DDIx Black Outs DA

This DA was made by Jeffrey Ko, Arya Nallanthighall, Elaine

Chen, Grant Gaylord, Ciar Jones, and Nick Mui (nobody cares)

1NC
Solar tech diffusion leads to blackouts
Follett 04/05/2016
(Andrew, Reporter for the daily caller, Solar Power To Cause Summer Blackouts In
California, http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/05/solar-power-is-breaking-californiaspower-grid-and-its-only-going-to-get-worse//ghs-)

Solar power is causing damage to Californias electrical grid and could lead to
blackouts this summer, but the states pxlan to solve the problem is vehemently opposed by The
Sierra Club. The state was forced to shut down its solar farms on March 27 because they were producing
more electricity than Californians needed. Grid operators say this damaged the power grid, and the system
will be incredibly vulnerable to damage and blackouts this summer because of excess solar power. The
operators proposed solution is to merge its power grid with PacifiCorp, Oregons electrical utility, which
has access to many more reliable coal power plans that could offset the unreliability of Californias solar
systems. Environmental groups such as The Sierra Club are furious about the solution and sent a letter to
California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown in February demanding California suffer blackouts rather than
merge grids with a company that uses coal power. Its constantly solving a constant problem, meaning
youre always trying to balance, Nancy Traweek, who directs system operations for Californias electrical
grid, told KQED Science Monday. All

of a sudden you have a major cloud that comes

over a solar field. That [power] needs to come from somewhere else
immediately. When it gets really bad, now we really got to start cutting as
much as we possibly can. If thats not done, then you could have a blackout.
Since the output of solar and wind plants cannot be predicted with high
accuracy by forecasts, grid operators have to keep excess reserves running
just in case. This also places extra stress on the grid, which could even lead to brownouts or blackouts,
similar to those that struck the state in 2000 and 2001. The country has already dialed down coal power
plants and solar farms to their minimum load requirements in an attempt to advert disaster, but there has
already been damage to the grid and, subsequently, power interruption In order for the any power grid to

Solar power runs the risk of

providing either too much energy or not enough, as it cannot easily adjust
output. Adding green power, which only provides power at intermittent and unpredictable times,
makes the power grid more fragile, especially in developing countries. Power demand is
function, demand for energy must exactly match supply.

relatively predictable, and conventional power plans, like nuclear plants and natural gas, can adjust output
accordingly as they put out a steady and predictable supply of electricity. Additionally, Californias highest
demand for electricity also happens right as the sun goes down, when people come home from work and
turn lights on, which means grid operators must switch out the solar power for conventional coal, natural

Solar power in California simply does not generate

electricity at times when it is most needed . If you continue going down this route, youre
gas or nuclear power plants.

going to have significant challenges in managing disturbances, John Moura, director of reliability
assessment at the North American Electric Reliability Corp, told EnergyWire late last month. The U.S.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is currently investigating how green energy undermines the
reliability of the electrical grid. FERC believe there is a significant risk of electricity in the United States
becoming unreliable because wind and solar dont offer the services the shuttered coal plants provided.
Environmental regulations could make operating coal or natural gas power plant unprofitable, which could
compromise the reliability of the American power grid. President Obama is burning his so-called bridges to
a green energy future that will leave Americas families and industries powerlessly impoverished. Any
notions that generously subsidized solar and wind will significantly compensate capacity losses from
shuttered coal plants and overregulated oil and natural gas suppliers are scientifically and economically
delusional. And as for any prospects that truly clean non-fossil nuclear or hydropower can make up the
slack, forget about that too. Lets start with some simple arithmetic. If you have heard some really
exciting news that the Obama administration has already doubled the amount of total U.S. energy derived
from renewable alternative sources (solar, wind and biofuels), that would be true.

Thanks largely

to $150 billion in generous federal subsidies , combined total renewables grew

from supplying slightly more than 2 percent of our primary fuel (including
electricity) to a whopping 4 percent today. Meanwhile over the same period, the total
increase of non-subsidized oil and gas also doubled, but added eight times more energy than the total

Oil and gas now supply about 63 percent of

all U.S. primary fuel. Coal provides another 18 percent . Bill Gates, a leading green
growth of wind, solar and biofuels combined.

energy proponent," candidly discussed false industry narrative in a November 2015 Atlantic magazine
article titled We Need an Energy Miracle." Referring to self-defeating claims of some clean-energy
enthusiasts," he said, They have this statement that the cost of solar photovoltaic is the same as
hydrocarbons. And thats one of those misleadingly meaningless statements. What they mean is that at
noon in Arizona, the cost of that kilowatt-hour is the same as a hydrocarbon kilowatt-hour. But it doesnt
come at night, it doesnt come after the sun hasnt shone, so the fact that in that one moment you reach
parity, so what? As Gates pointed out, The reading public, when they see things like that, they
underestimate how hard this [economical energy technology] thing is. So false solutions like divestment or
Oh, its easy to do hurt our ability to fix the problems. Distinguishing a real solution from a false solution
is actually very complicated. Google learned the same very hard lesson. In 2007 the company initiated
an ambitious program known as RE<C (renewable energy less than coal) to invest in promising renewable
energy technologies with the goal of generating gigawatt-scale electricity more cheaply than coal plants
within years rather than decades. Included were a wide range of innovative self-assembling wind turbine
towers, drilling systems for geothermal energy, and solar thermal power systems, which capture the suns
energy as heat. Google shut down RE<C in 2011 after determining that it could not meet its target.
Googles engineers also concluded that even their most optimistic cost-reduction scenarios for solar power,
wind power, energy storage and electric vehicles would have little climate impact. They appropriately
noted that todays renewable sources are limited by suitable geography and intermittent nature. Wind
farms, for example, make economic sense only in certain parts of the nation. Googles best-case renewable
supply models indicated that fossil fuel use would continue to be necessary for electricity generation,
transportation, agriculture and construction. Bill Gates is honest about the dishonesty of alarmist climate
claims, pointing out that global heating levels have not matched model predictions with much
uncertainty on both the good and bad side. He admits, By over-claiming, or even trying to ascribe
current things more to climate change than to other effects, environmentalists lend weight to the skeptics.
"Like, in the near term, the Pacific oscillation, this El Nino thing, has a much bigger impact on current
weather than [man-made] climate change has had so far. Nevertheless, in the interest of ending billions
of years of those climate changes, President Obama has made good on his pledge to bankrupt the coal
industry. And dont expect his administrations like-minded allies war on fossil fuel carnage to end there.
While previously touting natural gas as a lower emission bridge fuel to renewables, Sierra Clubs Beyond
Dirty Fuels campaign leader Lena Moffitt takes great pride that her organization has moved to a very
clear and firm and vehement position of opposing gas. Interviewed on "S&P Global Market Intelligence,"
she said, We are doing everything we can to bring the same expertise that we brought to taking down the
coal industry and coal-fired power in this country to taking on gas in the same way. Moffitt emphasized,
That is the one Sierra Club policy that we are all working toward: getting us to 100 percent clean energy,
which, of course, would include no new gas. Yes, this includes opposition to fracking to get it, refineries
to process it, pipelines to transport it, LNG terminals to export it, and the future energy and jobs that will
rely on it. In other words, to burn down a bridge fuel to nowhere.

