material is fist-sized rocks
which have a very high heat storage
capacity, although various chemical
materials are also being used. When air
is directed over the hot rocks or other
material, the air is warmed and can be
circulated through the house via a
conventional forced air system. Such systems can easily meet the
needs of buildings located in mild
temperate climate zones, but cannot
now meet all the heating needs of
buildings in areas like central Illinois
which have long cold spells during the
winter. In such areas, the most practical
use of solar technology is achieved by
using solar energy to pre-heat the air or
water entering a conventional furnace.
Such pre-heating means that the conventionally fueled furnace doesn't have
to operate nearly as long to provide the
heat needed during long cold spells.
Solar systems are now capable of
supplying from 50 to 75 per cent of the
heat needed for an Illinois home. There
are virtually no safety hazards involved
in the installation, use, and maintenance
of solar equipment, and there are, of
course, no fuel costs. But the initial cost
of installing an active solar heating
system is still high compared to the cost
of a conventional heating system. The Sun Systems solar house, built in
Eureka, has between $ 15 ,000 and
$20,000 invested in solar equipment to
provide heating, cooling, and hot water.
Safdari explains that the cost is high
partly because the system was custom
designed. "We think it should be more
like $10,000 to $15,000 when mass
produced," he says. With this kind of initial expense, how
can solar power be considered feasible?
It is generally agreed that once the
market for solar equipment grows and
mass production techniques can be
employed, the cost will be substantially
lowered. But even at the present high
cost, the Illinois Division of Energy
reports that solar heating systems return
But practical use of solar cells to
generate electricity is still largely
experimental. Most researchers and
consumers are more concerned with
reducing the costs of solar collecting
panels. Solar panels are the hearts of the
solar heating and cooling systems in use
today. Basically, a panel is composed of
a surface which can absorb energy from
sunlight as heat. The panels can be made
from materials ranging from foil to
concrete, and their surfaces are usually
painted black to minimize the amount of sunlight reflected.
May 1976 / Illinois Issues / 19
Solar energy advocates argue our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels will become too valuable to use
for space and water heating
the initial investment within 12 years.
Most authorities also concede that the
dwindling supplies of fossil fuels will
become too valuable and expensive to
use for space and water heating. This
fact is already becoming apparent to
consumers who pay ever-larger fuel bills.
Cost of not using the sun
Are there environmental drawbacks
to the use of solar energy? Aesthetically,
solar systems are not considered an
eyesore, but neither are they considered
an asset. When the panels are installed
on roofs and the storage tanks are
underground, the visual impact is
minimal. If solar cells are employed to
produce electricity for individual buildings, their placement would be no more
complicated than that of solar panels.
But the aesthetic considerations of the
projected use of solar cells to provide
electric power for entire communities
are more serious. It is estimated that
with presently designed solar cells, it
would be possible to meet the nation's
electricity needs projected for the year
2,000. The catch is that it would be
necessary to cover about 40,000 square
miles of land with solar equipment.
Obviously the nation is not going to turn
entirely to solar energy within the next
24 years, but the statistic points out that
solar generating stations will face new
problems not confronting conventional
utilities. Solar facilities will not, however, be subject to the same health and
safety questions addressed to nuclear
development nor the air pollution
problems now faced by power plants
burning conventional fuels. What are the environmental effects of
extracting the silicon and coal used to
manufacture solar cells? In the foreseeable future such manufacturing
would use only "a fraction of a percent
of the amount of silicon now mined,"
according to J. Ernest Dunwoody,
manager of the Energy Conservation
and Alternate Energy Section of the
Illinois Division of Energy. The environmental effects of this additional mining would be relatively insignificant. By comparison, he adds, "seventy per cent of the nation's purest silicon is now being used in the manufacture of
throwaway bottles." The use of coal to
produce solar cells faces the same
criticism as any other use of mined coal.
