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OK, since this is a solar photovoltaics post:

Someone is going to claim that solar will never be practical, because it is 10 - 15% efficient, while internal combustion, etc. is 30%+. Please, consider that you have to *buy the energy* that goes into that 30% efficienct machine, while the 15% efficient solar panel gets it all free - then run the numbers. The only cost that matters is the dollars per Watt capital cost of the cells upfront (which is still too high, but coming down.)

Someone is going to claim that solar panels produce less energy over their lives than it takes to manufacture them. This has not been true for about 40 years.

Someone is going to claim that solar panels are a toxic danger to human health. Please consider that they are manufactured using identical processes to microprocessors, are easier to disassemble for recycling, and last 20 - 30 years plus, as compared to the five year or so length for most consumer electronics.

Someone is going to claim that solar only makes sense in certain parts of the United States. Keep in mind that, for instance, Albany, NY gets 80% of the solar radiation of Reno, NV. Since you pay twice as much for electricity in Albany, solar panels actually make more sense there. (Remember, most solar panels go on rooftops and spin meters backwards - you get retail price ($.08 - $.15 / kWh,) not wholesale ($.02-$.04) like a power plant.

Someone is going to claim you would have to blanket the desert with solar panels to make a workable power plant. Is this what you do with a distributed, smart, resource, that can occupy unused roof space anywhere? Did we take all of our microchips and assemble them into one giant supercomputer in the desert? Solar panels belong in a distributed network of generators - at the end of the wire, and putting them there is cheap and practical.

Someone is going to claim the solar industry can never meet real-world power demands. Check any industry publication for an interesting statistic - in 1996, 100 megawatts of solar were manufactured. Jan - Dec. 2004 saw about 1100 MW (about $ 6 billion worth) manufactured. Still pretty small, but an amazing growth rate.

What does solar cost now? About 1/20 what it did in the 1970s, but still about twice as much as grid electricity. Once you buy the panels, and finance them with, say, a home equity loan, you're looking at $.18 - $.25 /kWh. Getting closer every year, but still not quite there.

To be a real power generation source, they need to get that lifetime up by a factor of 4 - doable with the right encapsulants, some chemistry, getting rid of liquid electrolytes, etc. I bet one of these poeple will be at $.10 / kWh in five years - but the conventional silicon cells can probably get there in about 8, with manufacturing and scale improvements. So it's a real race...we'll see who pulls it out.

He [U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards] said the FCC "crossed the line" beyond its authority approved by Congress. "You've gone too far," he said. "Are washing machines next?"

...Another circuit judge, David Sentelle, agreed...

"You can't regulate washing machines. You can't rule the world.

Oops. "OTEC" is already taken in the context of energy sources. It stands for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, basically a way to generate power from the temperature difference between the surface of the ocean and the depths.

US Dept of Energy OTEC page

We've had hydrogen refueling in Washington, DC for months.

I second the idea of an efficient heating system. I recently built a new house in Maryland, on the same windy hilltop as the old one, and speced it out to make it cheap to heat and cool. I went with modular construction, 6 inch walls, and a high SEER heat pump backed up by propane furnace that is 96 percent efficient. The house is 25 percent bigger, with double the roof area of my old house, which was built right after WWII and heated with oil. Last winter, it cost almost $400 a month combined for electricity and oil during the dead of winter. My base electric bill for lighting, hot water, computers, cooking, etc is about $60 or so. So far, the worst electric bill I have faced is about $140.00, and I have burned less than 50 gallons of Propane since the beginning of the heating season, and that will probably be about it as the temperatures trend up. I also keep the new house warmer than the old place, as I kept the heat down to 60-65 to save on oil, and keep the new one at 70. Summertime electric bills never exceeded $100. This is more of a testament to the inefficiency of the old house, with its leaky single pane windows, warped exterior doors, poor or nonexistent insulation, and an ailing 20 year old oil furnace.

