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In the ice storm of 1998 in the Northeast more than 200,000 poles and 100,000 miles of lines were downed. The blackout did not extend much beyond the counties affected.

On 9/11 300 MW in NYC disappeared when the towers went down. The blackout did not extend more than a block.

Tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, ice storms, and hurricanes provide frequent tests of multiple unplanned simultaneous contingencies. They hardly ever cause cascading outages.

Yes cascading outages do occur in real life, but the grid is much more robust than popular chit chat assumes. If it were as vulnerable as pundits suggest, we'd have regional level blackouts weekly.

The design criterion is that blackouts affecting 10,000,000 or more customers should not happen more often than once every 10 years. (Source) The record for the past 40 years shows that performance is just about on-target.

Sometimes we don't know things until we know them, alas.

No kidding! Like this one:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/critical-linux-kernel-bugs-discovered-440

or this one:
http://www.doecirc.energy.gov/bulletins/t-029.shtml

or this one:
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2007/3860

or these:
http://secwatch.org/advisories/1021203/

Gosh! Linux has flaws, just like Microsoft. The only difference is usually in the turn around time for a patch. But how well tested is that Linux patch? Anyone remember how v2.6.23 broke VMWare server? Oops. Of course, Microsoft has broken its fair share of products also, but on the whole in the past several years, Microsoft has released much better tested and complete patches than Linux.

How many Linux folks here are running kernel v2.6.30.5 or newer? On your production server? No? Why not? Oh, waiting for stability/fixes/security to be well tested first...

Microsoft has a longer release cycle than Linux, get over it already.

What's wrong with that? Unless you're complaining about the use of Wikipedia, everything in that sentence is perfectly within norms.

A typical American household uses about 11,000 kWh per year.

A very simple use of Google's calculator function will tell you that this equals 1,255 Wh per hour.

This in turn is 4.52 megajoule. Expended over 5 seconds, this is 904 kW. Pretty close to a megawatt laser.

Stuff that they've been miserably slacking on for the last 20 years order to pocket more short term profits while their infrastructure rots.

The only thing the power companies have been slacking on is building power stations, due to economic and regulatory factors that are only partially in their control. Old transformers don't need to be "rebuilt" -- they require almost no maintenance and have life expectancies of decades. The technology for those hasn't changed in a hundred years. Power lines likewise have a low maintenance cost and the technology hasn't changed. Modernization for them has largely been adding power meters that "phone home" wirelessly or via a POTs line, removing the need for meter readers. That really is their biggest project, and it pays for itself quickly -- they're not slouching here to get "more profits".

The Big Lie is that this modernization supposedly needs to be done in order for green energy technologies (eg grid interactive solar) to work,

It's not a lie. If you're interfacing to the grid, they need to have a way to measure how much current you're putting on the wire, when, where, and be able to turn it off and on remotely, just like any other power station. And there are no regulations for how to do this in many municipalities. You think the cost they're talking about is the hardware? Silly you. It's the administrative costs.

They might feel threatened because local generation obviously reduces the amount of energy sold, but it also makes that energy cheaper to sell and distribute because it smooths out the peak loads and reduces average current on long-distance transmission lines.

Dude. power generation in just my state was 66*10^9 kWh in 2005, and represented a mere 1.8% of the total US consumption. The largest operating solar power plant in the world and manages a mere 60MW output, and takes up 25 hectacres of space. The Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant, by comparison, manages 1,096MW output. For ONE of its reactors. Do you seriously think they feel threatened by the solar cells on your roof?

But the power company has this line that it's making the grid "congested" as if the electrons are trying to go in **ZOMG!** both directions or something!

Actually, it's more like they don't want a bunch of DIY greenies hooking equipment up to the grid incorrectly and causing problems that are difficult to trace and would likely be blamed on them, rather than the homeowner. You screwup the hookups, or the power feed isn't phased correctly, and your whole neighborhood goes dark because of your home improvement project.

The government has and does fund battery research.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/technologies/energy_storage/

During the Clinton administration the government and Detroit 3 set up Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_a_New_Generation_of_Vehicles , and all three produced 70MPG prototypes. George W Bush scrapped it at the behest of the auto makers and replaced it with the pie in the sky FreedomCar research program. One of the most boneheaded moves in US automotive history. New head Steven Chu is trying to reorient transportation research away from the hydrogen highway fantasy back to more immediate payoff.

A) If you look at a photo of Earth at night, you'll see why a clear view of the night sky is not just a train-ride to the suburbs away. Huge swaths of land are blanketed in artificial light.

I live outside a relatively small metro area (1.5 million or so) and even from a good 60 miles away you can see the glow of the city. I will attest to the fact that you can't just drive a short distance away and see anything. You certainly can't expect to be able to take any sort of metro area mass transit and get far enough away to see anything. When I was younger I remember camping in more remote areas and spending hours staring at the stars. Kids in the city are missing out!

A) If you look at a photo of Earth at night, you'll see why a clear view of the night sky is not just a train-ride to the suburbs away. Huge swaths of land are blanketed in artificial light. By the logic you're presenting here, it wouldn't matter if we cut down all the trees as long as we had tree museums for people to go visit.