Leads to nuclear meltdowns

Hodges 14 {Dave Hodges Head Editor of the Common Sense Show a wide variety of
important topics that range from the loss of constitutional liberties, to the subsequent implementation of a
police state under world governance, to exploring the limits of human potential. The primary purpose is to
provide Americans with the tools necessary to reclaim both our individual sovereignty
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/04/18/nuclear-power-plants-will-become-americas-extinctionlevel-event/]

power failure lasting for days

lead
to a dangerous radioactive leak in at least several nuclear power plants.
A complete loss of electrical power poses a major problem for nuclear
power plants because the reactor core must be kept cool as well as
the back-up cooling systems, all of which require massive amounts of
Long before Fukushima, American regulators knew that a

involving the power grid connected to a nuclear plant, regardless of the cause, would most likely

power to work. Heretofore, all the NERC drills which test the readiness of a nuclear power plant
are predicated on the notion that a blackout will only last 24 hours or less.
Amazingly, this is the sum total of a NERC litmus test. Although we have the technology needed to
harden and protect our grid from an EMP event, whether natural or man-made, we have failed to do so.
The cost for protecting the entire grid is placed at about the cost for one B-1 Stealth Bomber. Yet, as a
nation, we have done nothing. This is inexplicable and inexcusable. Our collective inaction against
protecting the grid prompted Congressman Franks to write a scathing letter to the top officials of NERC.
However, the good Congressman failed to mention the most important aspect of this problem. The
problem is entirely fixable and NERC and the US government are leaving the American people and its
infrastructure totally unprotected from a total meltdown of nuclear power plants as a result of a prolonged
power failure. According to Judy Haar, a recognized expert in nuclear plant failure analyses, when a nuclear
power plant loses access to off-grid electricity, the event is referred to as a station blackout. Haar states
that all 104 US nuclear power plants are built to withstand electrical outages without experiencing any
core damage, through the activation of an automatic start up of emergency generators powered by diesel.
Further, when emergency power kicks in, an automatic shutdown of the nuclear power plant commences.
The dangerous control rods are dropped into the core, while water is pumped by the diesel power
generators into the reactor to reduce the heat and thus, prevent a meltdown. Here is the catch in this
process, the spent fuel rods are encased in both a primary and secondary containment structure which is

should the pumps stop because either the

generators fail or diesel fuel is not available, the fuel rods are subsequently uncovered and a Fukushima
type of core meltdown commences immediately . At this point, I took Judy Haars
designed to withstand a core meltdown. However,

comments to a source of mine at the Palo Verde Nuclear power plant. My source informed me that as per
NERC policy, nuclear power plants are required to have enough diesel fuel to run for a period of seven
days. Some plants have thirty days of diesel. This is the good news, but it is all downhill from here. A longterm loss of outside electrical power will most certainly interrupt the circulation of cooling water to the
pools. Another one of my Palo Verde nuclear power plant sources informed me that there is no long term
solution to a power blackout and that all bets are off if the blackout is due to an EMP attack. A more
detailed analysis reveals that the spent fuel pools carry depleted fuel for the reactor. Normally, this spent
fuel has had time to considerably decay and therefore, reducing radioactivity and heat. However, the
newer discharged fuel still produces heat and needs cooling. Housed in high density storage racks,
contained in buildings that vent directly into the atmosphere, radiation containment is not accounted for
with regard to the spent fuel racks. In other words, there is no capture mechanism. In this scenario,
accompanied by a lengthy electrical outage, and with the emergency power waning due to either
generator failure or a lack of diesel needed to power the generators, the plant could lose the ability to
provide cooling. The water will subsequently heat up, boil away and uncover the spent fuel rods which
required being covered in at least 25 feet of water to remain benign from any deleterious effects.

this would lead to fires as well and the release of radioactivity

into the atmosphere. This would be the beginning of another Fukushima event right
Ultimately,

here on American soil. Both my source and Haar shared exactly the same scenario about how a meltdown
would occur. Subsequently, I spoke with Roger Landry who worked for Raytheon in various

Department of Defense projects for 28 years, many of them in this arena and Roger also
confirmed this information and that the above information is well known in the industry.

That causes extinction

Lendman 11 (Stephen, Research Associate of the Centre for Research on
Globalization,
03/ 13, Nuclear Meltdown in Japan,, The Peoples Voice
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/03/13/nuclearmeltdown-in-japan, accessed 8-2-12, RSR)

Reuters said the 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage, up to then the most costly ever natural

under
a worst case core meltdown, all bets are off as the entire region and
disaster. This time, from quake and tsunami damage alone, that figure will be dwarfed. Moreover,

beyond will be threatened with permanent contamination, making the

most affected areas unsafe to live in. On March 12, Stratfor Global Intelligence issued a "Red Alert: Nuclear
Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant," saying: Fukushima Daiichi "nuclear power plant in Okuma,
Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown." Stratfor downplayed its seriousness, adding that such
an event "does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster," that already may have happened - the ultimate
nightmare short of nuclear winter. According to Stratfor, "(A)s long as the reactor core, which is specifically
designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be
dealt with. If the (core's) breached but the containment facility built around (it) remains intact, the melted
fuel can be....entombed within specialized concrete" as at Chernobyl in 1986. In fact, that disaster killed
nearly one million people worldwide from nuclear radiation exposure. In their book titled, "Chernobyl:
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko
and Alexey Nesterenko said: "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than

Emissions from this one reactor

exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." "No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she
can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear
reactor can pollute half the globe. Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern
nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power.

Hemisphere." Stratfor explained that if Fukushima's floor cracked, "it is highly likely that the melting fuel
will burn through (its) containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before," at
least not reported. If now occurring, "containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and
expensive to nearly impossible," making the quake, aftershocks, and tsunamis seem mild by comparison.
Potentially, millions of lives will be jeopardized. Japanese officials said Fukushima's reactor container wasn't
breached. Stratfor and others said it was, making the potential calamity far worse than reported. Japan's
Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said the explosion at Fukushima's Saiichi No. 1 facility could
only have been caused by a core meltdown. In fact, 3 or more reactors are affected or at risk. Events are
fluid and developing, but remain very serious. The possibility of an extreme catastrophe can't be
discounted. Moreover, independent nuclear safety analyst John Large told Al Jazeera that by venting
radioactive steam from the inner reactor to the outer dome, a reaction may have occurred, causing the
explosion. "When I look at the size of the explosion," he said, "it is my opinion that there could be a very
large leak (because) fuel continues to generate heat." Already, Fukushima way exceeds Three Mile Island
that experienced a partial core meltdown in Unit 2. Finally it was brought under control, but coverup and
denial concealed full details until much later. According to anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman, Japan's

If the cooling
system fails (apparently it has at two or more plants), the super-heated radioactive fuel
rods will melt, and (if so) you could conceivably have an explosion," that, in fact, occurred. As a
result, massive radiation releases may follow , impacting the entire region. "It
could be, literally, an apocalyptic event.
quake fallout may cause nuclear disaster, saying: "This is a very serious situation.

