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Cooling towers are usually part of the design of a power plant, but they need to be run hot enough to to get a good energy flow rate and cool enough so that steam is properly condensed. Final cooling is usually handled by the river or tidal system. Apparently what is happening here is that the cooling towers can't do the last stage. More cooling towers might help but this increases costs so looking at other options for power generation becomes important.
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A better way: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

The drought in the southeastern US has not yet been conclusively linked to global warming. The problems described in Europe have been linked. It takes time to get that stuff figured out and it was not until the most recent IPCC report (this year) that the heat wave deaths in Europe were strongly linked. The main problem is that TVA is overloading the capacity of the river system as it is by over reliance on nuclear power so that it is increasing costs for rate payers.

Because nuclear power involves such long term decision making, and many of those decisions were made before warming was understood to be a problem, the consequences of warming for nuclear power are likely to be worse than for other means of generation. This is tied to siting decisions which place many nuclear power plants in tidal areas which will be affected by sea level rise http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/cliffhanger.ht ml. But, changing flow rates and temperatures for river systems will also have an impact. Climate models probably need to be improved before they can be used well to assist in siting decisions so the investment risk for new nulear power plants is probably higher than it will be in a decade or so when models are better able to look at watershed-by-watershed level effects of warming.
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Reducing the cost of electricity: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

The drought in the southeastern US has not yet been conclusively linked to global warming. The problems described in Europe have been linked. It takes time to get that stuff figured out and it was not until the most recent IPCC report (this year) that the heat wave deaths in Europe were strongly linked. The main problem is that TVA is overloading the capacity of the river system as it is by over reliance on nuclear power so that it is increasing costs for rate payers.

Because nuclear power involves such long term decision making, and many of those decisions were made before warming was understood to be a problem, the consequences of warming for nuclear power are likely to be worse than for other means of generation. This is tied to siting decisions which place many nuclear power plants in tidal areas which will be affected by sea level rise http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/cliffhanger.ht ml. But, changing flow rates and temperatures for river systems will also have an impact. Climate models probably need to be improved before they can be used well to assist in siting decisions so the investment risk for new nulear power plants is probably higher than it will be in a decade or so when models are better able to look at watershed-by-watershed level effects of warming.
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Reducing the cost of electricity: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

According to the article, this is different from environmental requirements on the down stream temperature. This is a lack of cooling capacity problem. The the energy transfer rate for the waste heat is just not high enough with the river temperature at 90 F.
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Better electricity: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

The cooling problem is a result of TVA's interest in building more reactors. Browns Ferry is now operating with two reactors instead of three because they recently added a reactor. They are also planning on adding a reactor upstream at Watts Bar http://www.tva.gov/news/releases/julysep07/wbu2.ht m adding to the heat load on the Tennessee River. So, next time, they may have to take two Browns Ferry reactors off line at seasonal peak demand. This makes electricity more expensive because it requires buying rather than selling electricity when it is most expensive.

But, the fairly natural solution to the problem, reducing summer demand through net metering of customer generated solar power, a solution being implemented in 41 states and DC, is hampered in the TVA service territory by TVA's net metering policy: http://www.tva.gov/purpa/net_metering.htm which is a billing period-by-billing period policy rather than an annual carryover policy used in net metering states. Adopting a reasonable net metering policy would allow TVA to become a summer time peak demand power exporter and gain by arbitrage, reducing the risk of higher overall rates it is building for itself by not paying attention to the capacity of the river system to handle the 60% of wasted energy nuclear power generation creates.
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Power when you want it most: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

"This is why I think copyright infringement should be up to the courts to investigate and prove or disprove as a criminal matter and NOT the plaintiff (corporations)" Copyright violation is up to the plaintiffs to prove, rather than the government, because (typically) it is NOT a crime, but a civil matter. But that could change http://openskills.blogspot.com/2007/04/copyright-i nfringement-crime.html/ http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,116791-c,copyrig ht/article.html/ http://www.cynical-c.com/?p=7502/

ThosLives Said: What's the point of bringing it up in an election debate?