B) Pollution is pollution, regardless of the source. Lower levels are more tolerable than higher levels, but it all detracts from the view of the sky (along with other negative effects). All sources of light pollution should be minimized.

C) Seeing the wonder of the universe is a good thing. Living in a cave is not. Is that distinction so difficult to comprehend? "The rest is technology at work, for better or worse." Oh, so maybe you do grasp the point! Except that we don't have to just accept technology "for better or worse"; we can choose to use technology in ways that makes our lives better and not to use technology in ways that makes it worse.

According to Wikipedia, as of 2008-04-30, ethanol production is no longer subsidized. Care to provide a source countering that?

And to the people who say that more energy is consumed in producing corn I'd also ask for a source. According to the DOE, has a positive energy balance. (Granted, the source is the government, so I guess they're only saying that because of corn lobbyists)

I'm honestly willing to hear claims to the contrary, but all I see here on slashdot is a bunch of people saying that ethanol is bad without citing any research (even TFA didn't cite any original research)

This seems to get to the heart of the article. Windows just isn't "good enough". 99+% of all malware is microsoft specific. The BILLIONS of dollars spent on securing Windows, downtime, recovering from infection, and money lost due to malware activity proves that Windows isn't "good enough". Every single time I hear the "good enough" thing, I think of reports like this:
http://cio.energy.gov/cybersecurity/vppca.htm

The problem with the "good enough" idea, is that what is "good enough" for Joe Blow's home use is perceived to be "good enough" for business and other uses.

To be honest, the insecure Windows environment may just be "good enough" for Joe Blow. But, MS aggressively sells it's product to business, the military, government, and every one else on the planet. It is NOT "good enough".

It was created in response to complaints received by utility program managers about the performance of certain Energy Star lighting products being promoted within their service territories and the lack of a self- policing mechanism within the lighting industry that would ensure the reliability of these products and their compliance with ENERGY STAR specifications.

In other words, anyone can slap an Energy Star cert on a CFL - it's "self-policing". We all know how well that worked with the banks.

The ENERGY STAR labeling program for residential lighting products merely requires data submission and certification by the product manufacturers. Product samples tested are "self-picked" by the manufacturer. No follow-up testing on actual products purchased from retail is required by ENERGY STAR. In addition, no centralized data review or challenge process exists within the lighting industry relative to the performance of residential ENERGY STAR lighting products

In other words, cherry-pick the best bulbs from a cherry-picked batch (the creme de la creme) and slap a sticker on it. The Energy Star lighting program is full of shit.

For the 340 CFL samples (34 models, 10 samples for each model) used for photometric testing, two failed before reaching 100 hours, and two more failed before 1000 hours. The remaining CFL samples were aged to 1000 hours of life, and 1000-hour Lumen Maintenance test was performed at that time. 29% of the 34 CFL models failed to meet the 1000-hour Lumen Maintenance requirement.

In other words, almost 1 in 3 Energy Star CFLs couldn't even keep their rated output make it to 1,000 hours, as required.

After 1000-hour Lumen Maintenance test, the CFL samples were aged to 40% of their rated lives. 13 more lamp samples failed before reaching their 40% rated lives and the Lumen Maintenance at 40% Rated Life was based on the remaining samples of each model. 21% of the 34 CFL models failed to meet the Lumen Maintenance at 40% Rated Life requirement.

In other words, of those that hadn't just croaked by the 40% of expected lifetime, 21% would probably be tossed by the consumer because they weren't bright enough any more.

Ain't self-regulation grand!

What are you talking about?
The efficacy of halogen light is about 20lm/W, CFL around 50-70 lm/W
The LEDs, depending of drive current (and make/model) 70-100 lm/W
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy

So there's no way the halogen and CFL are far better than LEDs.
In fact, the LEDs combined with special optics have the huge advantage over the halogen,CFL and high/low pressure sodium lamps because of the precicely controlled light pattern. Conventional luminaries have usually reflector, which directs the light about to right direction, with efficiency of 30-70% .
In streetlights with LEDs it would mean no "hotspots" under the streetlight pole but evenly distributed light where it's needed and no unwanted glare, light pollution and etc. The even distribution means less lumens needed from light source. What matters is the luminaire efficacy.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/ssl/comparing_leds.html

The 100W LED module from the original article is not very good for applications where the light distribution is crucial because there's no (good) optics for the large array of tightly packed emitters in one package. Similar situation as with gas discharge and fluorescent lamps where the light is not sourced from one point (LED die is usually around 1mm2 in size) but more like area. LEDs, such as Cree XR-E, XP-E and Philips Lumileds Rebel have huge selection of aftermarket optics available for different applications. The efficiency of the optics ranges usually around 80-95%.
Another matter is cooling of the LEDs. The 100W module definitely needs active cooling to dissipate the generated heat in order to maintain the die temperature below 70-80 degree in Celsius. Temperatures above that will damage the phosphorous coating and die which results in rapid degradation of light output.

The reddish light from high pressure lamps is not better for dark environments because of the spectrum. Human eye when adjusted to dark (scotopic vision) is most sensitive to 505nm light which is cyan. The photopic (daylight vision) peak sensitivity is 555nm (green).