2NC Link Wall

Reliance on solar causes blackouts
Bastasch 15
(Michael, Fossil Fuels Save Europe From Blackouts During Solar Eclipse, The
Daily Caller, http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/20/fossil-fuels-save-europe-fromblackouts-during-solar-eclipse//ghs-)
Europe would have been in a heap of trouble Friday morning if its coal and
natural gas-fired power plants werent ready to boost energy production
when millions of solar panels went offline during a total solar eclipse . Fridays eclipse
caused 13 gigawatts of solar power to go offline across Germany, less than grid operators initially predicted, but that drop in power was
balanced out by ramping up some idle coal and natural gas-fired power
plants. It would have been difficult to deal with a situation like today
without conventional power plants, Philipp Goetz, a consultant at Energy
Brainpool, told Bloomberg. The market has reacted well. People made an effort to buy or sell the power on the market. Only about 30
percent of the balancing power tendered had to be called for by the grid operators. So we havent been at the verge of a blackout. Unlike past eclipses over Europe,

officials were worried that the millions of solar panels across the continent
would abruptly halt production and potentially cause rolling blackouts . But utilities had
ample time to prepare for Fridays eclipse, getting traditional power plants ready to come online and balance the system. Britains National Grid operator predicted it
would lose 850 megawatts during the solar eclipse, and Spanish utility Red Electrica raised power reserve levels for the event and disconnected large consumers from the
grid. In Italy, the energy company Terna said 4.4 gigawatts would be lost during the eclipse. But it was Germany, Europes largest green energy producer, that was most
worried about the impacts of the eclipse. And its not just based on worries of blackouts. Germany wants to prove its $412 billion green energy plan is working and can
overcome major hurdles. Its tougher to manage the grid with a high penetration of wind and solar, Pietro Radoia, a solar energy analyst at Bloomberg New Energy
Finance, said. But going forward, grid operators are going to get better at managing. And its possible that battery storage will help them out. Fortunately for Germany,
things went smoothly during this eclipse. Though at times, power prices ranged from 950 euros per megawatt to negative 130 euros per megawatt. When prices are

heavy reliance on solar

power up to 40 percent of the countrys power on a really sunny day will have to overcome more than just eclipses. Clouds,
storms, snow and a whole host of other weather events that are less
predictable than the moons orbit can throw the grid into disarray unless
there is adequate back up power.
negative, it means that energy companies are essentially being paid not to produce anything. But Germanys

Dependence on solar panels causes widespread blackouts

NPR, 14 [Reported with Inside Energy, a public media collaboration
focusing on American energy issues, heard on Morning Edition, When the
Powers Out, Solar Panels May Not September 17, 2014.
http://www.npr.org/2014/09/17/348987688/when-the-powers-out-s3olarpanels-may-not-keep-the-lights-on]
The cost of solar panels is falling rapidly in the United States. And as the
panels become more affordable, they're popping up on rooftops around the
country. Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to find better ways to back up its power
system against blackouts. And while it may seem counterintuitive, more solar power
does not mean fewer blackouts at least not yet. The tiny town of Del Norte, in southwestern
Colorado, is a perfect example. Despite being covered in solar panels, Del Norte is still
at risk of losing power if its main power line goes down. The answer to that
conundrum, analysts say, is finding a way to let clusters of solar panels operate independent of the main
power grid. Look out at the forests on the mountainous edges of southwestern Colorado's San Luis Valley,
and you see a dull orange hue: broad swaths of dead trees killed by the spruce beetle. Conditions were
different back in the mid-1990s, when Larry Floyd started fighting fires here. "We didn't have as severe a
drought, we didn't have as much bug kill," he explains. But today, with those dry, dead leaves, there is a
lot more wildfire fuel out there. That's a concern for Del Norte. Set in the middle of the open, flat,

fire still poses a risk to the power

supply here, says the town's public works supervisor, Kevin Larimore. Most of
the valley is served by one major line, coming through the mountains and
into the valley. "If that line was to go down, then most of the valley, I think,
would lose electrical power," Larimore explains. That's despite the solar panels on the town hall,
the town shop and the police department. Turns out, Del Norte's solar panels are actually
dependent on the power grid. And that's how it is with the vast majority of
solar panels, explains James Newcomb, a managing director at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a
renewable energy think tank in Boulder, Colo. New Jersey, Newcomb notes, has hundreds
of megawatts of solar power. But during Hurricane Sandy, which thrashed the
East Coast in 2012, there were widespread blackouts sometimes for weeks
despite all those solar panels "because it's been connected to the grid in a
way that it can't operate if the grid isn't up ," he says. Mark Bortman of Exact Solar in
desertlike San Luis Valley, it's far from the forests. But

Yardley, Pa., says having leased solar panels on a roof can add an extra step when selling a house. He says
typically a buyer will assume the remainder of the lease, but that requires a credit check and some

That's
frustrating for community planners, who have to stare out at rooftop after
rooftop of useless solar panels during these blackouts.
paperwork BUSINESS Leased Solar Panels Can Cast A Shadow Over A Home's Value

Solar isnt consistent for the grid uncontrollable and

contingent upon weather.
Jordan Lofthouse, Randy T Simmons and Ryan M. Yonk 15 (USU Institute
of Political Economy, RELIABILITY OF RENEWABLE ENERGY: SOLAR 2015 Jordan Lofthouse,
BS, Strata Policy Randy T Simmons, PhD, Utah State University Ryan M. Yonk, PhD, Utah State
University http://www.usu.edu/ipe/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reliability-Solar-FullReport.pdf)
The U.S. electric grid is designed to transmit electricity from power plants whose output can be controlled

Solar power is not easily controllable because its fuel

source is at the mercy of the weather and cannot be transported. These
characteristics necessitate more complex grid management techniques and
new grid infrastructure. Accurate solar forecasting is crucial for the efficient
use of solar power. Solar powers variability is more manageable if power grid operators can
anticipate how solar power output is going to change throughout the day. When solar provides
less power than was forecasted, grid operators have to ramp backup power
plants. Conversely, when solar power provides more power than was
forecasted, grid operators have to manually reduce power system output.
These practices are costly. To illustrate the importance of accurate forecasting, a study by the
NREL on the impact of solar forecasts estimated that improving solar forecasts by 25
percent would save the New England independent system operator $46.5
million in generation costs.47 Methods for solar power forecasting include cloud tracking and
by power grid operators.

numerical weather prediction models, which use current weather data to predict future weather
patterns.48 Because solar power output varies across all time scales, both long and short term forecasts
are used by system operators. For example, an independent system operator in California (CAISO) uses
day-ahead and hour-ahead forecasts, and is planning on developing forecasts that predict solar output at 5
minute intervals.49 Solar forecasts will never be completely accurate, but researchers are working to
develop more accurate solar power prediction software. Connecting solar plants over large areas can
mitigate some of solar powers variability. Weather patterns are more predictable and stable over larger
areas.