One option for heating and cooling that I seriously looked at, but ended up rejecting due to the high initial cost was a Geothermal Heat Pump . At the then current prices for fuel and electricity, the payback time for the extra initial investment I estimated to be about 12 years or so. With a rapidly tightening construction budget, I decided to go with a more conventional system, but the concept was viable. Given about a 25 percent increase in the cost of electricity (very likely in the next few years), sharp increases in the price of Propane (already happened), or having to heat a larger space would have made a Geothermal system not only viable, but the smart move. Geothermal systems won't crap out like a conventional heat pump in very cold weather, necessitating the need to fall back on expensive backup heat, since the heat exchange medium is subsurface ground, which stays at a nearly constant temperature year-round. In the summertime, the energy requirements for air conditioning also favor the geothermal system, since the ground a few feet down is already as cool as, or cooler than the desired temperature of the house. I have heard anecdotal stories of 5,000 square foot houses in the Carolinas which cost less than $100 a month to cool with Geothermal systems in the heat of July, but I cannot verify this directly.

This is incorrect.

And where will the electricity come from, all those clean burning coal plants we currently use? Besides, electric cars are crap. They have no range and take forever to recharge. Meanwhile, my current car goes 300 miles on one tank and takes about 5 minutes to refuel. Electric cars won't get any better either unless there is a breakthrough in battery technology, unlikely since there's really only so much you can do, the energy density just isn't there. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (maybe that's what you mean by electric) aren't much better, hydrogen storage is not an easy thing, there is no infrastructure in place, and you still have the problem of producing the hydrogen.

IMHO the best solution is biomass, either bioethanol or biodiesel. These are compatible with existing technologies (all Windows users know how important backwards compatibility is) and they can be used right now (no fantastic technological breakthroughs required). I don't understand why programs like this are not being pursued more aggressively.

Until it reaches maturity, though, U.S. readers can pay for other forms of green energy.

Biofuel (ethanol, etc.) are net negative sources of fuel: The harvesting of biomass ethanol requires more fuel for trucks, processing, etc. than the ethanol contains.

That's simply not correct. It was true decades ago when the only source of biomass being used was food-grade crops - current industrial agriculture is massively inefficient. Current biomass production, primitive as it is, is net positive.

Gasoline, Natural Gas and Coal are scarce and major polutants.

Uranium and Plutonium are both highly toxic. Supplies of U-235 are limited. Plutonium presents massive security issues.

Wind and Solar are too costly.

Costs of both photovoltaic and wind are falling. When external costs are figured, they're cheaper than coal or nuclear.

So stop with the FUD already, ok?

Sorry, that link was for another site. This was the link I intended to include.

And yes, that's great news! From what I can discern from the pictures, it looks like they are using a hydrogen fuel cell. I don't know why they would call it hydro-electric, though, as that has a totally different widely accepted meaning.

Either way, more support for electric based motor vehicles and more development for hydrogen fuel cells. Good news all around.

go for it

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/altfuel/ethanol.ht ml

right now about 12% of US gasoline contains ethanol, vs 5% in Canada.

Bullshit. Ethanol blends higher than 10% would void the warranty of your car. The most common blen in US and Canada is 10%, called "E10".

If you google for the word "geothermal" the top four pages all reference heat pumps as geothermal energy. (The fifth is very brief and does not mention heat pumps either as geothermal or not.) You must have searched pretty hard to find the two references you sited.

Geothermal Education Office
"Today, with geothermal heat pumps (GHP's), we take advantage of this stable earth temperature - about 45 - 58 degrees F just a few feet below the surface"

Geothermal Resources Council
"Learn the basics about geothermal energy and the three technology categories, geothermal heat pumps, direct-use applications, and power plants"

U.S. Dept of Energy
"Ground-source heat pumps use the earth or groundwater as a heat source in winter and a heat sink in summer."

International Geothermal Association
"The most common non-electric use world-wide (in terms of installed capacity) is heat pumps (34.80%)"

Yup, you're still wrong.

P.S. citing the IRS as a technical resource is pathetic. They are the ones that upheld ketchup as a "fresh and perishable fruit" for purposes of bankrupcy.

Second, and far more fundamental, *it takes far more energy to make a solar cell than it can ever possibly collect*.