Actually Florida does use lots of coal. Over 25% of the energy in Florida is from coal, and another 30% or so is from petrol - not exactly a clean burning fuel. See: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/electricity.cfm/state=FL That aside, I didn't figure the rebates or anything into my numbers, I just stated that in reality you would be paying less as a resident because of the rebates and incentives. Whether that is "robbing everyone else" or not is beside the point - it is available, it will be used, it will reduce the overall economic impact on residents, and it wasn't used to "fudge" the numbers I used. As for being able to get a loan for 30 years, it is easy to wrap it into a mortgage. People do it with furniture, dishwashers, dryers, fridges, and a variety of other things that won't last 30 years. That said, there are many solar panels over 30-years-old that are up and running just fine. Finally, no I didn't forget the cost of the other equipment. If you had read the gp they mentioned the cost of the entire system, not just the solar panel part - my numbers were derived from the total cost. All said, yes, it will be more per family than what I wrote. Will it be fore everyone, no. Is it a good idea, who knows. Will it be a cost effective move, probably not, but it might be if fuel costs increase dramatically. Is it is worth innovating and trying new things on a grand scale? Hell yes!

Completely unrelated. See https://reports.energy.gov/ for a very thorough analysis of what happened.

Its funded by the DOD, not DOE. Its primarily for research and stockpile stewardship. NIF isn't intended to be a prototype fusion reactor for energy production.

LLNL is funded by NNSA which is part of DOE.

Yes it is primarily for research and stockpile stewardship, but it is also the first step towards LIFE , which is a prototype reactor.

Its funded by the DOD, not DOE. Its primarily for research and stockpile stewardship.

NIF (and the rest of LLNL) is certainly part of the DOE:

http://nnsa.energy.gov/

The fees for the patent filing itself are less of an issue than the skills needed, which is where the patent attorneys or patent agents make the big bucks and the cost of obtaining patents rises sharply. There are extremely stringent application requirements, and small errors or the failure to include minor details can disqualify the entire patent application. It is often beneficial to the Joe Blow or small company without experience with the process to hire someone if they can afford it (which is a big "if") because the basic knowledge/time/effort needed for a successful outcome can itself be prohibitive.

Well, the people on the planet now (including us) did not create the problem.

We, and I include myself in that, maybe making things worse. As someone once said, "if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem."

At the moment, the idea is to determine what the best course of action is. To me, it seems like the best way to handle the situation is to get as much low hanging fruit as possible (change light bulbs, etc, etc) in the short term. Things like this reduce energy usage and also don't really add an economic cost.

As happened to me, many others are finding out making some changes actually saves them money.

In the long term, switching to nuclear power would probably be the best way to go.

I haven't been convinced nuclear power is needed never mind the best way to go. Some say it's needed as a baseload, however geothermal energy [pdf warning] might be used as a baseload as well. And without subsidies nuclear power wouldn't be profitable. The Free Market CATO Institute has this article from the business and investment magazine "Forbes" on "Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power", "Hooked on Subsidies".

Falcon

These supercapacitor we keep hearing about could conceivably be used as batteries, but I it is probably more realistic for nuclear plants to provide for the base load and have other technologies supplement during peak hours.

Geothermal can also be used as a baseload [pdf].

Falcon

Are you talking about pumped storage or simply using a traditional power plant to cover the difference.

I didn't mention any particular method of storing energy but there are a number being worked on. Besides fuel cells, where excess energy is used to produce hydrogen, there's thermal energy storage, ultra capacitors which someone above mentioned may become feasible, and other methods of energy storage. I think one of the more promising sources for baseload power is geothermal. The Department of Energy [pdf] says "Because geothermal can provide a large amount of sustainable, indigenous, clean, base load and affordable energy for the nation"

Falcon

You forget that to make electricity using CSP, you need a turbine and a generator. That is extra equipment. Further, you need structural integrity in the reflectors which implies minimum material requirements. Solar PV may end up being just hundreds of microns thick on a stretched frame of mylar or some other low energy material.

PV is suppose to reach grid parity by 2015: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/photovoltaics_program.html

while goals for CSP are only to be competitive by 2020. One should expect substantial cost reductions in PV beyond 2015 so it would seem that it will be in the lead.

Why always nuclear explosions simulation is the primary use for this type of computer?

Uh, because it's paid for out of the NNSA budget?

The problem with the "green frenzy", at least the portion of it seen in this contest, is that it puts normal people off of environmentalism, by showing environmentalists to be a bunch of stupid, overprivileged kids who rant about "saving the world" and promote stupid, unrealistic ideas like using one square of toilet paper to wipe your ass after a big dump, rather than coming up with and promoting truly useful and eco-friendly technologies and practices such as solar water heating, and other useful technologies or practices which allow people to live just as well as they do now, but with far less wasted energy and resources.

If you want to get people interested in helping our environment (or at least doing less harm to it than they are now), coming up with idiotic ideas like a wallet that burns your hand or a printer that you have to move by hand and produces unreadable and short-lived text is only detrimental to your cause.

Except environmentalists are supporting nuclear power.

That's certainly not my experience here in the UK. For example, Friends of the Earth are distinctly anti-nuclear and seem to believe that a bunch of wind turbines can solve the whole of the UK's power needs.

More and more environmentalists do support nuclear power, Bjorn Lomborg "The Skeptical Environmentalist" has had an impact on at least some people.