I would think the point might be a bit clearer for you if we state it this way. "Do you intend to make policy decisions based on superstition and arrogant ignorance?" And to answer another of the questions in this thread, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo and Mike Huckabee raised their hands when asked "who does not believe in evolution" have stated that they do not "believe in" evolution. Their opinions on gravity and on antibiotics vs. exorcism are unestablished. For more on the candidates: http://thefishwars.blogspot.com/2007/05/republican -candidates-and-evolution.html

This means that being gifted is sometimes pigeon holed as being defective.

Never mind the nasty side effects of inappropriately prescribed drugs.

I wonder why so many bright kids are skeptical of school?

Is it possible for browsers to render everything *else* on a page while awaiting the ads to be served?

It depends how the ad is served. If it's served as an external piece of JavaScript (using a script element), then most browsers will reach the script tag and won't render anything else until the script has been downloaded. This can cause a delay if the ad server is slow or down.

If the ad is served using an img, iframe or object element, you generally don't have this problem, as the browser can leave a space for the advert and carry on rendering the rest of the page.

I work for an ad serving company and most of the ads we serve are in iframe elements. The growing popularity of script elements (they seem to be used for most third-party ads now) confounds me. Generally, I'm continually surprised at how much control over the user experience most websites are willing to give to ad serving companies.

In fact, I've published my AdBlock List.

I don't block text-only ads, or even graphical ones that aren't annoying, but fit within the context of the site. But ads that obscure the content, or are offered in popups, intrusive flash, or similar mechanisms? Bye.

Am I "stealing" from the sites trying to get ad revenue? I don't think so, but neither do I care. I do not have an ethical or moral obligation to view their ads, any more than I have an ethical or moral obligation to sit and watch TV commercials or read every billboard on the highway. If they want to block me because I won't look at their ads, that's their loss, because if they insist on showing me the annoying ads, I don't want to visit their site. The annoyance of the ads is greater than the value of their site.

The beauty of the web is that everyone has a competitor, and eventually I'll find one who won't block me for behaving in a reasonable manner.

Update:

Judgment was entered against the RIAA on August 16th. It has been reported that the RIAA intends to just pay it.

In fact, the better check is what occured. Methods (algorithms) were described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. The data were made available. There has been no secrecy. An independent coding effort meant that problems were revealed which, as it turned out, had to do with the data sets provided. There may be symultaneous errors in both coding efforts, but this is less likely than if code had been released. Science takes work and if you are not willing to put in the effort to take an average yourself, then you are just making noise. If you do put in the effort, and you find a problem, if it turns out to be an improvement on the original work you'll be politely acknowledged as happened here, even when the problem makes no difference to the conclusions. Independent confirmation of results is crucial. Code comparision is only useful when there are independent code sets to compare. Code is usually only provided in a first publication when it is thought that it will have further utility in broader applications. Methods of taking an average do not generally rise to that level. These attacks on the scientific method by the Inhofe crowd just demonstrate their cynical distortions of science.
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Replace carbon with silicon: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Remember, in the distant past the Earth was MUCH warmer than it is right now. It's happened before naturally, and is likely to occur again naturally.

True, global temperature does tend to change naturally over time. But it doesn't usually happen so rapidly. And when it does, it tends to suck for all us organisms living here.

He also cites the Seventh Generation Principle: http://www.precaution.org/lib/prn_bemidji_original .060706.htm. It is interesting to me we should be looking both forward and back in time here. About seven generations ago we see a discussion of what our attitude should be towards our tenancy in this generation while the indigenous people also credit their ancestors for learning a harmonious way of living on Earth. Our obligations run in both directions. To the past, to glean wisdom and build on it, and to the future, to provide an ever better example of how to live in harmony with the ecosystem and each other.
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Switch to solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

What you are looking for is also in the letter.
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Solar power with no installation cost: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

What makes the most difference to all this is cumulative pollution. We see the effects now of CO2 emitted in 1934 (an other prior years). There are forcings from particulate pollution that can be cooling, and there has been a change in the level of particulates put into the atmosphere, but these are shorter term effects since the stuff does not accumulate.
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Get off fossil fuels: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

I checked the link and you are correct. The spelling in the article is wrong. So, I guess the are saying they are the old fashion election systems now. Guess we know what progress will bring.
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Solar power with no maintenance fee: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

The name "Premiere" kind of implies thay want to do hit and run elections. I expect though by the end of the first act, the audience will decide the show is not ready for prime time and will vote with their feet.
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Solar power the easy way: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Hypercard has been (sort of) given a second life as Applescript Studio, since Applescript is basically Hypertalk in the first place. The difference being that now you can write real applications instead of "stacks."

