Unique Solutions in Material Handling

Moving products around is mechanical work.  When the work is done by a control system and actuators its mechatronics.  Mechanical work, whether by humans, by horses, by hydraulics, electrics or whatever, is still work.  Figuring out what technology approach will be the most cost effective way to get the work done is the challenge.

Many of the constraints of the work are environmental.  If work is being done outdoors, then temperature and humidity are a factor.  Felling trees and in the forest requires extremely high forces due to the work needed to cut through a tree and drag it to a truck to be hauled off for processing.  Processing trees, even in a plant environment, requires some serious hardware, 125 horsepower band saws are not unusual.

Doing work on a ship or oil rig has additional constraints because of the presence of explosive fumes and fuels.  Often the need to avoid any possibility of igniting a combustible atmosphere causes engineers to apply pneumatic control systems.  Yes, there is still a compressor somewhere to generate the compressed air supply, but that is usually remote or contained to avoid exposure to the volatile atmosphere.

Environmental constraints come in many forms.  Extremely high temperatures push the limits of what is possible.  Making glass, semiconductors, and primary metal processing are all high temperature environments where engineers have developed whole technologies in order to bring us the materials we use in everyday life.

The simplest action of rolling or sliding becomes a real challenge when environmental constraints are added to the work statement.  Sawdust becomes a potential abrasive in woodworking environments that can introduce severe wear in moving parts.  Corrosive and explosion proof atmospheres as well as food industry applications introduce all sorts of chemical compatibility problems that require special materials and processes in order to meet strict guidelines for safety.

As always, resourceful engineers have worked out solutions for all of these difficult applications.  One family of solutions to rolling applications is the use of all ceramic bearings.  No steel, no lubrication.  None is needed because the ceramics are extremely high purity to start with and have extremely high precision surfaces eliminating the need for lubrication.  No outgassing or contamination to worry about.

Other solutions take the form of air bearings and non-contact material handling devices.  Air bearings have become more readily available for conventional applications, but are particularly compelling in large machinery applications where precision is required.  Large flat screen display glass  presents unique challenges that successfully addressed using a combination of air bearing regions and vacuum regions to move the glass without actual contact and with overall flatness measured in millionths of an inch.

A unique solution in pneumatic material handling takes compressed air driven into a funnel shaped recess and creates a vacuum in the center and an air cushion at the edges where the air is exiting.  This creates a vacuum pickup that never quite comes in contact with the part, leaving no marks.  Perfect for solar cell and some food and beverage applications.

Engineers continue to meet the unique challenges of industry and create commerce at the same time.  And that’s what it should be about.

Energy Policy and Industry

Energy is the #2 cost in many companies.  During a statistical analysis of energy use by plant location in the 10 county Houston metropolitan area I found incredible amounts of energy required by manufacturers.  Stuff that you wouldn’t necessary think of until you start breaking down the details.

Cooking raw sugar and turning it into white sugar, for example, requires incredible amounts of heat and steam.  And generating steam requires a lot of energy.  Steam is very expensive to generate and almost impossible to store.  The cost of steam is so high that plants measure steam loss by the second.

Producing magnesium as a metal is a large scale electrolytic process.  The emphasis is on electrolytic.  The plant I visited measured current in 10′s of thousands of amperes.  There was so much power that the PC screens in the building had to be triple shielded or the magnetic field of the power distribution system would mess with the displays.  Huge annual cost of energy.

Where industry and commerce require significant amounts of energy to operate, these businesses become very sensitive to the cost of energy.  The same is true for individuals.  As the cost of gasoline increases we must individually choose to use less, or since some people don’t have the option to use less, pay more for gasoline and have less income to spend on other things.

Energy policy under the direction of the DOE and Congress has promoted solar power and wind power over coal, natural gas and nuclear energy.  There are two problems with this approach.  First, these technologies are very expensive.  Any time someone promotes technology and won’t talk about cost, you should be suspicious.  And that has been the history of alternative energy.

The second problem is that there is currently no way to store the power that is generated.  So unless you can use the power immediately, you’re in trouble.  A popular solar project is cited that used solar panels to generate peak power during the summer afternoons during periods of increased power demand when high air conditioning loads are required.  This is still a very expensive solution, but where the utility charges 3 or 4 times more for electricity during peak demand periods, this solution makes sense.  But it is a very limited application.