You need a lot less power transmission infrastructure to connect a 3GW power station to the grid than close to a thousand wind turbines spread over a large area. Especially if those turbines happen to be off-shore

Not if they're located near where the power will be used. Centralized power generation I think is a big problem, power should be generated near where it's used. Instead of having large power stations, we should have distributed power generation. Not only will power loss from transmission be cut but coengeration can be done. For instance the steam from a plant can be used to heat buildings near it.

Wind generation and built up areas don't mix - you're not going to be able to site wind turbines in a city.

You can mount solar panels on roofs. New York Michael Bloomberg wants to use off-shore wind farms, small-scale wind installations, and tidal power systems. Actually one of the proposals for the reconstruction of the WTC had a turbine mounted between two towers. It's not the same but I found this: "World Trade Center's Freedom Tower to Feature Wind Turbines". And Bahrain has done something similar.

If you plan to store power you need more wind-turbines in order to over-produce and give you power to store.

Why are you stuck on wind? Other energy sources can be used.

Falcon

wind is very difficult to scale, massacres birds, and is prone to mechanical failures.

I'll grant you mechanical failures but the first two are wrong. There are 5 megawatt wind turbines. Erect 20 of them a month and in one year you've added 1.2 gigawatts of capacity. As for the massacring part, old wind turbines which were smaller and spun fast were responsible for killing birds. Today's turbines have bigger blades which spin slow and therefore don't present the danger the older one did. While they do present some danger, cats present even more danger: "Cats More Lethal to Birds Than Wind Turbines""

Falcon

Those wouldn't be as tall as the 200-300 meter towers you'd need to be able to replace your prototypical 1GW nuke plant with less than a couple thousand towers

Offshore wind farms wouldn't need to be as high, but on land there are good places in the mountains. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States lists good places for wind farms, most in mountainous locations. The Rockies contain enough potential wind power to power the 48 continuous states in the US. However that's not all, on the Pacific coast from British Columbia to southern CA is good as is Southern CA east to Texas. In the east through the Appalachias up the trail to Canada there are good cites. Using 5 megawatt wind turbines, these are 120 meters off the ground, erecting 20 a month in one year you'll add 1.2 gigawatts of capacity. And that with only 200 towers, not your "couple thousand towers". Having worked in construction subcontracting in concrete and masonry I'd say that should be pretty easy. One of the jobs we worked on was at Cape Canaveral building pads for rockets, and I dare say they were required to be better constructed than pads for wind genies.

Falcon

Low and medium level waste is to be disposed of at a site in Carlsbad, NM. It is called Waste Isolation Pilot Plant - WIPP. Site here: http://www.wipp.energy.gov/
IIRC, they are open to (scheduled) visits.
Basically, it's a salt mine that doesn't produce any salt.

The CDI says:

A dirty bomb -- or radiological dispersion bomb -- is a relatively unsophisticated device that combines radioactive materials with conventional explosives. When exploded, such a device scatters radioactive particles into the environment. No nuclear-fission reaction takes place as would occur with a true nuclear weapon, and, while anyone within the initial blast radius will probably be killed immediately, more casualties would probably result from the long-term effects of the dispersed radioactive material. According to Michael Levi, the physicist who managed a Federation of American Scientists' (FAS) study into the effects of a dirty bomb explosion, protecting yourself after such an attack is a matter of getting indoors, showering, and not eating contaminated food or breathing open air. As he put it: "It's really a matter of closing your windows and waiting for instructions." 6 Levi also cautioned that the much-hyped potassium iodine anti-radiation pills said to be selling so well in the wake of the attorney general's announcement, are likely to be of limited use against dirty bombs, as most studies predict the use of non-iodine radiation in any such device. 7

Moreover, Dr. John W. Poston Sr., professor of nuclear engineering at Texas A&M University, and chairman of a committee that produced a study on dirty bombs for the national Council on Radiation Protection, contends that the dispersal method used in such a device would so dilute the radioactive material involved as to make any radiation doses incurred non-fatal. Similarly, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1.5 pounds of radioactive cesium dispersed by detonating 4,000 pounds of TNT would only increase the amount of radiation that most of the affected people are normally exposed to by 25 percent. 8 As Mark Gwozdecky of the International Atomic Energy Agency put it: "It's hard to imagine any kind of dirty bomb producing the kinds of mass casualties that we saw on Sept. 11." Such a device would, he added, be a weapon of mass disruption rather than a weapon of mass destruction.

Again, dirty bombs don't work.

Let's move on to the next point:

These conclusions were corroborated by the FAS study, which found that, while a dirty bomb would not inflict deaths on anything like the scale of even a crude nuclear device, widespread contamination exceeding Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safety guidelines could result. If the risk of cancer deaths could not be curtailed to around 1-in-10,000, the EPA would probably recommend the long-term evacuation of the contaminated area.

Again, we hear that dirty bombs don't work. I've also highlighted an interesting point for you. The EPA will evacuate when there is a danger of 1 cancer in 10,000 eventually developing. Let's be clear on that. There is no immediate danger and more than enough time for an orderly evacuation of the affected street blocks. For comparison, your normal chances of dieing of cancer are 11 in 50 per the 2005 census of US Mortality.