I mourn the loss of AW. It's been a good friend and true for 20+ years. It deserved a better obituary than what Apple gave it after all those years of service: http://nitewing98.blogspot.com/2007/08/appleworks- dead-at-23.html

One of the top seven there...

Hey everyone.. I work on the JBossTools and RHDS Team and just wanted to give some community-level info about our project.

Red Hat Developer Studio is our commercial offering of the JBossTools open source project (formerly known as JBossIDE), which has a vibrant community of users and contributors. You can check out our project(s) at the following URLs:

JBossTools main page: http://jboss.org/tools
JBossTools blog: http://jbosstools.blogspot.com/
JBossTools 2.0.0.beta3: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=22866&package_id=242269&release_id=531957
RHDS 1.0.0.beta1 (based on JBossTools 2.0.0.beta3): http://www.redhat.com/developers/rhds/index.html

Feel free to drop by #jbosstools on freenode, we'd love to hear from you!

The article's main hypothesis is that piracy negates the price differential between Linux and Windows.

Specifically, one of the hypothesis towards the end of the article is that Microsoft unofficially acquiesced to piracy and maybe even encouraged it. Well, I thought I would point to Bill Gate's own words in the matter. In an article that I originally read on Cnet magazine, but that has since been commented and reprinted everywhere, he actually stated that piracy helps Microsoft by making the OS pervasive and that they were not worried about the Chinese pirating Windows, because if they are going to pirate "something", Microsoft and him would prefer that it be Windows.

"Then a comment made by Microsoft Founder, Chairman, and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates in 1998 and reprinted widely and often in the official media became a lightning rod for criticism of the software giant. Fortune magazine reported that, in a presentation to business students at an American university, Gates said rampant software piracy might turn out to be a positive thing for Microsoft.

"Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software," Gates reportedly said. "Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Source: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/02/23/ microsoft.china.idg/

And here's a more recent and yet more poignant articles and quotes from Bill Gates as it specifically mentions Linux.

Sources: http://www.digitaltippingpoint.com/?q=node/103
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_arc hive/2007/07/23/100134488/index.htm
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/ind ustry_sectors/technology/article2098235.ece
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/07/we-love-microso ft-software-piracy-in.html

I think the article would benefit tremendously from including the information above as it strengthens the author's main thesis a great deal.

I coincide with Dennet's subjacent idea that people from Western cultures are generally afraid to acknowledge that machines can do a better job than humans in many areas which traditionally have been cast as strictly human-only domains. This being due in part to ignorance and a clinging-on to activities which don't exactly make use of our fullest capabilities, which in my opinion entails making a fuller use of our frontal lobes in harmony with our mammalian and reptilian brain complexes.

This relates to HAD's theme in the sense that it is my thesis that some design tasks currently carried out by humans can be carried out by machines with at least equally good results, that is: without sacrificing the beauty, function or symbolic meaning of the objects produced and that perhaps designers need to start to search for other endeavors which use their capabilities to a fuller extent.

The advantage of this is clear in face of the currently-existing shortage of built environment professionals, particularly in economically developing countries. Why can't most people with more limited economic resources have access to beautifully designed living spaces?

Of Linux games there are few, and of FREE there are even fewer.

  Are you joking? I'm friggin unemployed, and I can barely find the time to play a third of the games that show up on the Linux Game Tome... World of Padman, Nexuiz, Flightgear, Lincity-NG, TORCS, Ultimate Stunts, S.C.O.U.R.G.E., Endgame: Singularity, Secret Maryo Chronicles, Battle for Wesnoth, TA: Spring and the TA: Star Wars mod, Privateer Remake and Gemini Gold..
  Forget Wine. There aren't enough hours in the day for just the linux native games, throw in ZSNES and GENS and Stella and FCEUltra and MAME and E-UAE and Mupen64, and you've got enough gaming for three lifetimes.