Aggregating solar plants gives grid operators a larger network of plants

from which to draw power, reducing an areas dependence on backup power

plants. If one solar plant suffers from cloud cover, another plant may be
available to compensate for some loss of power. The United States
Department of Energy states that while aggregating solar would decrease
fluctuations in solar power output, there is not yet enough data to accurately
quantify the effect that connecting solar plants would have . Aggregating multiple
power plants also reduces the need for reserves, regardless of the type of generation. For example, the
Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc. consolidated 26 balancing authorities, which are
organizations that balance electricity supply and demand within a specific area. This consolidation
decreased reserve capacity needs over the areas covered from 1,200 megawatts to 400 megawatts.

Its inconsistent nature makes stable energy flow

impossible
Jordan Lofthouse, Randy T Simmons and Ryan M. Yonk 15 (USU Institute
of Political Economy, RELIABILITY OF RENEWABLE ENERGY: SOLAR 2015 Jordan Lofthouse,
BS, Strata Policy Randy T Simmons, PhD, Utah State University Ryan M. Yonk, PhD, Utah State
University http://www.usu.edu/ipe/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reliability-Solar-FullReport.pdf)
If aggregating multiple solar facilities is not feasible, operating reserves can be called upon to provide

most traditional power plants are designed to provide a

steady baseload of energy and are unequipped to ramp up and down quickly
to compensate for solar powers variability. Increasing cycling to compensate for
power when solar fails.52 But

inconsistent solar results in higher operation and maintenance costs for conventional power plants.53

During peak solar hours electricity demand is low, and the combined
generation of solar and baseload power plants can frequently produce more
energy than is needed, leading to problems with overgeneration .54 Certain power
plants, called baseload generators, must always be running at a minimum output
to meet reliability criteria or to fulfill basic energy demands . When solar
power plants produce too much electricity, grid system operators have to
order them to decrease their output so that electricity supply and demand
can be balanced.55 Curtailments and the resulting financial losses become more common as more
solar-generated electricity is integrated into the grid.56 Figure 4 demonstrates the magnitude of solar
powers overgeneration problem. The Duck Curve shows the amount of energy that the traditional power
plants of the California Independent System Operator will have to supply on a typical day in March.57

During the day, when solar plants are most productive, demand for electricity
from traditional power plants plummets. In the evening, the need for
traditional power increases due to the combined effect of solar output
decreasing and energy demand increasing. Existing traditional power plants
are expected to make up the difference, but most of these older plants
require several hours to ramp up sufficiently . Fossil-fueled plants historically have
been built to provide constant power, and it is difficult for them to meet increased demand
on such short notice Solar powers intermittency makes it a difficult energy source
for grid operators to balance with electricity demand . Aggregating multiple solar plants
can help mitigate solar powers intermittency, but it is expensive to do and not all solar facilities are close
enough to each other for aggregation to be feasible. In other cases, traditional energy sources can back up
solar when the sun is not shining but many of these facilities are not built to handle the ramping
requirements as more solar power is integrated into the grid. No matter the method used, reducing solar
powers intermittency is costly

2NC Cascade
One blackout creates a rolling chain of power failure
causing cascading blackouts for many regions
Cohen 10 [Jonah Brown-Cohen is a third year PhD student at Berkeley. His research interests are in
applications of spectral graph theory and discrete fourier analysis to algorithms and complexity. He
received his Bachelors in Math and his Masters in Computer Science both from Stanford
Universityhttp://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/brown-cohen1/]

August 14, 2003 a chain of events beginning with the loss of a few
powerstations due to high energy load escalated, with help from a combination of
human error and tall trees, into the worst blackout in history . All told, 50 million people
in the Midwest, Northeast and Ontario, Canada , with a combined load of 61.8 gigawatts
lost power for up to 4 days. [1] One of the most interesting, and worrying, points about this
blackout is that a relatively small number of failures in generating plants and a
few transmission lines shorting out by touching trees were able to set off a
massive chain of transmission line and generating failures across a huge
portion of the electrical grid. This effect is known as a cascading power
transmission failure, and once it begins it is nearly impossible to stop
before it has eliminated almost all power transmission in a large
area.
On

The 2003 Blackout originated in Ohio with the FirstEnergy power plants and transmission lines. [1] Under
high load, more current flows through a transmission line and some of the power transmitted is dissipated
as heat. At high temperatures, the conductors in a high-voltage transmission line expand, causing the line
to sag more toward the ground. This effect is amplified on a hot day as less heat can be dissipated to the
air. FirstEnergy had failed to trim the trees along several of its power lines, and so when they sagged under
load, four lines, three of which were carrying 345 kV, contacted trees and tripped their ciruit breakers. [1]
These line failures, combined with an ironic failure in the alarm system meant to notify FirstEnergy of line
failures, resulted in a large drop in voltage across the entire FirstEnergy power network. At this point, the
low voltage and high current on lines that had not failed, tripped the circuit breaker on the 345 kV SammisStar line, setting off the cascade. [2]
To understand a cascading power failure, one must first understand the relationship between current,
voltage and impedance on an AC line. In general, Ohm's law for AC circuits states that V = IZ where V is
voltage, I is current and Z is impedance. As load increases on a line in the power system, either because
more power is being used at the end, or because generators or other transmission lines fail, the magnitude
of impedance drops. Thus, if voltage is held constant by the generators, the amount of current will
increase. This is generally what happens under normal operation, and the lines are rated to function with
amounts of current much higher than what would be caused by lots of people using air conditioning or a
few isolated line failures.
The second key point to understanding a cascade is the protection system used for transmission lines.
Long transmission lines are very expensive, so if there is a short-ciruit, it is important to almost instantly
isolate the line before high currents can do serious damage. By far the most the most prevalent protection
system in place is the impedance relay. [2] These devices measure impedance along the line, and at the
junction with lines to which it connects further up in the power grid network. The idea is that if a line, or
any of its neighboring lines shorts out (perhaps by touching a tree) the extremely high current from a short
circuit to ground will result in very low impedance. Again this is because, by Ohm's law, Z = V/I. The
impedance relay then trips circuit breakers to isolate the line from the grid and protect it.

when there is a significant spike in load, as there was on the afternoon

of August 14, 2003, the generators are unable to adjust quickly to the change
in load, so voltage across the remaining lines also temporarily drops . At this
However,

point, current has also increased because load has increased, so impedance is very low. The key point here
is that the impedance relays cannot tell the difference between the low impedance caused by a short

circuit, and that caused by the sudden drop in voltage and rise in current from the failure of several lines