In addition, the government has known for some time that their cancer models for radiation are highly conservative and do not actually reflect reality. So you are even safer than originally thought.

Now let's consider the property damage. If dispersed outdoors, the streets and exteriors of the building will need to be decontaminated. What does that mean? That means that teams run around with Geiger counters and identify where exactly there is radiation being produced above acceptable limits. The areas would then be washed down and the dirty water collected for disposal.

If dispersed indoors, then what? Well, a section of a building may need to be stripped, decontaminated in a similar fashion to the outdoors, then rebuilt. Materia

Just to add to the places with easy request forms online - DOE also has one which I have personally used (though all told, it took about a month).

http://management.energy.gov/FOIA/foia_request_form.htm

Americas Waste-to-Energy http://www.aw2e.com/index.jsp generates electricity, distills potable water and gasifies trash, all the while reclaiming landfills. Is this a perfect solution? Probably not, but I would suggest it is a damn sight better than what we have now. Add to that the need to move toward a distributed generation policy, a concept that can cut down on ling line transmission losses (of up to 80% of the generated electricity we produce) and this really might be the technology of the future. http://www.eere.energy.gov/de/

Convincing people to let the government/power agency to bury "nuclear" ANYTHING near a town is like a huge red flag to conservationsists and the 'anti-establishement' people.
Remember, there are still people out there that think powerlines cause cancer, and that vaccinations cause autism, despite scientific evidence.

And remember, there are people out here who know a hell of a lot more about WIPP and the 10,000 things seriously fucking wrong about it than you do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant
http://www.wipp.energy.gov/

It's where big science money meets ultra low tech - dig a hole in the ground. The WIPP site was chosen because the salt beds were supposed to be stable. After we learned that they weren't (they flow, just slowly) we had a new round of BS shoved at us as to why migrating radionuclides to eventual exposure to our groundwater is just AOK.

And I'm sure that someone who made money and got accolades on WIPP is ready to help you - perhaps you'd like THEIR help burying this stuff in your backyard, but it didn't work out so well for ours, thanks.

I'm all for nuclear power - I've been following Hyperion's efforts for a great many weeks already.

But we are FAR from solving the waste disposal problems. As stated earlier today, the correct solution would be to launch it all into the sun, but a launch failure causing poisonous scatter is the problem with that utopia.

Let's set aside the environmental issues, the social issues, the security issues.

From a pure engineering perspective, this is a dumb idea. Electrical transmission losses in the U.S. amount to 7.2% of production (link below).

Absolute best-case scenario, by putting nuke plants at everyone's doorstep, we gain 7.2% efficiency. To do that we have to totally lose the economy of scale. Small plants are more expensive to build, more expensive to maintain, and intrinsically less efficient.

Tesla and Westinghouse beat Edison in the power generation game because they were able to make long-distance transmission costs tiny by using AC power. This allowed them to use larger power plants than Edison's DC power system, and the economy of scale of power generation meant Edison was doomed.

Westinghouse wasn't using nukes, but the same rule applies today: bigger is cheaper and more efficient.

Source: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/femp/pdfs/primer.pdf

Compressed air is another means of storing wind energy that is getting looked at again. The CAES schemes need large geological structures such as salt mines or depleted gas fields, but there are quite a lot of viable structures in places like Texas and Ontario where there is also interest in wind energy. It is not economical on a small scale since a large part of the compression cost is independent of the reservoir size.

According to the US Department of Energy "nearly two-thirds of the natural gas in a conventional power plant is consumed by a typical natural gas turbine because the gas is used to drive the machine's compressor. In contrast, a compressed-air storage plant uses low-cost heated compressed air to power the turbines and create off-peak electricity, conserving some natural gas."

In the last 20 years only two facilities have ever been built - a 110-megawatt plant in Alabama and a 290-megawatt plant in Germany. Iowa is building a new plant "expected to cost $200 million and operate by 2011 with the capacity to store 200 megawatts of power, enough for several days. Both the Iowa and Alabama installations can draw air to make power within 15 minutes and make a gas turbine roughly 40 percent more efficient. "

http://www.eere.energy.gov/de/compressed_air.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081224-full-of-powerful-wind-bury-it-in-the-ground-for-later.html
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/553702
http://www.isepa.com/index.asp Iowa Stored Energy Park
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-178929.html

yet I won't hold my breath. In the mean time, I will continue to burn B20 and SVO in my old diesel.

In addition to brewing diesel from cellulose, I would also like to see biofuels manufacturers brew butanol (with Clostridium acetobutylicum, or better) from cellulose. Seriously, it is a much better gasoline replacement than E85. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanol

In any case, foodstock based ethanol is the WORST FUEL SUBSTITUTE EVAR. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0512/p08s01-comv.html

If the chevy volt doesn't turn out to be a piece of shit, (yeah, good luck with that. Can GM manage NOT to make a piece of shit?) I would totally buy that for my daily commute and keep the diesel for my occasional interstate forays. Or maybe the Th!nk OX http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2008/03/think-ox-concep.html will be available in the US by then. Or maybe Toyota will get its head out of its ass and realize that not everyone thinks a hybrid is the future, and they will out-chevy-volt the chevy volt.

