It's good news for solar advocates and bad news for competitors: General Electric is breaking into the solar business in a major way. In April, GE announced it had built a solar module with the highest publicly reported efficiency rate for cadmium telluride thin film — the most popular low-cost solar technology. The commercial module topped out at 12.8%, according to independent testers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory — nearly 3 percentage points higher than the industry average. (The efficiency rate is the percentage of the sun's energy a solar panel can convert to electricity.) Those record-breaking solar modules will eventually be manufactured at a U.S. facility set to open in 2013 that will be the biggest solar factory in the country. The news means GE — which already has a wind-energy business worth some $6 billion — could be ready to dominate solar much as it leads the way in wind. "This is the beginning of what we see as a global competition," says Victor Abate, GE's vice president of renewables.
Despite GE's experience in the energy business — its founder did, after all, invent the lightbulb — the multinational behemoth will be entering the solar race behind its rivals. Those include Arizona-based First Solar, which began life as a small start-up before investments from John Walton of the Walmart family helped it become one of the most successful renewable-energy businesses in the world, with manufacturing facilities that produce 2,300 megawatts' worth of cadmium telluride thin-film solar modules a year. For now, GE's manufacturing capacity — including the planned new plant in Colorado, which is expected to employ 400 workers and create an additional 600 jobs — still makes it at best a medium-size player in the industry. (See the top 20 green tech ideas.)
But GE is GE, and it can bring resources to bear on renewable energy that no other corporation can — as its competitors in the wind-turbine industry already know. In 2002, GE grabbed the wind-power assets of Enron after the energy-trading company went bankrupt. At the time, Enron was the only major U.S. wind-turbine manufacturer left standing. On-and-off U.S. federal support had ceded the lead to European firms like Vestas and Gamesa. Today, though, GE is the third largest turbine maker in the world. "Our wind business was just a couple of hundred million dollars in 2002," says Abate. "Now it's a $6 billion platform. GE knows how to scale."
That's exactly what the solar industry needs. Solar power had an excellent year in the U.S. in 2010, growing by a remarkable 67%, faster than any other energy source. The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that over the next decade solar generation will expand more than fourfold. But solar can grow so fast, in part, because the market is so tiny: less than 1% of U.S. electricity comes from the sun. For that to change — for solar to become a game changer, not just a rounding error — it has to get radically less expensive. That improvement must come from innovation. Earlier this month, GE announced that a new power-plant design will integrate natural-gas electricity generation with both wind and solar as complements. Though GE has yet to reveal its cost structure for solar manufacturing, the company is confident that its efficient panels — and turnkey manufacturing — will rapidly bring down the cost of solar energy. Mark Little, GE's global-research director, has suggested that within five years solar could be cheaper than fossil-fuel power in regions with expensive electricity. "The leverage we have is our improving efficiency," says Abate. "Once you have a leading technical position, you can scale up and drive down cost." (Watch "The Truth About Solar Power.")
That's the hope, anyway. But the solar business in 2011 isn't the same as the wind industry was a decade ago, when GE began churning out turbines. Chinese companies like Suntech Power and Trina Solar can undercut their American competitors, thanks both to rock-bottom labor costs and steady government assistance of the sort not likely to be coming from Washington. American manufacturers like GE will struggle to beat the Chinese on sheer cost, though the company expects to reduce expenses on solar development by 50% over the next several years, Abate says. GE will need to win instead on innovations that take advantage of the company's scope and its experience at making the right bet at the right time. For all their usual preferences for the small and local, greens should hope for GE's success. If they want solar power to win big, they need the biggest player in the game.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Should Prenatal Care Be Extended to Dads?
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Stressed-out, anxious pregnant women who don't receive adequate support are linked to less-than-ideal infant health outcomes. The role fathers-to-be play hasn't been studied nearly as much, but because pregnant women rely on them for support and care, researcher ManSoo Yu says it stands to reason that inattentive expectant fathers may also contribute to poorer infant health.
"When people hear about a pregnancy, they automatically think about women and the baby," says Yu, an assistant professor in the Public Health Program and the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri. "It's never about men."
Yu, the study's lead author, analyzed 66 low-income Missouri couples, examining how stress and social support impacted men and women differently. To get a better hold on the emotions of both men and women during pregnancy, he administered the Prenatal Psychosocial Profile (PPP) to 132 expectant mothers and fathers. The PPP is typically given only to pregnant women to assess stress, self-esteem and how supportive they feel their partners are
When confronted with pregnancy-related issues — things like bodily changes and wondering how life will change post-baby — Yu found that men respond in much the same way they do when dealing with financial stressors, while women view them as emotional stressors.
"Men are thinking about how they are going to support their new family," says Yu. "They are trying to understand the role of the father and consider how they will parent."
While expectant mothers concentrate on the prenatal period, men tend to focus on the future, fretting about how they're going to afford diapers and child care. It's an important distinction and one that should be pointed out to doctors, nurses, midwives and social workers who take care of pregnant women, says Yu.
Whether or how the psychological well-being of men is associated with better pregnancy outcomes isn't clear, but Yu intends to investigate the association, suggesting that to start men should be more involved in prenatal doctor visits. Practitioners should engage them in caring for their partner during pregnancy and help men prepare for life after baby; men can be offered resources that educate about substance abuse, for example, and help them manage stress and boost their communication skills.
"We have to provide prenatal care for fathers," says Yu. "Expectant fathers deserve attention and support as well."
Data from the research also revealed that men and women doled out support in different ways. Women gave their partners emotional support while men offered tangible support, helping with specific tasks.
If nothing else, that's encouraging news in light of a recent by ForbesWoman and the pregnancy website TheBump.com, which came down hard on dads for not helping out more at home. Sure, women want to feel supported and understood, but what they really want is help with household chores and with the kids.
Well, sort of. The surveyed women complained about their partners not pitching in enough, yet many expressed reluctance to let their partners take over tasks. So it's a step in the right direction that the dads-to-be in Yu's study conveyed support by actually taking on domestic duties. Now it's up to mothers to ease up on trying to be Supermom.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/21/should-prenatal-care-be-extended-to-dads/#ixzz1QdQXGfCK
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