While this rumor has been circulating for a number of years, it is not even remotely true. Depending on what PV technology is used and specifics of geography and geometry, it takes anywhere from 6 months to about 8 years for a solar panel to produce the energy required to make it. This is very well established. The panels themselves have expected lifetimes of 20-30 years.

The cell degrades before it ever breaks even.

Not only does the cell not degrade before it produces the energy required to make it, it lasts so long that its lifetime is essentially unknown. Other materials in the PV module degrade, but as I said, expected module lifetimes are 20-30 years; in fact, manufacturer warranties are generally in the 20-25 year range.

The Bush Administration rejects the Kyoto protocols

True. But even if Bush were all over Kyoto, Congress would never ratify it. It's a non-starter. If you can sell it to Congress, then maybe you can finger-point at Bush.

As one of the world's most advanced nations, it's our responsibility to do everything within our power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, starting in our own country.

Great! Let's start building the nuclear power plants now. And let's fund development of hydrogen as an infrastructure fuel for cars and such.

Oh, wow! By extreme coincidence, the Bush administration is in favor of both of those things.

Given your position on Kyoto, I assume you are in favor as well? If not, start 'splainin'.

FYI, here's a small primer on how large scale generation works: first there is a generation source, producing low (5-20 kV) voltage electricity, which is then 'stepped up' by a transformer to above 100 kV over alternating current. This is then sent through power wires to a substation which then 'steps down' the current to residential levels (there may be multiple transformers up and down).

The big difference is PV is distributed . This means a far more efficient, redundant, and secure grid. But it also mean less grid stress, because more power is generated locally. For example, normally my power comes from my roof (distance 20 ft). Sometimes some of my power comes from my neighbor (dis. 500 ft). Occasionally some my power comes from the shopping mall (distance 3 miles). When the insolation is low some of my power is imported from 2 states away (600 miles). Say the weighted average distance my power travels is 1 mile (down the same wires it would have before). Now compare that to the centralized infrastructure we currently use which 90% of the time its traveling 600 miles! Transmission efficiency is improved and grid utilization is reduced.

For the 'grid' is a misnomer - its NOT a two-way street

And that the EROEI is quite different when you consider solar taking the major power role.

We've already shown it to have a better EROEI than fossil fuels, even when favoring the fossil fuels with less stringent EROEI calculations (i.e. not counting embodied energy of equipment). If PV has a EROEI of 15 (minimum), and since the fuel/sun is a free resource, its energy output can replicate itself by x^15. Hardly a problem

Yes, but it's spelled "lumen" (strictly speaking, output is measured in lumen, intensity upon an illuminated surface is measured in lux). A theoretical 100%-efficient lightbulb will convert 1 watt of electricity into 683 lumens, however no lightbulb approaches this. For example a 100 watt incandescent will typically output 1700 lumens for a 2.5% efficiency. The 14-watt compact flourescent bulbs I bought for $10/6 output 900 lumens for 9.4% efficiency. Enlux's neutral-white floodlight does 300 lumens with 15 watts input (no lumens data listed for their 22W nominal input) for 2.9% efficiency.

The best low-pressure sodium lamps do 183 lumens per watt, or 26.8% efficiency, however like many high-efficiency lamps they produce only a single output color, meaning that your eye won't be able to distinguish colors of objects illuminated solely by such a bulb. A lamp's ability for it to produce a natural variety of colors is measured by its CRI (Color Rendering Index).

I agree with part of the point you're trying to make. But who is going to pay for 'free' Segways? There is no free lunch; when "the government" pays for something, that money is taken from you and I. You did not explicitly say that the government should do it, but what other organization could do something like that?

And I know I'm being pedantic, but according to this US DOE page, the average American car weighs 3,409 pounds, which is much more than the figure you wrote. And no, I don't think the DOE should exist (after all, the only thing I've ever wanted from them is this obvious statistic). But other government agencies should go away first (like the FDA).