While I am enumerating my wish list, a 10 minute recharge battery, and start the infrastructure build-out by creating charging stations at toll-way rest areas, then add them to interstate rest areas (which tend to be 50 miles apart on most of the interstates I've traveled.) http://www.onelectriccars.com/lightning-gt-promises-10-minute-recharge/74/
That will "untether" electric cars, and is feasible with current battery technology. Then fueling stations can invest in charging devices if enough people have EVs in their area
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/electricity_locations.html

heh. I'm just rambling now...

This has been already done. Read up on multi-junction solar cells: http://www.energy.gov/news/4503.htm. They basically sandwich PVs with different wavelength responses to capture a significant fraction of the solar spectrum. The record right now is 40% efficiency.

Actually, BTL (biomass-to-liquid fuel) is a viable alternative to biodiesel. On the upside, it is much closer chemically to petroleum diesel than biodiesel (methyl or ethyl esters). This has the advantage of not violating warranties (Bio does, in some cases) and being more energy dense than B100. On the downside, it takes a lot of energy to run the BTL process, so it pushes the carbon bubble elsewhere (hopefully, IMHO, to nuclear power).

Addressing your first question: modern diesel engines with Diesel Particular Filters (e.g., the 2009 VW Jetta TDI) could experience some issues with biodiesel. In short, the DPF is designed to trap particulates which are periodically (every 1000 miles or so) burned off by injecting diesel into a specially designed fuel catalyst in the exhaust. This injection uses the cylinder fuel injectors during the exhaust stroke. Unfortunately, biodiesel has a higher boiling point than petroleum diesel, which leads to condensation on cylinder walls and consequent crankcase oil contamination. (reference)

A recent study at MIT's Sloan Automotive Lab indicates that this contamination might not be as deleterious as previously believed despite the fact that the highly polar methyl esters compete with ZDDP on engine surfaces.

A couple drivers on the TDIClub forums are running B100 (100% biodiesel) in their 2009 TDIs with the express intent of directly testing oil quality and engine wear. While 2 cars do not a comprehensive study make, their experiences, oil analyses, et cetera will be invaluable in allowing owners to decide what risks they're willing to take. (For reference, previous versions of the VW TDI engine came with stern warnings that no biodiesel should be run at all, and yet many owners have run B100 for 100k to 200k miles with no problems attributable to the biodiesel).

My guess is that within the next few years all diesel vehicles will be designed to work well with some percentage of biodiesel, since governments around the world (including the EU and several American states) are mandating a schedule of increased biodiesel percentage in their petroleum diesel. Combined with the maturation of BTL, diesel vehicles have a far brighter future than the brain-dead food-for-(poor)-fuel economics that is E85.

-=rsw

The popular conception of wind power is fast-paced windmills cutting birds in half as they twirl through the air whenever the wind happens to blow. I was just in Germany and saw many windmills turning so slowly through the air that if a bird hit one, it was either not paying attention or drunk. I've seen the same thing on the hills of Crete overlooking Heraklion. One point is that you needn't have hurricane force winds to make wind power effective. All you need is an area of 'prevailing winds' that are more or less predictable--just like the trade winds that predictably blew sailing ships across the oceans for centuries. There are many areas like this all across the USA. For example, the Dalles area on the Columbia River, well known for its prevailing winds. Here's a wind map for Oregon, for example: http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/maps_template.asp?stateab=or

Setting aside the fact that basically all oceans are outside national borders -- why they're called international waters -- have you heard of Enron and power "deregulation" in California a few years back. Yeah, that was fun.

Anything can be done wrong. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. On the other hand, even this fiasco has its benefits: deregulating power in California has allowed me to specify where my electricity "comes from". I pay a bit extra to have all my power come from windmills. (Yeah, it's a fiction, but it's' close enough to work) Are you interested? Here's more information if you live in California

In addition, are you aware of how large the US is? Do you know of any power lines that stretch over 1,000 miles between a power station and a home? Being a state away is by no means local. The prices may be regulated, but electrical loss and electrical resistance do not give a rat's ass about in-state vs. out-of-state vs. international.

There are three (yes, three) major power grids in the United States. East Coast, West Coast, and Texas. It's routine for (say) California to buy power during times of need from Oregon and Nevada, and a thousand mile stretch isn't hard to conceive of. Seriously, man, google is your friend...

And this is perhaps my biggest gripe: relying on others to solve our problems.

I see, I should be making the 'lectric cars all by lonesome? Did you build your computer yourself? No, I don't mean buying mobos and RAM sticks at Egghead, I mean fabricating motherboards from fiberglass boards you spun yourself? Etching the silicon you refined yourself?

Didna think so. We're all part of this thingie called an "economy". By buying things that we support, we support the things we buy. I work to promote alternative education. It's my contribution to society, and society seems to think what I do is a reasonably good idea, based on the pay I receive. If/when it makes sense to retire from software, I fully intend to do something in the field of alternative energy. I'd like to start a windfarm, myself, I've seen some really good numbers coming from vertical-shaft Savonius rotor designs, and I think this field could use some more exploration.

On the other hand, if you're sick of waiting for others to solve our problems, perhaps you could go and cook up your own Thorium nuke plants? If it's what you say it is, you'll become wealthier than Mr. Burns. Impetus is there, if you're serious.