The question is, who decides how much energy will cost in the US?  State governments grant permits to open a utility.  They also decide what the utility companies’ goals will be.  The DOE has created consensus about alternative energy without approval from Congress.

Do the decisions of the government make sense?  That’s where the controversy starts.  If you are trying to run a business, then anything that increases costs is probably bad.  But no one in government appears to be listening.

Many businesses and almost every consumer is impacted by the decisions made by government.  Every extra dollar that is spent on lighting,  heating and cooling, and transportation is a dollar that is no longer discretionary.  So maybe that’s the real question.  Who decides what you and I spend our money on?

To the extent that government Policy causes dollars to be paid as increased energy expense, then the rest of the consumer economy suffers.  Which is part of the current problems that our economy is currently experiencing.

Alternative Energy Considered

Alternative Energy technology is something we have to consider carefully in the context of the real cost of energy.  Certainly we can use less as part of the solution.  But we can use less without changing our living conditions to the point that we freeze in the winter, broil in the summer and read by candlelight.

In part, a strategic energy policy should include incentives for people willing to engage in the risk of financing photovoltaic plants and wind power projects.  One of the problems with this is that the technology is not cost effective compared to the established methods of generating electricity.  More on that shortly.

But of great concern is how the “incentive” programs are designed to work.  And are they working as intended?

The creation of a “Feed in Tariff” (FiT) is one mechanism that the state governments use to incentivize investment in photovoltaics.  However, the FiT is limited in how much capacity can be built in the photovoltaic supply of electricity.  It has to be funded at the State government level.  So this is really a transfer payment from a group of taxpayers to a small group of investors to get the PV plant built.

In another frame of reference, when we consider the cost of producing energy, the history of the last hundred years has resulted in a mature industry that delivers power on demand to 300+ million users for pennies per kilowatt hour.  The purchase price of a coal fired power plant to produce energy in the US is in the range of $5.9 million per megawatt of capacity.  And that capacity is available day or night.

By the way, this also means that charging electric cars at night, when demand is generally lower for the power plant, is a great way to make the plant more profitable.

So the remaining question is; if you were really worried about the environment and felt that coal and natural gas were bad for the environment, what are the choices and most of all, how expensive is that going to be?

Well, if you are paying 14 cents a kilowatt hour presently, understand that your utility company is probably paying anywhere from 23 to 30 cents per kilowatt hour to buy the power from photovoltaic sources.   That’s pretty expensive.

And photovoltaic plants suffer from the fact that they only operate during daylight.  In fact, they only operate at peak power 2 to 3 hours a day.  Which is only 1/8 of the 24 hour day.  So the asset is only producing 12.5% of the time.  So they are not very cost effective with out a lot of subsidy money coming in to pay for them.

Nuclear power using wave reactors or pebble bed reactors can be very small, are very safe and they are also very economical.  They operate 24 hours a day and don’t emit any pollution to the atmosphere.  At an estimated $6.8 mil/mW they are the ideal alternative for those who are Eco-conscious without breaking the bank.

So why aren’t we hearing more about this option?

Solar Power is Alive in LA

The Solar Power International 2010 just finished at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  This is probably the largest get together of people in the solar industry in the United States.  The top vendors from all over the world were present.

Among the many interesting developments, many new product technologies, many new solutions focused on cost reduction, and many lessons learned along the way.

In the new developments, there are a number of new product entries, especially in the concentrating solar panel area.  As a subset of the Concentrating Solar category, there are a group of products which are similar to conventional solar panels, but use a lens like a magnifying glass to concentrate the sun’s light on a small patch of silicon that converts light to electricity. This approach has been around for a while, but in the past has had thermal problems due to the heat that is produced.  Remember setting a dry leaf on fire with a magnifying glass when you were a kid? Same thing.

The cost of the optics have come down and combined with the reduced cost of the silicon used, makes this type of concentrating solar more competitive.  But this type of concentrating solar technology requires 2 axis solar tracking with a fair amount of precision in order for the optics to do their job properly.