Diesel Sales Continue to Climb in Europe. The majority of new cars in France, Belgium, and Spain are diesels. Europe-wide, the percentage was 40%. (This was 2002). Early estimates for 2004 put the Europe-wide majority to diesels for new car sales.

yeah robert f kennedy, jr. describes putting wind turbines in the nantucket somewhat like putting oil wells in yellowstone.

sure we can produce energy that way, but why don't we explore other options first?

Electrolysis can be greater than 70% efficient at converting electrical energy into chemical energy (splitting water). How efficient is the electrolysis of water?

System effciencies will depend on the efficiency of your electrical power generation as well as the electrolysis processes. Some slides in here indicate 25-30% with conventional electric power plants and large scale electrolysis.

Higher system efficiencies approaching 50% are possible using thermochemical water splitting processes.

Yeah hydrogen is NOT a good energy source in our terrestrial environment. It is a very good battery (energy/mass) and a system built upon its use for energy storage and transport, and for distributed portable power generation (cars), may be substantially more energy efficient and substantially less polluting than our current one.

Question6, Bush: "a critically important experiment to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity and hydrogen" July 13th 2004, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham: "a critically important experiment to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity and hydrogen" Firstly, ITER as a source of hydrogen? I know ITER might spur the hydrogen producers, but then could this equally say ITER would be a source of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) and tritium (heavy-heavy hydrogen). Huh? Secondly, are these the words of our much loved Mr. Bush or did he just copy and paste some of Spencer Abraham's memos? This looks more like a 'whole party' thing.

I put an anemometer up for a summer at my house that got a pretty constant light breeze, and captured data for a summer. I figure a wind generator (at maybe 80 feet up) would have given me on average 3% of its rated power.

Have a look at (United States) this map before you put up a generator.

According to the DOE and biodiesel.org, your state sucks. :P

Most likely there are multiple sources in NYC, but 20 minutes of googling couldn't find them. You should post a request for location info on the biodieselnow.com forums for NY/NJ. That will get you in touch with local enthusiasts who can point you on to a co-op or new stations that haven't made it to the typically slow-to-update biodiesel.org and DOE's site.

PS: yes, I know that if you can't buy b20 (much less b100) it makes my "pro" arguments for biodiesel bunk. However, if you're passionate about being good, you're welcome to go make some biodiesel yourself. It ain't hard to make a five gallon batch - the info is out there. That's another post, though.

So, err, which chart was right? And where do I get 2003 data? :-)

I wonder why we get most of [our oil] from Saudi Arabia.

[Sorry in advance for the Cher lyric title]

If the US, Europe, and all other developed states could rebuild the infrastructure from a clean slate, wouldn't they implement WiFi (and GPS & cellular/PCS) solutions instead of the mesh(mess) of wires that criss-cross our landscapes and obscure our views?

If the above is true, then Wifi (and the aforementioned GPS & cellular/PCS) solutions are obvious in a place like Iraq that does not have the infrastructure that can support the needs of thousands of 21st century crusaders, er, soldiers. (no slight to the troops, just the politics).

of course, the last piece to the WiFi/GPS/Cellular&PCS puzzle is to figure out a wireless energy source - one that would not rely on massive drilling platforms, huge ovens spewing toxins, deadly radioactivity, or even something as mundane as holding back river waters and flooding lands. Yes, if only there was some way to have wireless energy that was silent and available to everyone, regardless of proximity to a power station (is the Sun a powerstation?).

A little over half, for conventional crystalline silicon cells; exotic multijunction cells can do better...I'm starting to hear the alarms that mean I'm about to exceed my technical knowledge, so I'll bounce you here:

Wrong. Solar gain from radiation is a significant factor in design. See for instance this, or this, or this, or this.

Convection/Conduction are certainly at issue when there isn't sun (say, Seattle or Syracuse), but when there is, the radiation transmission is a major factor. This new technology sounds very promising. And yes, deciduous trees planted in good spots are a good low-tech approach.

-dB

As for ethanol, I will raise you Cornell study with this one from the USDA which seems to say that ethanol is energy positive.