Far more problems would be solved if some of those lazy social science majors would get off their collective asses and take some "hard" science and/or engineering courses. At least then it would dawn on people that hydrogen is not an energy source.

I'm a software engineer. I've spent plenty of time learning "hard" science. Don't waste my time with a vague straw man argument.

Since we're throwing around Wired links, try this one about thorium reactors [wired.com]. Not all "nukes" are trying to replicate Chernobyl contrary to popular belief, and I don't see us running out of thorium anytime soon. If we can't figure out fusion before then, maybe we as a species deserve to die. Who knows?

Thorium is not obtained locally. Most of it is found in India and Australia. Thus, it's non-local, and in limited supply, largely determined by the good graces of the Aussies and Indians. The social, political, and economic problems have just been shifted to benefit a different part of the world. Wow. Whoopee! Big change. (While I'm not exactly opposed to nukes, I think there's a better way)

Side Note: a friend of mine happens to work closely with some of the top researchers in the field of Thorium reactors - she's the chief administrator for one of the research firms

Setting aside the fact that basically all oceans are outside national borders -- why they're called international waters -- have you heard of Enron and power "deregulation" in California a few years back. Yeah, that was fun.

Anything can be done wrong. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. On the other hand, even this fiasco has its benefits: deregulating power in California has allowed me to specify where my electricity "comes from". I pay a bit extra to have all my power come from windmills. (Yeah, it's a fiction, but it's' close enough to work) Are you interested? Here's more information if you live in California

In addition, are you aware of how large the US is? Do you know of any power lines that stretch over 1,000 miles between a power station and a home? Being a state away is by no means local. The prices may be regulated, but electrical loss and electrical resistance do not give a rat's ass about in-state vs. out-of-state vs. international.

There are three (yes, three) major power grids in the United States. East Coast, West Coast, and Texas. It's routine for (say) California to buy power during times of need from Oregon and Nevada, and a thousand mile stretch isn't hard to conceive of. Seriously, man, google is your friend...

And this is perhaps my biggest gripe: relying on others to solve our problems.

I see, I should be making the 'lectric cars all by lonesome? Did you build your computer yourself? No, I don't mean buying mobos and RAM sticks at Egghead, I mean fabricating motherboards from fiberglass boards you spun yourself? Etching the silicon you refined yourself?

Didna think so. We're all part of this thingie called an "economy". By buying things that we support, we support the things we buy. I work to promote alternative education. It's my contribution to society, and society seems to think what I do is a reasonably good idea, based on the pay I receive. If/when it makes sense to retire from software, I fully intend to do something in the field of alternative energy. I'd like to start a windfarm, myself, I've seen some really good numbers coming from vertical-shaft Savonius rotor designs, and I think this field could use some more exploration.

On the other hand, if you're sick of waiting for others to solve our problems, perhaps you could go and cook up your own Thorium nuke plants? If it's what you say it is, you'll become wealthier than Mr. Burns. Impetus is there, if you're serious.

Far more problems would be solved if some of those lazy social science majors would get off their collective asses and take some "hard" science and/or engineering courses. At least then it would dawn on people that hydrogen is not an energy source.

I'm a software engineer. I've spent plenty of time learning "hard" science. Don't waste my time with a vague straw man argument.

Since we're throwing around Wired links, try this one about thorium reactors [wired.com]. Not all "nukes" are trying to replicate Chernobyl contrary to popular belief, and I don't see us running out of thorium anytime soon. If we can't figure out fusion before then, maybe we as a species deserve to die. Who knows?

Thorium is not obtained locally. Most of it is found in India and Australia. Thus, it's non-local, and in limited supply, largely determined by the good graces of the Aussies and Indians. The social, political, and economic problems have just been shifted to benefit a different part of the world. Wow. Whoopee! Big change. (While I'm not exactly opposed to nukes, I think there's a better way)

Side Note: a friend of mine happens to work closely with some of the top researchers in the field of Thorium reactors - she's the chief administrator for one of the research firms

People invented this thing called the "battery" about 100 years ago...

A battery that will hold a couple of days' worth of charge with minimal loss? Please give an example.

Along the same lines, even on still days where you live, there's probably a south-facing hill nearby that's always windy about, oh, 80 feet above the ground.

See this map? See all the white areas? In most of that area, 80 feet up ain't gonna help you too much. Maybe 8,000.

Cloudy days still let current solar cells work at about 25% efficiency, and the thousands of square feet of roof your home or apartment building has can generate a surprising amount of energy, provided you're not wasting anything.

That's 25% of what they normally give, which is ~15% of 1kW per square meter. Aside from the fact that I live in a 700 square foot (not meter!) space, that's not all that much power. Combined with much of the roof sloping away from the sun at any given time and a great deal of tree cover (you're not suggesting I cut down a bunch of old redwoods, are you?), 25% of next to nothing is worth next to nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I actually think we should put more energy (no pun intended) into alternative forms of electricity generation. However, misguided "expending a little bit of effort" rants such as yours tend to make me resent the fact that we're ostensibly on the same team.

Do the math for how many solar cells would be needed to provide enough energy for a single electric car that seats four people to run for 100km. The results are disheartening.

Too many people is the problem. The solution will therefore be extremely messy no matter what we do. And unless you're ready to step up to the plate and declare that you will never have any children, don't be so quick to chastise others for their lack of commitment.