Thus, when FirstEnergy's lines and generators failed, the

impedance relay on the Sammis-Star line interpreted the drop in impedance
as a short ciruit and promptly tripped its circuit breakers to protect the line.
At this point, it was impossible for any sort of intervention to stop the
cascade. [2]
and generators. [2]

Once one impedance relay trips simply because of a rise in load rather than by an actual short cicuit, the
cascading power failure begins. This is essentially because the spike in current and drop in voltage that
can cause a relay trip has reached a critical mass. Once the relay trips, the line is isolated from the rest of
the grid, so some other line must very rapidly take on the extra load from the tripped relay. Since this rapid
change in load was already enough to trip the first line, having it suddenly shifted to some other line again
produces low enough impedance to cause a relay trip. This isolates the second line from the grid and the
whole process repeats itself, rippling through the grid extremely quickly. In fact, once the Sammis-Star 345
kV line tripped in 2003, it took only a little over 5 minutes for 50 million people to lose power. [2]

most estimates of the full economic repercussions of the 2003

blackout put the collective damage between $4 and $10 billion . [1] However,
the more startling number is the total cost per year to U.S. electricity
consumers due to power outages: $79 billion. [3] Though not nearly all of
these outages can be attributed to cascades, the effect is related. When load
gets too high on some sub grid in the power system, it is necessary to cease
power supply to some subset of customers in order to prevent the build up to
critical load levels that can cause a cascade. [1] Though much has been done in terms of
new regulations and standards to prevent blackouts like that in 2003 from reoccuring, it is important
to note that the system is necessarily vulnerable to a cascade. This is
because it is still absolutely necessary to protect transmission lines from
short-circuits by using impedance relays, so all that can be done to avoid
cascades is to attempt to prevent the initial conditions necessary to set one
off.
All told, a

Econ Impact
Widespread and long term blackouts has heavy economic
costs for companies
Moylan, 14 [John, Industry Correspondent, BBC, Electricity blackouts
would cause severe economic consequences November 27, 2014,
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30221520.]
economic consequences" if there was a serious disruption
to the electricity supply. The cost could run into billions of pounds, according
to a new report from the Royal Academy of Engineering . While the likelihood of such
an outage is low, the report warns that calculating the impact of electricity
blackouts is increasingly difficult. The government says the report is right about the impacts
The UK would face "severe

of long blackouts but insists this will not happen. The report says that the UK has not suffered serious
power interruptions for 40 years. But in that time our dependence upon electricity has increased. Our
living patterns have also become more fragmented and complex. That makes it very difficult to establish
the overall cost to the economy. Storms "We have looked at the methods used to quantify the economic
risk and the social impact, and found them wanting", says Dr John Roberts of the report's working group.
"A

nationwide blackout lasting for longer than 48 hours could have a severe
impact on society". While that scenario is unlikely, Dr Roberts points to the
storms and power cuts last winter in the south of England, which left
hundreds of thousands of households without power in the run up to
Christmas. He adds that significant adverse political impacts would result from any kind of electricity
shortfall. "Our historic high levels of supply in the UK mean that we are accustomed to the lights always
staying on," he says. 'Yardstick' Estimates suggest that the UK needs to spend upwards of 200bn over
the next decade to upgrade and decarbonise the electricity supply infrastructure. Dr Roberts concludes:
"We do not have a good yardstick to compare the potential cost of infrastructure investment with the cost

The report outlines costs associated with previous real

world blackouts, including the capacity crisis that hit California in the summer
of 2000. That resulted in rolling blackouts for 1.5 million people, cut
California's GDP and is thought to have cost around $40bn . The rolling power
cuts that followed the Japanese tsunami and the explosions at the Fukushima
power plant in 2011 are also highlighted. The event affected 45 million
people and led to shortages at companies around the world that were reliant
upon components or parts made in Japan. It notes that data on the cost of the disaster is
to society of power outages."

very limited.

Solar Fails
Solar fails economically inefficient, inconsistent in
energy production, and net environmentally worse
Jordan Lofthouse, Randy T Simmons and Ryan M. Yonk 15 (USU Institute
of Political Economy, RELIABILITY OF RENEWABLE ENERGY: SOLAR 2015 Jordan Lofthouse,
BS, Strata Policy Randy T Simmons, PhD, Utah State University Ryan M. Yonk, PhD, Utah State
University http://www.usu.edu/ipe/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reliability-Solar-FullReport.pdf)

Solar powers growth is driven mainly by government policies rather than

market forces. Because policymakers continue to favor the solar industry with
renewable energy mandates and subsidies, the reliability of solar power becomes a more
pressing question. The Institute of Political Economy (IPE) at Utah State University examined the economic,
physical, and environmental implications of solar power to determine its overall reliability. IPE determined

using tax dollars to mandate and subsidize solar power is not a worthwhile
investment because the high costs of overcoming solar power's unreliability
outweigh its limited environmental benefits . First, solar power is heavily
dependent on government subsidies and mandates , and the solar industry is
not economically viable without them. State mandates attempt to increase solar energy
production by requiring utilities to provide a certain amount of power from solar energy. Despite
mandates and billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies, solar power only
supplied 0.4 percent of the United States electricity in 2014. Solar power would not
exist even on this small scale without government assistance. Second, solar power cannot
effectively meet electricity demand because it is inefficient and variable.
Solar plants are some of the least efficient electricity generators of all major
energy sources. Intermittent cloud cover requires solar plants to be backed up
by traditional fossil fuel plants; solar is not able to supply power consistently
without serious assistance from fossil fuels. Because government policies are causing the
solar industry to grow artificially fast, current infrastructure cannot keep up with solar
powers growth. Most solar is generated during times of the day when
electricity is demanded least. Current solar facilities are generally located far from population
that

centers, and costly transmission lines have to connect the facilities to distant consumers. Households that
generate their own solar power and sell their surplus place mechanical stress on the electric grid as
electricity flows both to and away from homes, increasing maintenance costs. Third,

hidden

environmental costs make solar power less beneficial than most people think. Solar
power reduces carbon emissions because it does not require a fuel source to
burn for energy production. Solar powers intermittency requires it to be
backed up by fossil fuel plants, so the emission benefits of solar power are
reduced whenever fossil fuels need to be burned to maintain a constant
supply of power. Chinese manufacturing of solar parts also reduces net
environmental benefits because of destructive waste disposal processes . Utilityscale solar power plants also use large volumes of water in drought-stricken regions, and the facilities
displace local endangered wildlife. While this report concedes the benefits of solar powers carbon-free
emissions, all of the aforementioned factors decrease solar powers net environmental benefits, making it

Governments are distorting energy markets and

misallocating taxpayer dollars by mandating and subsidizing solar power.
Whether solar power will become reliable within the next few decades is an
open question best addressed by markets, not subsidies or mandates.
a less worthwhile investment.