So there are a lot of new tracking systems coming into the market as well.  Large array trackers with high angular precision and high force from vendors like Bonfiglioli of Italy, Sener and TGB Group of Spain.  These systems are generally high reduction ring gears with a precision worm and spur output in the final stage.  Once again, a major mechatronic challenge in the middle of solar technology.  To say nothing of the incredible mechatronics required to manufacture solar panels.

There are five or six vendors who have built and installed these CPV systems have an interesting advantage.  They are reporting efficiencies of 22% and higher.  This is really amazing considering that the conventional photovoltaics are are typically in the range of 12% and thin film are 8%.  These are very significant developments in making the technology more cost effective.

And the forecast growth for solar in the US continues to be, well, “sunny”.  Sales of solar products in the US are expected to double again next year.  Which is amazing.

Its hard not to get excited about it.  But there is an important truth to be considered.  Solar Energy is still highly government subsidized.  The history of solar energy is built largely through the “Feed In Tariff”.  This is a mechanism where the utility company agrees to pay a premium price for electricity generated with photovoltaic equipment.

In the early years of 2000 the Spanish government set the highest Feed In Tariffs in all of Europe.  This caused a massive influx of companies to ramp up to manufacture and install huge amounts of equipment.   And therein lies the problem.  Spain has too much capacity and not enough demand.

Germany, which has relatively poor sunlight, has led the entire EU in solar installations. German PV engineering and capacity are well know around the world.  But what’s different about the situation in Germany is that the feed in tariff is being reduced gradually to allow the industry to adjust to demand that is not subsidized.

There are 2 lessons here that are very important.  We must be careful to not “overbuild” based on enthusiasm.  And we must protect American interests by purchasing domestic products.  And currently, our political leaders do not appear to be paying attention to either of these issues.

Semicon 2010

This year’s semiconductor industry gathering, Semicon 2010 is over.  And it was a good show with a lot of technical content targeted at the ongoing effort to achieve ever higher density parts.  The forecast for 2010 and 2011 is for the highest growth levels in a decade.  Certainly, at $295 Billion in projected sales for calendar year 2010, the semiconductor industry is the largest economic activity in the world. And it is just as certainly a more significant economic activity in the US economy than the automotive industry.

Which is saying a lot.

Some of that economic activity is the obvious stuff.  Jobs.  Making things that are important to the industry.  Like all the silicon ingot, water treatment, chip encapsulation compounds, chemical solvents, and gases that are needed.  And all of those feedstocks require people in their respective industries.

There is also the capital equipment market.  Companies that make machines that make chips.  Machines that grow silicon ingots, machines that slice silicon into thin wafers.  Polishing machines that make the surface smooth enough to create the nanometer sized features that become semiconductors.  Wafer probing machines that do functional testing, dicing machines that slice the wafer into the single chips, wire bonding the bare die into lead frames to we can attach the circuits.  Encapsulation, labeling, testing and packaging the final products.

The Semiconductor Industry Machinery business is estimated to be an $11B activity separate from the sale of chips.  The semiconductor equipment market is still the largest target market for motion control products and mechatronics of any market I know of.  At a close second place would be the electronic assembly machinery market  with it’s pick and place, adhesive dispensers and inspection machinery.

Interestingly, the semiconductor industry also provides trickle down technology.  Hard disk drive spindle motors require the exact same 3 phase brushless drive and control as industrial servo motors.  The difference is that the spindle motor is manufactured in quantities of tens of millions of units.  This allows disk drive manufacturers to explore the ultimate boundaries of cost reducing the technology and introducing new techniques to improve performance.  Much of this technology has migrated to the motion control industry in the way of integrated motor control chips.

The semiconductor industry is now made up of two major markets.  Chips and Solar Cells. The solar cell market is counted separately and does not overlap with traditional semiconductor business.  Many of the companies that make semiconductor machinery have extended their capabilities to the solar industry as a way of diversifying into new markets and making up the lost ground that was experienced in the machinery business.

While Solar is still an emerging industry to some extent, it will continue to drive large segments of the economy. Solar photovoltaics and solar hot water drive a lot of jobs in manufacturing and installation of systems.

What we need in the public policy sector is better understanding of the business needs that these industries require.  Generating enough electricity for these industries to thrive is one requirement.  And most states in the US have failed to bring any new capacity on line over the last 30 years. States that recognize these needs and are willing to meet them are going to be the States that prosper with low unemployment and thriving economies.  And that’s where we all want to be.