You need to spend some time looking around http://happypenguin.org/ and http://freegamer.blogspot.com/

What a shame for you that dentists CAN be outsourced to another country.

http://paddytravels.blogspot.com/2006/05/open-wide .html

I read the whole thing, long, chatty, but beguiling. You proably don't want to shorten it. I think this is about right. When my friend's kids got his computer hopelessly infected with spyware, his friend sent over a clean HD with a system on it, and we put that one in and mounted the old one for the data. He's got a tag on his box so running widows seems legit enough, it just happened to come on a new hard drive from a friend. The hard drive cost money, not the system. So, yes, my friend would rather have what he is used to (his old system without spyware) and there was not a big moral dilemma.

To me the big thing is that windows does not work all that well and it is better to avoid the frustration of saying, "Geez, I paid money for this?"

If there is a problem with linux, it seems interesting. Maybe there'll be a cool fix that someone has worked out. With windows is is just another MS hassle. It is easier for me to be patient with linux. But, my friend isn't going to see the interest. If he ever switched to linux, I think he'll be equally frustrated if there are problems. What is interesting is that while MS problems persist, the linux problems seem to get fewer all the time. There will likely be a point where it just works better in so many ways that word will get around.
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Solar power the easy way: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Perhaps this is why hundreds of people's internet accounts are being terminated by Comcast. It happened to me in January this year. After researching I've learned of dozens more who are pissed they get one call then are terminated for 12 months. I've been blogging about it for several months and have turned my efforts to bringing projects such as Utopia fiber to the home. I figure competition will force companies to bring the best product and service possible to consumers. It's pretty obvious Comcast isn't able to handle the increasing demand of it's customers. Especially after hearing how the terminations seems to be increasing.

I've been speaking with my City Council and the Mayor about joining Utopia. 14 cities have already joined and some are nearing completion this summer. With Utopia, if a company goes nuts (like Comcast did), you can simply give them the boot and select a more responsible provider.

I agree with you as does the publisher of IEEE Intelligent Systems in a recent editorial of his.

Not only is the combinatorics in Go greater than that of Chess but also the pattern recognition requirements in Go are much greater than that of Chess. With Chess, you have things like passed pawns, zugzwang, sister squares, and open files to recognize. In Go, you have things like life and death, thickness, shape, and the direction of play that you must be able to recognize. IMHO, the Go patterns are much more abstract than the Chess patterns.

However, let me take this moment to plug a great OSS Go program, GNU Go, which is the AI player part, and Panda-glGo, which simulates a Go board and can integrate with GNU Go. This is a great way for beginners to drill and improve their Go playing skills.

NewYorkCountryLawyer is Ray Beckerman, commonly referred to as "Ray" in these threads from news he submitted here for discussion.

...you're yet another Linux zealot who takes everything as an attack.

If I may diffidently suggest, the common participant in every argument you've ever had is... you. If you keep having the same arguments, it's at least conceivable that you have something to do with that.

it was refreshing to find one user who didn't have his head so far up his ass that he couldn't have an honest conversation. I even mentioned to him how he may be able to help spread Linux.

Oh, you mean here? Ah, yes, no one has ever thought of handing out LiveCDs before. Good one!

But let's see what you say in that comment: "I guess that's the catch-22. Linux needs big software to get the user base that it take to make it worth big software's investments to support Linux." And let's see what I had to say: "But there really is a chicken-and-egg problem in the desktop arena, and just saying 'Y'all need to try harder' isn't going to cut it... there still aren't many commercial games for Linux, because there isn't a big market for Linux games, in part because... there aren't many commercial games for Linux. That's a real problem, and that's what I and others are referring to when talking about the trouble of invading a monopoly market."

I guess I will keep thinking that. You certainly seem to, though you don't appear to recognize it when it's not stated in precisely your wording...

Hey, now. As an avid user of iGoogle, I object to your objections. One's Google homepage is only as monstrous as you make it. Mine, for example, has GMail, the weather and RSS feeds for Slashdot and Reuters. It's my homepage, so every time I start up my web browser, I check my e-mail. Sure, you're free to put games, quotes or the terror that is Google Eyes, but you certainly don't have to. Furthermore, your feeds are loaded independently and after the top search bar, so if you want to immediately do a search, you don't have to wait around for replies from a bunch of websites, you can just start typing.