But when coal is burned directly for
heat, its energy potential is gone. When
it is used to manufacture solar cells, its
energy potential is used throughout the
projected 20-year lifetime of the average solar cell. The Division of Energy cites the lack
of easily available equipment; the dearth
of appropriate expertise in the architecture, engineering, and construction
professions; and difficulties in securing
financing for solar projects as the
problems facing development of solar
power. The most obvious solution to
these problems is money — money for
research and demonstration facilities; money to educate professionals and
consumers; and money to finance the
high initial costs of installing solar systems.
Although initial costs may be balanced by future savings, solar energy
advocates maintain that the cost of not
using solar power must also be considered. What of the destruction of
agricultural land through strip-mining
for coal and the health dangers of
conventional underground mining?
What of the international implications
of relying on foreign oil and the environmental hazards of shipping oil via
supertankers? Solar power "is expensive, but I think that one attitude that
has to come into play in our society is
the idea of life cycle costing and cost
benefit analysis — not purely on economic factors but also on environmental factors," says Dr. Alexander J. Casella, assistant professor in the physical science program at Sangamon State University, Springfield.
Federal support
To obtain federal support, states must
enter the competition for funds by
responding to announcements issued by
the administering agencies. Entering the
competition isn't exactly difficult, but
interested parties must know which
funds are available and must know how
to respond in order to stand a chance of
winning. "For successful commercialism of residential solar energy technologies, it is essential that there be a
very good response [to these announcements].... It is up to each of us to put forward our maximum effort to demonstrate that the time for solar energy in
Illinois has arrived," says Dunwoody.
This effort paid off early this year when
ERDA selected Illinois as the site for
one of four major federally funded solar
energy demonstrations. The Illinois
project is a $320,000 solar heating
system to be installed on one of the
buildings of Chicago's Navy Pier which
is being restored as a cultural and
recreational facility. The state's chances for federal funding look even brighter following release
of two ERDA advisory reports concerning site selection for a proposed new
Solar Energy Research Institute. The
advisory reports, issued by the National
Academy of Sciences and the Mitre
Corporation, conclude that easy access
to transportation and the kind of
environment that would attract high-caliber personnel are more important
than the specific climatic conditions of
proposed sites. This means that states in
the middle feasibility area are not
The federal government has money
available to develop solar energy. As
established in the Solar Heating and
Cooling Demonstration Act of 1974
(Public Law 93-409), the national policy is "to provide for the demonstration
within a three-year period of the practical use of solar heating technology, and to provide for the development and demonstration within a five-year period of the practical use of combined heating and cooling technology." This act provides $5 million for fiscal year 1975 and up to $10 million in each of the
following five years. Such funding is
usually limited to the difference between
the total cost of a project using solar
power and the total cost of the same
project using conventional systems.
Money for support of research is made
available by the Solar Energy Research,
Development, and Demonstration Act
of 1974 (Public Law 93-473) which
provides $2 million in fiscal 1975 and up
to $75 million in fiscal 1976. The funds
are ad ministered by federal agencies and
departments including the Energy
Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and the Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
20 / May 1976 / Illinois Issues
necessarily at a disadvantage when competing with sunnier states for the proposed institute which would have a $48 million budget and would provide 1,500 jobs.
And what about state funds? What is Illinois doing to utilize solar energy? To understand development of solar power on the state level, it's necessary to understand state energy politics in general. Three years ago, when the effects of the petroleum shortages were being felt, each executive department handled its own energy situation.