Umm, I think you are attacking some unrelated generalization you've heard in the past, not the actual poster's comment. He made no statement about hydrogen or solving fossil fuel dependancy.

But, since you are on that topic, there are a number of avenues besides fossil fuel for generating the electricity or heat or whatever for creating hydrogen:

Bacteria. Some scientist at UCLA did some calculations, and determined that a decent sized canyon in the Mojave desert covered 2 feet of water and a sheet to collect the hydrogen produced by the bacteria would be enough for all of Southern California.

Geothermal

Photovoltaics

Tidal

Convection

Fission

Fusion

Biomass Fuels

Solar Thermal

Wind

Hydroelectric

So, who are you swinging your fists at? Certainly not the original poster?

LS

Not all Solar is as toxic as you make it out to be. Significant strides are being made to manufacture panels as cleanly as possible.

Evergreen Solar is one company with a cleaner manufacturing process.

First Solar uses a thin film technology that is more easily recycled than traditional panels. Their manufacaturing plant includes recycling technology. It is a serious concern of their engineers.

Astropower used to manufacture their product from recycled silicon from the semiconductor industry. It isn't clear they still do so since being sold to GE, but they represent another attempt to reduce the environmental impact of the panel manufacture.

Lastly, the US Department of Energy remains optimistic that by the time the contemporary solar modules have reached end of life, recycling technology will have vastly improved in efficiency. Certainly we'll have a better chance of recycling solar modules than we will of spent uranium.

Perhaps the could just burn the river for energy.

Seriously, though, when I was a sophomore in college, I took a road trip from Oregon to San Francisco with some friends. We were driving down the 101 coastal highway (for those of you unfamiliar with the 101, you can see the ocean almost the whole time. It's beautiful), when I had a Eureka moment. I was looking at the ocean and it suddenly dawned on me, Holy shit! We could put turbines out there on the coast to collect power from the tide. They'd be an almost totally clean and renewable source of energy. I'm going to win the Nobel prize when I tell people about this! I told the other people in the car about my prize-winning plan and my friend Bex told me, "Yeah, they have those already. They kind of suck." I was pretty crestfallen.

Now with less crappy formatting!!

I've been fascinated by the possibilities of straw bale homes. Doing a quick Google search turns up this link (from 1995):

energy.gov

From the article: Are straw-bale buildings a fire hazard? The National Research Council of Canada tested plastered straw bales for fire safety and found them to perform better than conventional building materials. In fact, the plaster surface withstood temperatures of about 1,850 F for two hours before any cracks developed. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, "The straw-bales/mortar structure wall has proven to be exceptionally resistant to fire. The straw bales hold enough air to provide good insulation value, but because they are compacted firmly, they don't hold enough air to permit combustion."

Are straw-bale buildings acceptable to my local building code? Most cities and counties have adopted one of three or four model building codes. City, county, and state building codes may be different. Straw bale is acceptable to some codes, and not acceptable to other codes.

More and more areas may have accepted straw bale housing construction in the last 10 years.

A DOE biomass algae > oil project mothballed after successful completion in the mid-1990s has been revived by the U of New Hampshire.

Bottom lines from the report - replace imported oil will require:

• $183B capital investment
• $50B/year operating cost
• $2.12/gallon diesel at the pumps.
• about 10K square miles

  I'm just starting to get into the DOE report, but I've already gotten far enough to know that the technology demo project was mothballed because at the time, nobody saw a market for $2/gallon diesel oil and there didn't appear to be a substantial possibility of real disruption in the Middle East oil flow.

  CO2-neutral, the CO2 burned as oil will have been previously extracted from the atmosphere.

  Algae is about as efficient a way to convert CO2, sunlight, and nutrients to something which can be processed to oil fuel as is imaginable.

  It appears to be "good enough", though I prefer powersats for central station power as a coal replacement. The basic problem with that kind of project has been cost of transport to orbit.

  The Space Elevator may already be obsolete (follow the links) ... estimated $250/ton to LEO. No, $250 is NOT a typo, the solution is astounding, and the relevant experts appear to agree that this isn't snake oil. The rest we know how to do. Solar cells at current efficiency levels are "good enough". Microwave transmission is "good enough".