It's called advergaming. A subset of Serious Games Game engines used in architecture

With regards to the part of the article that talks about corporate customization of games for corporate or military training, I'm surprised that I didn't see anyone else here talk about this but how about turning to the OSS world for custom game mods? cube shows great potential for modification. Nexuiz looks really nice and plays sweet. Tremulous is a great example of a FPS with non-traditional FPS rules.

I would be terribly, terribly remiss not to mention http://live.linux-gamers.net/ which I have blogged

Unfortunately for Wikipedia, the quality or lack of it in competing encyclopedias does not resolve the problems in Wikipedia. I hope Wikipedia can work on these issues because I am seeing some of it too. I'm also seeing article rot being quite common, in that old articles deteriorate, and not really from a lack of good will either. Someone discuss the problem in a blog here: http://nonbovine-ruminations.blogspot.com/2007/02/ where-are-stable-versions.html

That article seems to be referring to a specific snapshot of internet traffic, which is not indicative of typical internet traffic. Being the number one content provider by far, Google is one of the top companies that will be at risk if net neutrality disintegrates. That said, Google is using a multipronged approach to hedge the risk of a loss in the net neutrality debate.

First is Google's own OC-192 Network across the US and numerous Colos for this very reason. Second, is their relatively new target on policy makers, care of the intense lobbying they have started to do in Washington. Their strategy is no secret, especially when you consider that they hired the recently decorated "Father of the Internet", Vinton Cerf as their Chief Internet Evangelist. For further invormation on their Public Policy initiatives, take a look at their Blog entry on Net Neutrality.

Obviously, as has been alluded to in other comments, the barriers are high to building a vast network, and few companies enjoy the deep pockets that Google does, so you won't see alot of new private internet backbones. However, this relief on ISP backbones is an indirect fulfillment of their intent to cover the exponentially growing cost of ther internet backbone (not matched by the stagnant or falling Broadband access prices).

when you settle a patent dispute, you don't usually get the chance to make your payment conditional on the patent remaining in force forever. So Forgent can take the money from Motorola etc and run. In the UK, there was a case where a patent was ruled valid and infringed but before the judge decided on the level of damages, someone else knocked the patent out. When the judge eventually decided on the level of damages, the first company still had to pay because the infringement/validity finding was final and it's not in the public interest to allow 'double jeopardy' where someone has already been through the mill and won. See http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2004/03/yes-you-can-i nfringe-invalid-patent.html

Time to update my epiphany...

because the Euro-trash companies were charging .20 cents per kilobyte

Are you sure you don't mean 0.20 $/kb, or 0.20 euro/kb? This mixup between dollars and cents is the same thing that got Verizon very publicly humiliated for not recognizing the difference.

Unlike Verizon, I wish you no ridicule, so I hope you accept this comment gently.

Does this make anyone else remember the .002 cents debacle where Verizon insisted that .002 cents was equivalent to .002 dollars. See http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ for the saga, or http://media.putfile.com/Verizon-Bad-Math for the original phone call recording.

Actually, solar cells are more efficient than plants but in fact, lab cells have greater than 40% efficiency, and in practice, algae based fuel production only reaches about 15% efficiency which is lower than commercial solar panels (19% efficiency). There could be lower costs in using ponds and such, but it is not a more efficient use of surface area. So far, accelerated algae growth is dependent on a concentrated source of CO2, a coal or gas fired power plant at commercial scale: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html.

The amount of fuel needed for fusion is tiny but it will likely be deuterium so producing hydrogen does not get you far.

Historically, outside plant equipment cabinets have used lead-acid batteries. These have their own problems, but they are physically quite robust, and do not explode unless they are grossly abused. Yes, they do release H2 under some conditions, but this is a known factor in the cabinet design space.

One might examine the wisdom of serving lifeline POTS over DSL or cable, which require close-in standby power due to limited reach. I cannot see anything else which would compel batteries in the cabinet. If the power is out in the neighborhood, not many people will be watching TV or using the Internet. I doubt that this cabinet itself contained any equipment to directly serve traditional baseband POTS, and DSL splitter/combiners typically are passive; the POTS circuit will function even if the DSL equipment loses power.

Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, but under classic Carrier Serving Area design rules, digital loop carrier (POTS remote equipment) cabinets can be located 9000-12000 wire-feet away from the subscribers. With that working distance, size constraints on the cabinet are somewhat relaxed, and the cabinet does not need to be sited next to someone's garage.

Perhaps I am just bitter (and I had a direct stake, so this is a biased claim) that better structures for delivering VDSL triple-play alongside backup-powered lifeline baseband POTS, were available by 1999. Sadly, amidst the bursting bubble, these were mostly bypassed by the telcos in favor of waiting for what turned out to be this amazingly silly eyesore of an energetic kludge, plopped within striking distance of someone's garden fence and garage.

At least no nipples were damaged in this incident, as compared to: http://believe-or-not.blogspot.com/2007/07/cell-ph one-explodes-and-burns-off.html

Nuclear power plants can be moderated, but they are designed to run at nameplate capacity. Attempting to use them as dispatchable sources takes extra engineering. You might do the engineering, but this also raises operating costs.

I hesitate to call thermal storage a battery just as I would a dam. But, here is a link describing Solar One in Nevada: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One. You may want to follow some of the links there. As you'll see, the intent is to supply California, not the whole nation. As Washington supplies Southern California, this not at all usual: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/03/coast-to-coast .html. Again, the 80 by 80 miles thing is an example to get people to understand that energy density is not a problem for renewable energy. No one is proposing carrying it out this way. Roofs on homes can provide 46% of all the generation we use now, and more than 100% of the residential electricity use. That is for 17% efficient systems. In this case there is no need for new transmission capacity. I don't think you are quite understanding that the number used for the roof calculation was taken from the center of the country and was appropriate to panels. There is no Iowa thing going on. Please read more carefully. This is all explained.

With regard to the freebee, that is also explained. Many people point to the storage in plugin hybrids as being enough for most commutes plus night time use of electricity. On the other hand, this is not all that smart. Transportation grade batteries are pretty special and using them for household storage is not a great use of their specialization. But, what PG&E is positioning itself to take advantage of it that degraded transportation grade batteries are still better than most batteries so they'll use the batteries coming out of cars for stationary storage. This is also explained. Yes, nothing is free, but both the cost for transportation and the cost for stationary use is reduced owing to the extended use of the batteries. Moving the electricity around is done with wires, something PG&E has experience with. Now, here is the importance of distinguishing thermal storage from batteries: Thermal storage stores energy well with a high energy density, at least with the molten salts used at Solar One. But, it only makes sense if you store it this way prior to conversion to electricity. You are going from high entropy to low and so lose about two thirds of the energy in the conversion. (All thermal generation is like this including coal and nuclear.) Light, like electricity is low entropy, so if you are using quantum mechanical means to convert light to electricity you do not suffer the entropy problems that thermal systems have. Your digital camera, for example, has about 80% conversion efficiency though this is effected using a bias voltage so you can't turn a detector into an energy device. But, PV cells do do this using the doping gradient though they are bandwidth limited owing to the energy bandgap. Laboratory cells already manage greater than 40% efficiency owing to careful matching of bandgaps to the incident light energy quanta. They'll surpass 50% in a couple of years. So, you do not want to lose this efficiency gain by converting to thermal energy and then back to electricity. Batteries do a much better job at preserving the low entropy of electricity because they try to work with a single degree of freedom, a chemical latch. Some lithium batteries are 99% efficient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_(electricity) #Conversion_to_energy. You can get better than 90% transmission efficiency over 2000 miles with high voltage DC http://www.abbaustralia.com.au/c

Anyone who has a basic knowledge of physics knows hydrogen is stupid. If you have electricity, use batteries - you can skip the 400 pounds of ice and twenty five other major problems with trying to convert good electricity into hydrogen and back again. It will never work for terrestrial applications. See: http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2005/12/hydrogen-a gain-tweedle-dumb-and.html and http://www.tinaja.com/h2gas01.asp Hydrogen is dumb. Hydrogen is a bad idea.