| The Federal Mandatory Petroleum Allocation Act of 1973, however, required each state to establish a fuel allocation office as a means of apportioning certain petroleum fuels among the states. On May 27, 1974, Gov. Dan Walker signed Executive Order 74-7 creating what became known as the Office of the Illinois Energy Coordinator. The first coordinator, James W. Cook, resigned because of family health problems, and on August 12 of that year the governor announced the appointment of Denis A. Hayes, who had been the national organizer of Earth Day in 1970-71. Under Hayes' direction, the Office tackled more than its assigned function of fuel allocation. Programs addressing energy conservation, development of alternate energy sources, and public information were added. Following Hayes' resignation to accept leadership of the environmental and energy programs of the Worldwatch Institute, the coordinator's office was merged on April 1, 1975, with the Department of Business and Economic Development's (BED) Division of Energy Development to form the Illinois Division of Energy. |
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This move consolidated the executive branch's energy programs into one office, but left that office open to charges of conflict of interests. Hayes' now defunct office had launched energy conservation efforts and pioneered the program to develop alternate energy sources notably solar power. BED'S division, on the other hand, had been created by the governor on December 19, 1974, to administer $70 million in state bonds designated by the Illinois Coal Development Bond Act (Public Act 78-1 122) for use in developing Illinois' coal reserves. Furthermore, the position vacated by Hayes, a known environmentalist, was in effect being filled by Sidney M. Marder who, as director of BED'S Division of Energy Development, was the man most involved in Gov. Walker's program to develop Illinois' coal resources.
The issue was further complicated because the same legislation that provided funds for coal development created a legislative energy commission and an advisory energy council. The state had thus lost one energy voice and gained two more. While the advisory council has existed primarily on paper, the Illinois Energy Resources Commission has become the legislative voice of energy. The commission is composed of 18 members selected from the general public and from the General Assembly by legislative leaders. Its chairman is Sen. John L. Knuppel (D., Virginia), who succeeded Rep. Adeline J. Geo-Karis (R., Zion). The relationship between the division and the commission is obviously influenced by the traditional loyalties and rivalries between executive and legislative branches, as well as by the enmities among the governor's Democrats, other Democrats, and Republicans.
Solar responsibility divided in state
Basically, there is not yet any legislation that specifically assigns responsibility for solar power to any state body. A House bill (H.B. 2885) introduced by Rep. Daniel M. Pierce (D., Highland Park) on April 12,1975 would have established a Division of Solar
Energy within BED. The bill, which
would have provided a 10-year property
tax exemption for solar appliances and
systems installed within 10 years of its
passage, passed the House but failed in
the Senate. It was opposed by Rep. Geo-Karis whose own bill (H.B. 1704) was
opposed by BED'S Division of Energy.
Geo-Karis' bill would have taken $10
million from the $70 million previously
designated for coal development and
made it available for alternate energy
projects. The bill passed both the House and Senate but was vetoed by the
governor on September 5, 1975. Although the governor stated "it is
inappropriate to reduce the state's
commitment to, and ability to participate in, coal development, "he affirmed
his support of "the concept underlying
this bill the establishment of a state
program for alternate energy and
conservation."
Solar politics in Illinois
Despite concerns that accompanied
his appointment, Marder has continued
support for the solar program. A draft
program for solar development was
issued March 19, 1975, and public
hearings concerning the proposal were
held April 29-30 last year in Springfield.
Release of a final program is imminent,
and Marder answers questions involving charges of conflict of interest by
explaining, "It is only logical that
emphasis should be given to developing
ways to utilize our large bituminous coal
resources in an environmentally sound
manner. However, we also have a
plentiful supply of sunlight and as part
of our overall energy development
program we are committed to furthering
the development of all phases of solar
energy." The division "has assisted
persons overseeing more than 20 buildings throughout the state in submission
of proposals for federal solar energy
projects totaling more than $4 million," he says. Whatever the outcome, the politics of
solar power will obviously become more
important as the industry and its
economic and environmental possibilities become more widely recognized
and accepted.
The issue promises to become even
more politically interesting following
the November announcement by Rep.
Geo-Karis that she plans to introduce
legislation to vest authority for alternate
energy development and funding with
either the Capital Development Board
or with the commission itself. The
Division of Energy, of course, wants to
retain the solar program established
originally by Dunwoody under Hayes'
auspices. In March of this year Gov.
Walker proposed that an Illinois Energy
Agency be created from the present
Division of Energy. The proposed
agency would not be part of BED and
would have authority to coordinate all
state energy programs, including those
affecting development of solar energy.
May 1976 / Illinois Issues / 21