Intersolar 2010

Intersolar 2010 is one of the larger gatherings of the Solar Energy industry.  I had the opportunity to attend InterSolar 2008 when it was still relatively new.  In the last two years the Solar Energy industry has grown very quickly, chalking up 35% growth in 2009 over 2008 and with similar forecast growth for 2010.  Overall revenue generated from the sale and installation of solar energy systems in the US was estimated at over $2.4 billion.  This is made up of solar panel sales across the residential, commercial and utility customer projects with a mix of technology including some solar hot water systems, some large scale solar concentrator systems and a whole lot of solar panels being installed with racking, inverters, tracking systems, engineering design, contractor labor, etc.

The contrast between InterSolar 2010 and 2008 was very noticeable.  This year’s trade show reflected the growth and sophistication.  Tremendous effort is being put into every aspect of the photovoltaic technology, tandem junction semiconductors that produce the photovoltaic effect at 2 different light frequencies, enhanced surface texturing of the surface glass to improve transmission of light and reduce the problem of incident angle of light, new chemistries like Copper-Indium based photovoltaics which are now “printable” as ink coatings, and ongoing development of thin film silicon, concentrated light focusing on silicon, recycling of the silicon itself, and a host of improvements all targeted at reducing the cost of producing electricity from sunlight.  As you might expect, incredible support from semiconductor equipment makers to provide new equipment to make the technology scalable in production and cost effective in the marketplace.  Solar is the new growth engine in semiconductor equipment.

Solar Panels, like other types of semiconductors, are subject to decreasing cost with increasing volume.  In typical Semiconductor Industry fashion, a lot of capacity has been ramping up since early 2000 which led to a 40% correction (read “drop”) in the price of solar panels during 2009 which played havoc with project bids and created serious difficulties for distributors with inventories or contracts for solar panels at the higher prices of early 2009.  However, now that prices are lower, more demand is expected, and hopefully, companies that had a tough time during 2008-2009 will find business conditions in 2010 and 2011 more favorable.

There is continued optimism that the US solar market will continue to grow at 30%+ per year for the next couple of years, some forecasts are 50% per year and one forecast from Europe suggests 100% growth in the US market next year.  Huge growth forecasts combined with caution on the manufacturing side has created shortages and long lead times for new deliveries.

But we should note, with caution, that this market is largely subsidized by State Renewable Energy Portfolios mandating the alternative energy systems, Utility Company Rebates and Federal Tax Incentives.  Solar energy technology is generally sold on the basis of avoiding future increases in energy costs, not on the basis of eliminating energy costs.

So there is still a big gap in bringing electricity costs down using solar power.  Modern coal plants produce electricity that the utility company can sell at a profit for 6 cents per kilowatt/hour.  By comparison, a 300 watt solar panel will cost at least $1500 installed and functioning.  It can only produce about 756 kilowatt hours per year, and even at 12 cents per kilowatt/hour, won’t break even for about 16 years without government incentives.  So you’re not eliminating your electric bill, you’re prepaying it with a bank loan for a bunch of equipment that doesn’t burn coal.

That’s OK if you can afford it, just don’t make the mistake of thinking you are getting rid of your electric bill.   But be on the lookout for the next breakthroughs in solar.  They are coming.

$2 Bil more for Solar

The President announced $2 billion dollars will be given to fund solar projects in Colorado, Arizona and Indiana yesterday in a radio address.  The funding will pay for several large solar plants that will add permanent power capacity to the respective states.

One report indicated that the $2 billion would be funded as part of the scheduled $863 billion stimulus fund already appropriate by congress.  Another report indicated that the funds would be provided as loans.  There is a huge difference between the two, and the fact that the various reports are not clear on this point is very curious.

As a sidebar, I guess this is the new style of legislation.  The government passes a law first and decides what it means later.

$400 million is provided as a loan (or loan guarantee) to assist Abound Solar to add 2 major manufacturing facilities and new product lines for the company.  One facility in Indiana will be built from an existing automotive plant that will be re-tooled for solar manufacturing.  The company is expected to add several hundred new production jobs.

Abengoa Solar of Spain, which has operations in the United States will be receiving $1.45 billion, although it is not clear if the money is a loan or a grant.  And while Abengoa has operations in the US and has an excellent reputation as a contractor of large energy projects, it seems very peculiar to be giving money to a foreign entity.