  If we as a society have the will (aka willingness to spend money), the solutions to the energy and a few related problems just got dumped into our laps.

the US military is getting attacked BECAUSE they are over in some other nation, fighting people who never attacked them in the first place. this is contrary to even the most basic common sense.

This isn't a defense of saddam,and he's a freaking goon we propped up and supported in the first place, but it is a condemnation of going to war under false pretenses, then blaming the people over there if they fight back in the only ways they can. You have _one_ choice against overwhelming tech and military superiority, and that's assymetrical warfare.

Turn it around, would you fight back if some coalition that was huge enough and big enough and decided to come over here and "regime change" us, even if you disliked the current regime here, wouldn't you consider those people invaders? I certainly am NO fan of the past three "regimes" we have had here in the US, but no way would I have welcomed or assisted some large outside military force coming over here and "helping out", I would consider them "the enemy" and act accordingly.

As to how those folks over there feel about us, I think if a long time ago we had changed two things in our polciies we would be better off. 1-we should have run with the reality wake up call of the OPEC embargo and engaged in a massive national size scale effort to completely eliminate any dependence on middle eastern oil. Totally.

2- we should have stopped the massive support for radical zionism in our policies by at least the early 70s when it became obvious that things weren't as originally presented. And along with those two issues, we should have never shipped so much as one bullet, in sales or direct aid, to any nation in the mid east. That's a blunder of incalcuable dimensions really.

A combined cycle gas turbine uses the waste heat from a Brayton gas-turbine cycle as the heat source for a Rankine steam cycle. In the "cascading closed-loop cycle" described in the article, a similar idea is used except that two Rankine cycles are involved -- they just use different working fluids. This should work, both in theory and in the real world, but I wonder about the cost and the additional complexity.

Another alternative that is proven, and makes good use of waste heat, is the combined heat and power cycle... for example, the waste heat can be used for district heating. Still another alternative that extracts more usable heat in the first place is the Kalina cycle, which uses a variable mixture working fluid.

Here's some basic info on heat engine cycles that may be useful for comparison purposes:

• Heat Engines
• Cogeneration or Combined Heat & Power
• Combined Cycle

A combined cycle gas turbine uses the waste heat from a Brayton gas-turbine cycle as the heat source for a Rankine steam cycle. In the "cascading closed-loop cycle" described in the article, a similar idea is used except that two Rankine cycles are involved -- they just use different working fluids. This should work, both in theory and in the real world, but I wonder about the cost and the additional complexity.

Another alternative that is proven, and makes good use of waste heat, is the combined heat and power cycle... for example, the waste heat can be used for district heating. Still another alternative that extracts more usable heat in the first place is the Kalina cycle, which uses a variable mixture working fluid.

Here's some basic info on heat engine cycles that may be useful for comparison purposes:

• Heat Engines
• Cogeneration or Combined Heat & Power
• Combined Cycle

The Department of Energy report cited in the article is a broken link. This one's live.

The angle of a solar collector relative to sun's position in the sky also greatly affects the amount of solar energy it receives. For example, a flat, horizontal surface facing true south in Topeka, Kansas (at 39 degrees North latitude), with total exposure to the sun all day throughout the year, will receive an annual average of 4.3 kilowatt-hours (kWh), or 12,969 Btu, per square meter (10.76 square feet) per day, while a vertical surface will receive 3.3 kWh (10,239 Btu) per square meter per day. In July, the horizontal surface will receive 6.6 kWh (22,526 Btu) per square meter per day and the vertical surface will receive 2.6 kWh (8,874 Btu), because the sun is higher in the sky in the summer and strikes the horizontal surface more directly. When the sun is lower in the sky in December, the horizontal surface will receive 1.9 kWh (6,485 Btu) per day, while the vertical surface will receive 3.4 kWh (11,604 Btu).

Your numbers are old. The point for energy break-even (when the amount of power produced is more than the power used to make them) is roughly 2-4 years, and their cost break-even is well within their 20-30 year lifetime. How long this takes depends on the electric rates in your area, of course.