A2: Storage
Storage is uncommon, plagued with uncertainty, and hard
to accommodate solar variability
Jordan Lofthouse, Randy T Simmons and Ryan M. Yonk 15 (USU Institute
of Political Economy, RELIABILITY OF RENEWABLE ENERGY: SOLAR 2015 Jordan Lofthouse,
BS, Strata Policy Randy T Simmons, PhD, Utah State University Ryan M. Yonk, PhD, Utah State
University http://www.usu.edu/ipe/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Reliability-Solar-FullReport.pdf)

The peak demand for energy often occurs in the evening when solar power is
least productive and cannot reliably meet demand . The inconsistency of solar
energy could be alleviated through energy storage, but because traditional fuel
sources can be utilized any time of the day or year, commercial-scale energy
storage is uncommon. Different types of energy storage would be needed to
accommodate solar energys variability at different timescales.61 On short timescales, grid
operators would need to utilize low-capacity, fast-response storage. Some fast-response storage
possibilities include batteries, flywheels (which store energy as momentum in spinning disks), and highenergy capacitors (which store energy in the form of an electrostatic field between its two conducting
plates). 62 For unpredictable weather patterns that occur on long timescales, high-capacity and slowerresponse storage would be needed. Slower-response storage possibilities include pumped hydroelectric

Because it is uncommon, regulatory

uncertainty surrounds grid-level energy storage. Utility companies hesitate to
invest in energy storage because it is difficult to estimate how the
government will regulate energy storage projects and how those regulations
will affect profits.64 In 2013, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a mandate requiring
storage and compressed air energy storage.

1.3 gigawatts of energy storage to be added to the grid by 2020.65 In an effort to reach this goal, one
utility company, Southern California Edison, has invested $50 million to develop 8 megawatts of power
storage with lithiumion batteries.66 Southern California Edison has warned that Californias energy storage
mandate "could cost up to $3 billion with uncertain net benefits for customers."

Aff Ans

No Cascade
Micro grids check black out
Roberts 16 (Catherine Roberts, Inside Energy, No More Blackouts: How New York Is
Protecting The Power Grid 1/11/16, Reporter, http://insideenergy.org/2016/01/11/no-moreblackouts-how-new-york-is-protecting-the-power-grid/ )
So now, along with 83 other communities, theyre competing in a statewide contest to develop
something different a microgrid. The contest is part of a multi-billion dollar project in New

A microgrid is a standalone
electrical system that can operate independently of the larger grid during a
storm or power outage. New York wants communities to develop them for critical services
York designed to strengthen critical infrastructure.

like hospitals and water treatment centers and to keep residents lights on. What we like
about the competition, Germain said, is its an opportunity for us to island off critical
resources. But its also an opportunity to look at renewables. And thats what we really are

Up until recently, interest in microgrids has

mainly focused on resiliency keeping power on when the main grid fails.
Francis OSullivan, director of research for MITs Energy Initiative, says thats
a natural fit for microgrids. But increasingly, he said, with the development of
lower cost photovoltaics that can be deployed at the rooftop or at the
community level, coupled to the availability of lower cost storage
technologies, theres this broader suite of applications for microgrids opening
up. Its a suite of applications that will substitute diesel generators currently the option of
choice for powering many microgrids with more green solutions. OSullivan says we
dont yet know what that might look like from place to place. But the number
of examples is growing. Connecticuts Wesleyan University has a microgrid,
Alaska runs over 200, some as old as 50 years . Utilities in California are
looking to microgrids as well, as a way to meet the states requirement that
50% of energy supplies should come from renewable sources , by 2020. Only
fascinated by. And she is not alone.

through that kind of learning by doing will we actually begin to understand what the practical
benefits of microgrids will ultimately look like, OSullivan said. In Port Washington, Germain
says theyre looking at options like using the high schools roof for solar, and looping the
library and a senior housing center into the grid. A plan in the Bronx aims to protect New York
Citys largest food distribution center. Towns elsewhere in the state want to incorporate tidal
power, or use local dams to provide hydroelectric energy. Ultimately, fewer than 10 of the 83
projects under development will receive state grants for construction. In the meantime, Linda
Colombo says she and her neighbors arent waiting around. Theyve taken resiliency into their
own hands.

No Blackouts
Blackouts being solved Smart Inverter Technology is on
the way to enhance grid support
SEPA 15
(SEPA (Smart Electric Power Alliance) is an educational non-profit, research
and collaboration organization, Rolling Out Smart Inverters: Assessing
Utility Strategies and Approaches,
https://www.solarelectricpower.org/media/416463/SEPA-Smart-InverterExecutive-Summary.pdf//)

THE WIDESPREAD DEPLOYMENT of solar photovoltaics (PV) in the United

States has spurred interest in new inverter technology with enhanced grid
support functionality. These advanced inverters, also known as smart
inverters, are primed for widespread commercial rollout over the next 5-10
years. For electric utilities, the inverter technology promises grid reliability and
efficiency benefits needed to manage growing PV penetration. While the technical
capabilities of smart inverters are reasonably well understood, practical methods to configure and deploy
the devices are not. Today, a handful of electric utilities are introducing smart inverters with PV
applications. This white paper, a collaboration between the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) and the
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), explores these leading-edge utility smart inverter adoption
strategies. It also examines the underlying rationales and value propositions to identify new concepts and
strategies that industry peers may consider when developing their own smart inverter deployment plans.1

Learning from the recent example of Germanys necessary and costly retrofit
of more than 300,000 solar inverters to enable grid supporting functions,
utilities in the U.S. are beginning to turn to the technology to ensure grid
reliability. Safety and grid interconnection standards (UL 1741 and IEEE 1547 respectively) are still
being updated for advanced inverter functionality, so most U.S. utilities have yet to implement these

a select few utilities in service territories with high solar

penetration are leading the way forward. This report profiles four utilities with individual
functions to date. However,

approaches to smart inverter rollouts, including: Hawaiian Electric Companies, Arizona Public Service,
Pacific Gas & Electric, and Salt River Project. The table on the previous page highlights key aspects of each
rollout strategy.