This leads to a couple of really important questions about American energy policy.

From the standpoint of cost effectiveness, if you take the $1.45 billion for Abengoa and divide it by the 1500 projected jobs, the cash cost of each job is over $966,000,  per position.   It would be the same as paying $96,000 to each employee for 10 years.  This has to be the most ineffective use of public funds imaginable.

The other public policy question which has come up before is, why are US taxpayer funds being given to foreign companies?  Major green energy projects in every sector are being built by foreign companies with US government funding.   There needs to be a “Buy American” clause in all this pork barrel spending.  If these are loans, or loan guarantees, how does the government get paid back?

The corollary question for US Energy policy is why should the Federal Government be making loans or guarantees to private companies?

Fiskar Automotive, for example, has secured $500 million in loan guarantees from the DOE for it’s electric car program.  But Tesla Motors raised $2.1 billion in the private financial markets.  Does this constitute a scenario where the Federal Government is creating unfair competitive conditions by providing financial support to companies of their choosing?  And not providing similar funding to other companies.

This is also true on the larger scale.  As the Federal government continues to direct where the majority of US research and development funds will be spent, the process itself disconnects the efforts of the research community from the potential economic benefit that the research should be targeting.

The goal of all research is to produce a benefit.  And the benefit must be weighed in the context of economic utility.  When the development of technology is subjected to bureaucratic decision making, it is dissociated from the decision making process of economic benefit.

This will result in massive waste as limited resources are put into projects with poor return in value.  We appear to have entered a period of time where the process of free market decisions are being circumvented, and everything is to be decided by government.

Because, after all, these folks are professionals at spending your money and they know better than you, or the market, what is most important.

Solar Tracking

Like all things mechatronic, solar tracking is hard to describe.  If we consider the actual motion, it’s two degrees of freedom and both motions are rotary.  The problem is to rotate a flat rectangular panel both about it’s midline, which is azimuth tracking, and rotate it about its baseline, which is elevation.

And the two motions are essentially simultaneous.  Yes, we only see the azimuth motion because it is the daily motion of the panel.  But the angle of elevation has to be mechanically available at the same time so that the annual change of the sun’s angle to the earth can be adjusted.  You could probably get by with this one by going out and mechanically adjusting it 4 times a year, and it would work fine.  It’s just an extra hassle, and if you’re going to bother doing tracking it might as well be good tracking.

Here’s the reason tracking is so important.  The National Renewable Energy Lab says that dual axis tracking can add up to 36% to the energy harvest of photovoltaic panels.  That’s a big number.  It’s a bigger number than anything that is in the lab dealing with the fundamental efficiency of the energy conversion process.

Because tracking the sun has such a big impact on energy harvest, it gets attention.  There are about 20 companies and tracking systems around the world.  There are all kinds of interesting solutions to the mechanical problem.  There ought to be a prize for the best design.  Some of them are really wild.  But all of them have one thing in common.  They all move arrays of panels instead of one panel at a time.

There are two main areas of solar tracking, concentrating solar and photovoltaic panels.  Concentrating solar systems are generally arrays of mirrors that focus the sun’s energy on a target area to produce high temperatures that generate steam and turn a generator.  Large arrays of mirrors all pointed at the same spot require constant adjustment and very high precision in order to get the sun’s energy concentrated on the right spot.

In photovoltaic systems, the panels convert light to electricity directly and need to be perpendicular to the sun.  But accuracy of  +/- 1 degree is acceptable.  So in one sense, it’s not as difficult.  But 2 axes of rotation is a difficult motion problem to solve.  So there are a lot of solutions out there.

I spent some time working on this and there are several really simple solutions that are possible.  And in the process of researching all the possible solutions, we found a wide range of mechanical systems that are available.

Solid Tech Inc. is in the process of developing a cost effective solution that does 2 axis solar track on a single solar panel.  This approach serves commercial flat roof installations and residential applications increasing the total energy harvest and reducing the payback period for the system including the cost of tracking.

Stay tuned for more details.