If windmills are a joke, the punch line must be that:

"Today, U.S. wind energy installations produce enough electricity on a typical day to power the equivalent of over 2.5 million homes." (source U.S. Dept of Energy)

It's so funny I can barely stand it...

well as i live so far north that the sun is barely visible some 3-5 months pr year, long term storage would be nice to maximize those months when the sun really is up...

but i guess i could add a windmill to the mix to get best of both worlds so to speak.

Alaska has abundant wind power.

Falcon

Is the light bulb that much less efficient at heating my house than an electric heater?

That depends. Light bulbs are ~95% efficient as heaters. That's similar to electric resistance heaters. But it's much less efficient than a heat pump.

As compared to simple heaters, heat pumps have efficiencies of 175-600% by getting heat from a place that maintains a constant temperature. (They pull heat out, but more heat migrates in to take its place, so that's essentially free heat.)

Natural gas furnaces also tend to be more efficient - 80-97% efficient. That may not sound like much; but if the electricity to run your light bulb was made from natural gas, that process was only 60% efficient at best.

Is the light bulb that much less efficient at heating my house than an electric heater?

That depends. Light bulbs are ~95% efficient as heaters. That's similar to electric resistance heaters. But it's much less efficient than a heat pump.

As compared to simple heaters, heat pumps have efficiencies of 175-600% by getting heat from a place that maintains a constant temperature. (They pull heat out, but more heat migrates in to take its place, so that's essentially free heat.)

Natural gas furnaces also tend to be more efficient - 80-97% efficient. That may not sound like much; but if the electricity to run your light bulb was made from natural gas, that process was only 60% efficient at best.

The US DOE's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant project wrote a report about this some years ago and it had some interesting ideas on how to warn future peoples away. Sadly, the document name and number aren't handy at the moment. http://www.wipp.energy.gov/

For the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, this is the solution that was developed:
Permanent Markers Implementation Plan, United States Department of Energy, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (PDF)

Some brainstorming that led to the above document--this contains some of the more "exotic" ideas that were considered:
Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (PDF)
Excerpts in HTML format

Overview of warnings for Yucca Mountain

Basically, the idea is to take a multi-layered approach, starting with simple "Danger" warnings (both symbolic and in current languages, large scale and small), and finishing with detailed scientific information about what we will have buried. There will be instructions to add new structures with translations into whatever languages will have arisen in future societies. Sturdy but low-value materials will be used. There are a lot of other considerations; the "Expert Judgement..." document is an interesting read.

I agree with the other posters saying that reprocessing should make all of this moot, though.

For the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, this is the solution that was developed:
Permanent Markers Implementation Plan, United States Department of Energy, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (PDF)

Some brainstorming that led to the above document--this contains some of the more "exotic" ideas that were considered:
Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (PDF)
Excerpts in HTML format

Overview of warnings for Yucca Mountain

Basically, the idea is to take a multi-layered approach, starting with simple "Danger" warnings (both symbolic and in current languages, large scale and small), and finishing with detailed scientific information about what we will have buried. There will be instructions to add new structures with translations into whatever languages will have arisen in future societies. Sturdy but low-value materials will be used. There are a lot of other considerations; the "Expert Judgement..." document is an interesting read.

I agree with the other posters saying that reprocessing should make all of this moot, though.

A massive country wide nuclear power plant building spree would need to take place. Right now we have over 100 nuke plants that supply 20% of our electricity

Nuclear power isn't needed. By 2050 solar power could provide 69% of the US's electrical needs. Wind can also supply a lot, I read where the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to supply the lower 48 states but I didn't find a reference. Then a lot of waste heat goes up smokestacks daily. Here's a quote from TFA: "Here's a Maxwell House coffee roaster in Duval County. They're roasting beans, so all that heat has to go somewhere. About twelve megawatts' worth of potential electricity is going up the stack." In Hawaii about 30% of the big Island's, Puna, is from geothermal power. Geothermal sources produced about 13,000 gigawatt hours in California in 2007, with more available.

Add all these together and every coal fired plant should be able to be closed without any more nuclear power plants being built and still have plenty of electricity.

Falcon

DoD is currently exploring partnerships with DOE and DOI to do this using wind power. DOE and DOI already have programs that assist Native American Tribes in starting renewable energy projects. And DoD is interested in purchasing this renewable energy. Unfortunately, the many tax incentives that DoD, DoI, and DoE put forward to make such a project economically feasible are not much good to a tax exempt entity (i.e. a recognized Native American Tribe). DOE, DOI, and DoD are actively seeking to maximize all applicable incentives in an effort to meet Federal requirements for renewable energy and conservation.

Wind Powering America
http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/filter_detail.asp?itemid=678

http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/wind_maps.asp -- for a map of the whole USA with coastal stats.

Looks like one of the absolute best places for off-shore wind is norCal & oregon. But the upper east coast is a close second... beating out any land wind resource.

...here. For the main page, google "wind map [state]". The area where the turbines will be built ranks good-to-excellent.

It's interesting to note that most of the wind maps agree that offshore is the best place to stick a wind turbine. If you've ever stood by the ocean, there's always a stiff sea breeze coming from the ocean onto the land.