Innovative new renewable energy production solves grid

outage crisis
Chow 6/17/16 (Loraine, Writer for EcoWatch and other organizations,
Nations Largest Residential Solar Storage Project to Launch This
Summer, http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/17/solar-storage-project//NM)
New York utility Consolidated Edison (ConEd)

is partnering with solar companies

SunPower and Sunverge on a $15 million pilot program that offers highefficiency rooftop PV panels plus a lithium-ion battery to more than 300
participating homeowners in the two New York City boroughs. The aim is to build a
mini power plant synchronized by a massive fleet of residential solar and energy storage systems. If

the virtual power plantwhich will be operated with cloudbased technologywill have a total capacity of 1.8 megawatts of solar power and 4
megawatt-hours of storage, making it the largest residential energy storage project in the U.S., as
everything goes to plan,

Bloomberg reported. This ambitious program with Con Edison represents a significant milestone in U.S.
energy delivery, demonstrating that combining solar and energy storage can result in a stronger, more

resilient grid while providing end customers the opportunity to save on electricity bills, Howard Wenger,
SunPower president of business units, said.This experiment could mean big things for clean power

the New York

State power gridcould provide the model for practically every other metropolis to
follow. ConEd explained in its executive summary of the project that while solar energy has many
production in the U.S. If it all works out, as CleanTechnica wrote, New York Cityand

benefits, from improved air quality to reduction in greenhouse gases, a solar systems peak generation
hours do not coincide with the utilitys peak load hours, which typically occur after 5 p.m. Because of this,
high-carbon peaking turbines are still being used in the evenings, negating the environmental benefits of
solar. CleanTechnica noted that these speaker plants probably burn natural gas from fracking operations.

implementation of this clean virtual power plant, ConEd will be able to

dispatch stored solar power to customers during peak periods
instead of electricity generated by fossil fuels. Voltage fluctuations
from partly cloudy days are also negated. Homeowners in the program will receive a
But with the

7-9 kilowatt rooftop PV system and a 6 kilowatt/19.4 kilowatt-hour storage system. If a blackout occurs,
these homes can tap into the energy stored by their batteries, meaning they no longer have to rely on a
central power station. When

a grid outage occurs, the integrated system

will provide the customers participating in this demonstration
continued power to critical components in their home automatically, ConEd said. This
solution offers a simpler, cleaner alternative to the gasoline backup generators
available in the market today.

No Grid Collapse
The grid is safe and not at risk to attacks cyber-attacks
wont amount to disabling the electrical grids nationwide,
and the underlying mechanics show its near impossible
to achieve substantive results
Perera 14 (David Perera, Politico, Experts: Grid safe from big attack
09/10/14 David Perera is a cybersecurity reporter for POLITICO Pro. He has
reported on all things federal agency and information technology related
since January 2004, and watched the important of cybersecurity grow
exponentially during that time. Hes co-author of "Inside Guide to the Federal
IT Market," a business book explaining the intricacies of this particularly
complex market. He thinks youd find it a decent read. Read more:
http://www.politico.com/staff/david-perera#ixzz3pk1ONqHt
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/power-grid-safety-110815) GG
The specter of a large-scale, destructive attack on the U.S. power grid is at
the center of much strategic thinking about cybersecurity . For years,

Americans have been warned by a bevy of would-be

Cassandras in Congress, the administration and the press
that hackers are poised to shut it down. But in fact, the halfdozen security experts interviewed for this article agreed its virtually
impossible for an online-only attack to cause a widespread or prolonged
outage of the North American power grid. Even laying the groundwork for
such a cyber operation could qualify as an act of war against the U.S. a line
that few nation-state-backed hacker crews would wish to cross . Story
Continued Below None denied that determined hackers could penetrate
the networks of bulk power providers. But theres a huge gap between
that and causing a civilization-ending sustained outage of the grid .
Electrical-grid hacking scenarios mostly overlook the engineering expertise
necessary to intentionally cause harm to the grid, say experts

knowledgeable about the power generators and high

voltage transmission entities that constitute the
backbone of the grid whats called the bulk power
system. Theres also the enormity of the grid and diversity of its
equipment to consider. The grid is designed to lose utilities all the time,
said Patrick Miller, founder and director of the Energy Sector Security
Consortium. Im not trying to trivialize the situation, but youre not really
able to cause this nationwide cascading failure for any extended duration of
time, he added. Its just not possible. ICS security in a nutshell
Controlling the boilers, fans, valves and switches and other mechanical
devices that turn raw inputs and high-voltage transmission into flip-of-aswitch electricity is a class of computers known as industrial control systems.

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems, or SCADA, is a type of ICS.

ICSs arent general purpose computers like desktops. At the level of direct
control over electromechanical processes via a device often classified as a
Programmable Logic Controller programming is mainly done in specialized
languages on obscure operating systems. Even just accessing a PLC requires
particular software. Hiding malware in field devices is difficult to impossible .
Many of the devices arent running multi-thread, multi-tasking operations
like our laptops, noted Chris Blask, chair of the Industrial Control System
Information Sharing and Analysis Center. And penetration is just a starting
point. Just hacking into the system, and even taking complete control of a
computer or crashing a bunch of computers, wont necessarily bring down
the bulk electric system, said Dale Peterson, founder of Digital Bond, an
industrial control system cybersecurity consultancy. For example, hackers
could cause a SCADA system to crash, causing grid operators to lose system
visibility decidedly not a good thing. But the grid doesnt need the SCADA
system to continue operating. There has to be an understanding that simply
taking out the cyber assets doesnt cause a blackout, Peterson said.

No Meltdowns
No risk of meltdowns
Beller, 4 - Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada, Las
Vegas (Dr. Denis E, Atomic Time Machines: Back to the Nuclear Future, 24 J.
Land Resources & Envtl. L. 41, 2004)
No caveats, no explanation, not from this engineer/scientist. It's just plain
safe! All sources of electricity production result in health and safety impacts.
However, at the National Press Club meeting, Energy Secretary Richardson
indicated that nuclear power is safe by stating, "I'm convinced it is." 45 Every
nuclear scientist and engineer should agree with that statement. Even
mining, transportation, and waste from nuclear power have lower impacts
because of the difference in magnitude of materials. In addition, emissions
from nuclear plants are kept to near zero . 46 If you ask a theoretical scientist,
nuclear energy does have a potential tremendous adverse impact. However,
it has had that same potential for forty years, which is why we designed and
operate nuclear plants with multiple levels of containment and safety and
multiple backup systems. Even the country's most catastrophic accident, the
partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, did not injure anyone. 47 The
fact is, Western-developed and Western-operated nuclear power is the safest
major source of electricity production. Haven't we heard enough cries of
"nuclear wolf" from scared old men and "the sky is radioactive" from [*50]
nuclear Chicken Littles? We have a world of data to prove the fallacy of these
claims about the unsafe nature of nuclear installations.
[SEE FIGURE IN ORIGINAL]
Figure 2. Deaths resulting from electricity generation. 48
Figure 2 shows the results of an ongoing analysis of the safety impacts of
energy production from several sources of energy. Of all major sources of
electricity, nuclear power has produced the least impact from real accidents
that have killed real people during the past 30 years, while hydroelectric has
had the most severe accident impact. 49 The same is true for environmental
and health impacts. 50 Of all major sources of energy, nuclear energy has the
least impacts on environment and health while coal has the greatest. 51 The
low death [*51] rate from nuclear power accidents in the figure includes the
Chernobyl accident in the Former Soviet Union. 52