Solar Power and Economies of Scale

If solar power costs decline to “grid parity” or the same cost as generated electricity costs at the grid, it will take over a significant portion of the utility industry.  That has been the goal for 20 years.  It’s a great idea.  Because eventually homeowners can generate their own electricity, become independent of the utility and reduce their operating costs.

Or so the story goes.

We’ve been trying to reach grid parity for some time.  Without much success.  And not because we aren’t trying.  Billions of dollars of government subsidies, R&D funding and private investment are being poured into the pursuit.

Energy independence!  Both as a Nation and as individuals.  It would be great to be able to say, personally, we don’t have pay any utility bills.

The first great fallacy is that either solar power and wind power can cause energy independence for the US.  This is because the energy we depend on is not electricity, it is Middle East Oil for gasoline.  We are dependent because of our cars and the choice to not make our own gasoline, even though we can at lower cost than importing it.

But on top of that, almost none of the electricity generated in the US uses Oil.  It’s all coal, natural gas, or nuclear.  So the idea that the US will reduce it’s foreign oil imports by generating electricity with solar power or wind power, is completely ridiculous.  There is no connection between the two.

There is a theoretical energy equivalency that can be expressed.  But there is no real connection.  So people who make this claim are intentionally misleading anyone who listens.

How are we doing with respect to the cost of electricity generated by solar power?  It’s been an interesting couple of years.  The industry experienced a brief shortage of raw silicon which kept prices fairly high.  More recently there was a precipitous drop in panel prices.

Opinions vary as to the cause of this drop, but with the massive increase in manufacturing capacity worldwide, I would guess that the price drop is strictly a matter of oversupply.

Economies of Scale will fix the problem according to some.  After all, look how well we’ve done with computers, hard drives and flat screens. Flat screens that were $10,000 to $50,000 a decade ago are now affordable to the point where the CRT has become obsolete.

Since the biggest component cost of the solar panel is silicon wafer, we should expect similar results in the solar market.  The stampede to build more solar panel manufacturing plants resulted in oversupply.

Now the race continues to drive costs down.  Panels that were selling for $3.50/Watt a year ago are down to $2./Watt and prices are expected to continue to fall. And some manufacturers will not be able to keep up with falling prices using older technology.

But are we getting to grid parity?  Is Solar power cheap enough to compete with utility power?  Nope. Because even at today’s bargain pricing, a 225 Watt panel will only produce 900 kilowatt hours in a year at maximum efficiency.  At market cost for electricity, $.05/kW, it’s only $45 worth a year.  And it currently costs about $1125 pay for the panel, installation and balance of system components.  That means it will be around 25 years, the end of the useful life of the system, before it breaks even.  Yes, in California where consumers pay $.23/kW the payback is better, but it’s still very expensive to convert to solar.

We have got to do better than that.  And we will.  The technology is coming along.  But economies of scale by themselves can’t quite get us there.

Scientists Create First-Ever Circuit Powered By Light

For the first time, scientists have created a circuit that can power itself, as long as it’s left in a beam of sunshine. Created by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania, the world’s first photovoltaic circuit could eventually power a new line of consumer devices or even model the human brain.

Right now the creators can only coax minuscule amounts of electricity from their photovoltaic circuits, far too little to power consumer electrical devices, although those amounts could quickly skyrocket.  There are plenty of other ways they say that they can squeeze more electricity from light. Right now only about 10 percent of the photovoltaic circuits on a glass side work. Increasing that number will boost the power output.  Another way to get more power is by turning their 2D structures into 3D structures. Stacking multiple layers of light-collecting and electricity-using circuits would also boost power.

The photovoltaic circuit is a scientific breakthrough, not a technological one. These new circuits will most likely never replace their silicon counterparts.

Photovoltaic circuits could be ideal for other applications, however, such as powering tiny robotic devices or running computer calculations at the speed of light.  Far into the future, these circuits could even be used to set up as artificial neural networks that could model the brain.

At their most basic, computers represent data as on or off, a “0″ or a “1.” Using light instead of electrons, these photovoltaic circuits could store data from, say, one, two, three or four. Each number would correspond to a certain wavelength or color of light — red, green, blue and yellow, for example. To model the human nervous system, each color of light could correspond to a different neurotransmitter, say red for dopamine and blue for serotonin.

The potential applications of the technology are huge, but will take years to develop into any kind of practical equipment.

www.news.discovery.com

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