A batteryless grid-tied system will break even on cost in roughly 6-12 years. Most people just can't stomach the large up-front cost for such a long payoff time. I can't, although I intend to as soon as I have an extra $10K sitting around.

Nasty chemicals are indeed used in their production, but your number there is so exaggerated it's ridiculous. Grid-power production produces a LOT of waste material each year per user. We generate roughly 1.5lbs. of CO2 per kWH-- roughly 2700lbs per person per year from the electricity used in their homes. This isn't to say that carbon is all we're dumping, it's just the only one I found a quick number for. Also in the mix of waste products from the power system are sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. And if we're talking nuclear power (which I support, so don't get too excited) there's the radioactive waste instead. To claim that solar panel production produces ten times the waste of grid-power production is disingenuous. Sure, the stuff used to make solar panels is nasty, but the amount involved compared to 30 years * 2700lbs. waste per person, I think there's a clear winner.

To quote our government, PV production produces small amounts of waste materials, but it is minimal relative to emissions from conventional energy sources."

First of all, I shouldn't have said or agreed with the term, "environmentalist wackos", as if all were. So no, I don't agree with Rush Limbaugh.

Here are some citations about toxic chemicals in solar cell production. Granted, there are toxic chemicals used in almost any manufacturing process.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar/man_pro_implicati ons.html?print

http://www.pv.bnl.gov/art_168.pdf


Here are a few articles about the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of ethanol production:

http://www.fcpp.org/publication_detail.php?PubID=1 80

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031128.html

From the sci.skeptic FAQ, here is a definition of "New Age" beliefs (so I am not the only one who associates the two):

http://home.xnet.com/~blatura/skep_7.html


Finally, I have no idea what the remark about chemistry is supposed to mean. Yes, I understand the tremendous amount of knowledge about chemistry that arose from the study of alchemy, but what does that have to do with your argument?

I'm sure that astrologers at one time provided much of the basis of astronomical observation, but I think astrology is ridiculous. Again, so what?

<a href="http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumerinfo/heat cool/hc_drain_water_heat_recovery.html">Link 1</a>
<a href="http://www.toolbase.org/tertiaryT.asp?Docume ntID=2134&CategoryID=1402">Link 2</a>
<a href="http://gfxtechnology.com/">Link 3</a>

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

All right! I *knew* someone would trot out the "solar panels take more energy" schtick! This is great; it's practically the only time I get to get modded up to insightful. Ahem.

They just updated this peer-reviewed survey study: (PDF) from the national laboratories. Short version? Worst case payback is 3.75 years from a system that will last 30 years. (A coal or natural gas combined cycle power plant, by the way, has about the same energy payback - they don't spring fully formed from the soil.)

This is not to denigrate the Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies you spoke of; they're promising central station power. Check DOE's CSP page for more info there. But read up before you dismiss photovoltaics out of hand.

Just found this
Energy fact sheet.
It's good some good details on permits and selling the power etc.

While it is true that coal mining is still a rather dangerous occupation, the polution generated by coal-fired power stations isn't as bad as many people belive. In the last few decades, coal has come quite a long way in reducing toxic emmisions. Modern coal plants combust the fuel much more completly, and are outfitted with high-tech (and very expensive) scrubbers to remove the really toxic byproducts (especially sulfer).
Considering that our coal supplies will long outlast our oil supplies, I think that its still a good idea to invest in cleaner coal technologies. Linky.

Thats because refrigerators turn on and off all the time. When on they use 725 watts of power.
Heres a list of some devices and their power usesages. As you can see 500 watts isn't much.....
http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumerinfo/refbriefs/ ec7.html

10 years to recoup followed by another 10 years of service - that's a 3.5% per annum return which sounds quite reasonable for what is a pretty secure investment. The DOE has an example on their site which has a 7 year payback time which makes it a 5% per annum rate of return (over 20 years.) These calculations are not taking into account inflation though, but that would only improve the return.

Why are so many things of this nature happening in New York?