Storage Solves
Carbon Nanotubes solve the solar energy storage problem
Woody 14 (Tom Woody, The Atlantic, Scientists Discover How to Generate
Solar Power in the Dark 4/15/14 Todd Woody is an environmental and
technology journalist based in California. He has written for The New York
Times and Quartz, and was previously an editor and writer at Fortune, Forbes,
and Business 2.0
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/scientists-discoverhow-to-generate-solar-power-in-the-dark/360679/) GG
Scientists at MIT and Harvard University have devised a way to store solar
energy in molecules that can then be tapped to heat homes, water or used for cooking. The best
part: The molecules can store the heat forever and be endlessly re-used while
emitting absolutely no greenhouse gases. Scientists remain a ways off in building this
perpetual heat machine but they have succeeded in the laboratory at demonstrating
the viability of the phenomenon called photoswitching.Some molecules,
known as photoswitches, can assume either of two different shapes, as if
they had a hinge in the middle, MIT researchers said in statement about the paper published
in the journal Nature Chemistry. Exposing them to sunlight causes them to absorb
energy and jump from one configuration to the other, which is then stable for
long periods of time. To liberate that energy all you have to do is expose the molecules to a small
amount of light, heat or electricity and when they switch back to the other shape the emit heat. In
effect, they behave as rechargeable thermal batteries: taking in energy from
the sun, storing it indefinitely, and then releasing it on deman d, the scientists said.
The researchers used a photoswitching substance called an azobenzene,
attaching the molecules to substrates of carbon nanotubes. The challenge: Packing
the molecules closely enough together to achieve a sufficient energy density to generate usable heat. It
appeared that the researchers had failed when they were only able to pack fewer than half the number of
molecules needed as indicated by an earlier computer simulation of the experiment. But instead of hitting
a projected 30 percent increase in energy density, they saw a 200 percent increase. It turned out that the
key was not so much packing azobenzene molecules tightly on individual carbon nanotubes as packing the
nanotubes close together. Thats because the azobenzene molecules formed teeth on the carbon
nanotubes, which interlocked with teeth on adjacent nanotubes.

The result was the mass

needed for a usable amount of energy storage . That means different combinations of
photoswitching molecules and substrates might achieve the same or greater energy storage, according to
the researchers. So how would molecular solar storage work if the technology can be commercialized?

most
likely the storage would take a liquid form, which would be easy to transport.
It would also enable charging by flowing the material from a storage tank
through a window or clear tube exposed to the sun and then to another
storage tank, where the material would remain until it's needed , Kucharski said in
Timothy Kucharski, the papers lead author and a postdoc at MIT and Harvard, told The Atlantic that

an email. That way one could stockpile the charged material for use when the sun's not shining. The
papers authors envision the technology could be used in countries where most people rely on burning
wood or dung for cooking, which creates dangerous levels of indoor air pollution, leads to deforestation
and contributes to climate change. For solar cooking, one would leave the device out in the sun during the
day, says Kucharski. One design we have for such an application is purely gravity driven the material
flows from one tank to another. The flow rate is restricted so that it's exposed to the sun long enough that
it gets fully charged. Then, when it's time to cook dinner, after the sun is down, the flow direction is
reversed, again driven by gravity, and the opposite side of the setup is used as the cooking surface. As

the material flows back to the first tank, it passes by an immobilized catalyst which triggers the energy-

Other versions of such device

could be used to heat buildings. Kucharski said the MIT and Harvard team is
now investigating other photoswitching molecules and substrates, with the
aim of designing a system that absorbs more of the sun's energy and also
can be more practically scaled up.
releasing process, heating the cooking surface up, he adds.

Studies prove theyre effective

Valle 15 (Luis Fernando Machado Poletti Valle, Yale Scientific, Improving Solar Cell
Efficiency with Carbon Nanotubes 3/5/15, Astrophysicist at Yale,
http://www.yalescientific.org/2015/03/improving-solar-cell-efficiency-with-carbon-nanotubes/)
GG
Solar energy is a topic on everyones mind: environmentalists, scientists and engineers,

New research conducted by Yale scientists reveals ways to

make solar energy more efficient, starting at the level of a solar cell. The
team, led by doctoral candidate Xiaokai Li and associate professor of chemical and
environmental engineering Andr Taylor, has developed an innovative method for
increasing the efficiency of electronics made of Single-Walled Carbon
Nanotubes (SWNTs). SWNTs are a special type of carbon nanotube that
presents advantages such as high conductivity and mobility. The new procedure
conscious citizens.

consists of exposing the nanotubes to hydrogen fluoride and an electric current in order to
remove oxygen molecules from the nanotubes surfaces. In contrast with more conventional
approaches to the removal of oxygen, such as exposure to high temperatures, this method has

It has already set records for high power conversion

efficiencies (PCE), a measure of how efficiently a solar cell converts sunlight
to electric energy. SWNTs have many applications, from computer devices to solar cells
presented outstanding results.

that convert sunlight into electrical energy. Many researchers, including Li and Taylor, hope to
use these recent result as a stepping stone towards more efficient carbon nanotubes, which
may lead to advances in energy and computer electronics. Carbon nanotubes are used for a
variety of things, including hybrid solar cells. And our hope is that this method will drive down
the cost for solar cell production, Taylor said. Li and Taylor worked with SWNT/p-type-Silicon
(SWNT/p-Si) nanotubes, which have previously shown lower PCEs than standard silicon-type
SWNTs. We want the highest value for the PCE to reach the best performances, Taylor said.
By nearly doubling the PCE of a SWNT/p-Si nanotube, Li and Taylors research has greatly
contributed to the development of efficient carbon electronics. The method presented by the
Yale team is innovative because it follows a unique sequence of steps. Common procedures
include high temperature and ultrahigh vacuum or inert gas exposure, which provide a PCE of

Originally, the Yale scientists tried a low-temperature electric

current stimulation method, which did not provide satisfactory results.
However, they observed that exposure to high temperature followed by
current stimulation provided record efficiency of 3.7 percent . By applying results
only 1.9 percent.

obtained in previous research on other devices, they designed a new approach to oxygen
elimination: hydrogen fluoride treatment followed by electric current stimulation. The reason
we did the exposure to hydrogen fluoride is that we wanted to eliminate any oxide layers and
get a clean interface between Silicon and the nanotubes, Taylor said. The new method has
two components. First, the SWNT surface is treated with hydrogen fluoride vapor, leading to
the removal of the oxygen molecules a process imported from the semiconductor industry
for removing oxygen from silicon surfaces. Then, a constant electric current is applied to the
nanotubes to remove other residual molecules. Even at room temperature there is a natural
oxide on top of the silicon. When you have an oxide layer, it can become a barrier and
decrease the performance [of the device], Taylor said. Li and Taylor have shown that when
combined, these methods substantially improve PCE values and create better nanotubes than

does electric current stimulation, ultrahigh vacuum, or the traditional heating treatment
applied alone.