The availability of capital for developing photovoltaic markets

Photovoltaics ProjectCapital availability is not a problem in a well-functioning market. However, the market for photovoltaic cells is immature; in fact, the market for grid-connected photovoltaic applications (the primary concern of this study) does not yet exist. Therefore, the capital markets cannot easily evaluate the credit-worthiness, the economic attractiveness of the variety of photovoltaic production processes, research programs, or end-use applications currently being developed. Only when photovoltaic technologies converge to a roughly standardized set of mass production methods and consumer applications will private capital markets perform their job of allocating financial resources to the photovoltaic industry. Until then, investigations into the question of capital availability for this industry must focus on firm-by-firm "case" studies. This paper examines capital availability for both the production and consumption sides of this young industry. The experiences of photovoltaic producers in obtaining and allocating capital are described for three groups: oil company photovoltaic subsidiaries, electronic firm subsidiaries, and independent producers. This discussion is based on telephone and personal interviews with officials of the companies described. The capital availability problems of solar thermal consumers provide a basis for anticipating such problems for future photovoltaic grid-connected consumers. This basis is used to project the probable behavior of capital markets once mass production is economically feasible. Recent Congressional hearings on the creation of a Solar Energy Development Bank provide the primary backdrop for this discussion. It is concluded that given no change in federal programs to support photovoltaic production and/or consumption, only "large," capital-rich firms will enter the mass-production of photovoltaic cells. Small independents can survive only if they are proficient in serving the specialty, or systems, photovoltaic market. Large firms not currently active in the photovoltaic industry will enter production through acquisition or accelerated research programs once the mass-production market develops and the profit potential is recognized. Finally, consumers will have difficulty in locating financing for their photovoltaic purchases for some time after the mass market opens up. Recommendations include (a) no government subsidies until private industry defines the best photovoltaics technology, and (b) creation of a Solar Energy Development Bank after mass markets develop to dissolve the reluctance of financial intermediaries to lend

Effects of Redistricting Methods on Election Outcomes and Congressional Polarization, 2002-2010

Every decade the United States conducts a census of the population, which is used to allocate congressional seats amongst the states. To reflect this change, states also redraw their voting districts. They do this in three major ways: through their state legislatures, through an independent commission, or through a hybrid system. This paper contends that these different means of redrawing states' districts have differing effects on the outcomes of congressional elections, as well as on the level of polarization in Congress. Specifically, this paper examines election data for the House of Representatives from each state during the years 2002 to 2010, as well as calculated scores of polarization for each elected candidate. Using this data, this paper analyzes the relative impact of each redistricting method and how it accounts for the current level of polarization in the House of Representatives. Lastly, this paper will use these findings to make policy recommendations for the future.No embargoAcademic Major: Political Scienc

An Assessment of the Impact of a Science Outreach Program, Science in Motion, on Student Achievement, Teacher Efficacy, and Teacher Perception

The purpose of the study was to analyze the science outreach program, Science In Motion (SIM), located in Mobile, Alabama. This research investigated what impact the SIM program has on student cognitive functioning and teacher efficacy and also investigated teacher perceptions and attitudes regarding the program. To investigate student cognitive functioning, data were collected from the Mobile County Public School System based upon student performance on Criterion Referenced Tests (CRT\u27s), consisting of the students\u27 average score, percent of students passing the test (students scoring 60 percent or above), and the percent of students who were considered proficient, (students scoring 70 percent or above). The researcher hypothesized that (1) the students of teachers who participate in the SIM program would have statistically significant higher scores on their science CRTs than students of the same teacher prior to the teacher\u27s participation in the SIM program, (2) students of science teachers who participate in the SIM program would have statistically significant higher scores on their science CRT\u27s than students of science teachers who do not participate in the SIM program, and (3) teachers who participate in the SIM program would have a higher efficacy, as measured on the Teachers\u27 Sense of Efficacy Scale developed by Tschnnen-Moran & Hoy (2001), than science teachers who do not participate in the SIM program. Statistical significant differences at the p \u3c .05 level were found for all research hypotheses except for hypothesis 3. No statistical significant differences were found between the efficacy of teachers who participate in the SIM program and those who do not participate. The researcher also investigated whether or not being involved in the SIM program affected the participating teachers\u27 perspectives towards teaching science, funding of the science laboratory, and high stakes science testing and accountability. A phenomenological qualitative study was performed. The analysis consisted of coding the data and describing the associated themes. The themes were: SIM laboratory exposure Increases student success; SIM reduces teacher stress; SIM provides high quality laboratories for the science classroom; SIM needs to develop and provide more labs for advanced science programs; and, SIM increases teacher effectiveness

Determination of phase boundaries and diffusion parameters in tantalum hydrides by pulsed NMR

Proton spin-lattice relaxation times T/sub 1/ were measured over a wide range of temperature (77 K to 470 K) and compositions (H/Ta = 0.155 to 0.677) in the tantalum-hydrogen system at a frequency of 40,000 MHz. In the high temperature solid solution ..cap alpha.. phase, the activation energy for hydrogen diffusion was found to be 0.140 +- 0.002 eV/atom, and the value of the jump rate (or its corresponding correlation time) was found to be essentially constant throughout the range of compositions studied. The conduction electron contribution to T/sub 1/ measured in the ..cap alpha.. phase agreed qualitatively with the trend shown by previously published susceptibility data. The single phase epsilon region and the ..cap alpha.. + epsilon two-phase region were particularly noted. It could also be concluded from the measurements that the hydrogen jump rate decreased by a factor of approximately 7.2 from the ..cap alpha.. phase to the ordered phases at low temperatures and slightly decreased further in the epsilon phase. Anomalous relaxation times were found in the low temperature range (77 K less than or equal to T less than or equal to K). In this region, T/sub 1/ remains essentially constant, and does not follow the usual temperature dependence for either motional or electronic relaxation. Two possible explanations for this behavior were considered. The first involves proton cross-relaxation to the /sup 181/Ta nuclei which would sample the spectral density of magnetic fluctuations in the sample at several frequencies because of the probable very strong /sup 181/Ta quadrupole interaction strength. The second explanation postulates that the hydrogen diffusional jump path involves an intermediate metastable state

The AMD Rome Memory Barrier

With the rapid growth of AMD as a competitor in the CPU industry, it is imperative that high-performance and architectural engineers analyze new AMD CPUs. By understanding new and unfamiliar architectures, engineers are able to adapt their algorithms to fully utilize new hardware. Furthermore, engineers are able to anticipate the limitations of an architecture and determine when an alternate platform is desirable for a particular workload. This paper presents results which show that the AMD "Rome" architecture performance suffers once an application's memory bandwidth exceeds 37.5 GiB/s for integer-heavy applications, or 100 GiB/s for floating-point-heavy workloads. Strong positive correlations between memory bandwidth and CPI are presented, as well as strong positive correlations between increased memory load and time-to-completion of benchmarks from the SPEC CPU2017 benchmark suites.Comment: Very, very early draft for IEEE SoutheastCon 2017, 9 pages (need to get down to 8), 6 figures, 7 table