Slashdot Mirror

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/femp/pdfs/techfocus_gravity_film_ex.pdf

Here is a puzzle piece for you: A couple aluminium smelting plants that draw several gigawatts of power to operate.

Giant solar power concentrators. Solar Energy Generating Systems are able to concentrate the energy to create the power needed. This one has a 354 MW installed capacity, and it is being expanded. "The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that by 2020 there may be as much as 20 gigawatts of concentrating solar power capacity installed worldwide." However this can be ramped up.

But there aren't. And no, letting consumers choose their power company isn't going to change that, as they will just go with the cheapest, thus introducing even more market pressure to NOT self-regulate!

You're quite wrong about that, sure some will go for the lowest price power but many who have the choice buy renewable energy. Those who don't have a choice can buy Renewable Energy Certificates, and those selling these certificates then use the money to support renewable projects.

This article names the states - Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington - and gives a bit more detail. Note that the adopters include some northwestern states as well.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/states/state_news_detai l.cfm/news_id=10492/state=PA

Under federal law, utilities must allow independent power producers to be interconnected with the utility grid, and utilities must purchase any excess electricity they generate. Many states have gone beyond the minimum requirements of the federal law by allowing net metering for customers with PV systems.

No one (even Greenpeace) is saying potentially toxic materials are not involved or other risks (including people falling off of roofs). It's just that they are orders of magnitude less than for running, say, a coal plant for thirty years to make the same amount of power.
Here is a US government source which says essentially the same thing:
    http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/man_pro_implicat ions.html
"Because manufacturers use a wide variety of processes to make PV cells, a wide range of chemicals--some of them toxic or hazardous--are employed in PV cell production. In terms of worker safety and health, simple protective and administrative measures can be used effectively to protect those who produce PV systems. In terms of the environment, the PV production process produces small amounts of waste materials, but this is minimal relative to the emissions from conventional energy sources. ... Most of today's PV cells consist of crystalline or multicrystalline silicon. Silica particles can be released in the mining and refining stage, but these present a hazard only to workers--one that can easily be avoided. Silicon PV module production can include fluorine, chlorine, nitrates, isopropanol, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, silica particles, and solvents. According to a report from Utrecht University, "Estimated air emission is maximally 0.16 [kilograms of fluorine] and 430 [kilograms of chlorine] per [1000 megawatt-hours] of electricity supplied by PV modules, which is orders of magnitude smaller than the corresponding emissions of a coal plant." ... Although crystalline silicon is the primary material used today to produce PV cells, a growing number of PV products are being produced from other materials. ... "

And all this is without even a lot of effort invested (compared to the hundreds of billions spent annually on conventional solutions). Overall, limiting pollution will only get better per unit as production increases and new manufacturing ideas come along (like using vegetable dyes or plastics for PV panels and so on).

Who benefits from FUD being spread about solar power?

Agreed, and this is what I ment by "we're talking past each other".

I'm not saying solar isn't useful; far from it.

I'm saying that without net metering the inital investment in solar for the end-user isn't recouped. 35 states have some sort of net metering in place(1) so there is progress.

Ideally I'd like to see research into reducing the end-user's inital investment to the point that even without net metering the inital investment is recouped within the service life of the gear. Ideally, within 50% of the useful life.

If progress was made, I'd think we'd see an wide scale switch to solar. As many others have stated, for many people the only green they care about is money. When solar either pays for itself ( or even better, turns a profit ) then renewable energy becomes profitable. Those who want clean energy and those who like profits would have the same method to achieve their goals.

1) http://www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/markets/netm etering.shtml

The Future of Geothermal Energy Impact of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) on the United States in the 21st Century
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/egs_technol ogy.html

This is a fun pdf to read if you are actually interested in this subject.

So far the only places where geothermal energy is usable is near active Volcanic areas

We're Americans, dammit! When we want pore space, by golly, WE MAKE PORE SPACE!

Really, they are working on ways to break up the rock. Both acid and mass quantities of cold water have been used.

The MIT Report is here. Reading the Executive Summary will give you a much more optimistic view of the future of geothermal.

What is your definition of "virtually inexhaustible"? Mine would be "more than enough to power current human activity for mind-blowing timescales". Which is a property that geothermal energy has. The total heat energy in the Earth is enough for about five billion years of current energy usage.

The numbers given aren't imaginary. They're just unachievable. My interpretation of the report is that the 40% figure would require a geothermal energy installation for each square kilometer throughout the U.S. The authors seem to think that, while geothermal is only viable in very limited geographical areas, the technology will rapidly improve to the point where all sorts of locations will be cost competitive. Once we get to the point where you could put an economical geothermal plant anywhere across, say, 1% of the continental U.S., then we have the option of replacing our entire baseload with geothermal.

Minnesota for example is in a "wind corridor" and has ample wind generation equipment. It is still generating only around 3% of it's needs this way even though the local electrical utility has increased the payable price for wind generated electricity by allowing their customers to opt to pay more for wind generated power.

The ultimate resource is virtually infinite, but inaccessible. That is, if it were possible to drill to depths where >350C heat stores were available, fracture the rock at that depth, and gain access to reservoirs created as a result, then all basement rock on the continent would be a source of EGS. As a practical matter, this is not likely to occur within the next 50 years, so we have arbitrarily limited the estimates
  of available energy by assuming aggressive, but historically proven, learning and technology application scenarios.

You can get both stable and radioactive isotopes from the department of energy.

http://www.nuclear.energy.gov/isotopes/neIsotopes2 b.html

In the 1990s they had a web store, but the ?legitimate? fears of dirty bombs caused them to require a NRC license for radioactive isotopes. The only requirement for stable isotopes is that you show you have a documented health and safety procedure for handling materials that could be dangerous to your neighbors. So, incorporate yourself and go get those isotopes!

DOE has ponied up $385 million to six different cellulosic ethanol plants, one of which is Range Fuels.

CoolBeans' post has just 1/3 of the original story. The DOE is establishing three Bioenergy Research Centers, one of which is the JBEI. The other two are the DOE BioEnergy Science Center led by the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN, and DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center led by the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI. All three centers are sharing equally in the funding. See the news page at DOE http://www.energy.gov/news/5172.htm.

they use concentrators and trackers, and can pipe natural sunlight via fiber optics around to anyplace inside a building. Here is a DOE link on the tech albeit used in conjunction with regular lighting Hybrid solar lighting

The shiny tube guys are in use also, and are cheaper, but require a large diameter pipe to function well.

But not on alternative fuel in NC. http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/progs/view_ind.cgi ?afdc/5664/0.
--
Don't pay a fuel tax for electricity: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

It looks like the fuel is tax exempt in any case: http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/progs/view_ind.cgi ?afdc/5664/0. So, the tax guys didn't know their own law! OMG PONIES LOL!!!!!
--
If you don't pay tax to rent a generator, then don't pay tax for electricity (no fuel so no tax): http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Solid oxide fuel cells are not new. They've been on the market since at least the 1990's, and SOFC research goes back to the 1930's. They're less expensive than PEM fuel cells, but also heavier. They have higher operating temperatures and must be warmed up to achieve peak output. The high temperature has both advantages and disadvantages.

If I understand right, the flexible fuel use is one of the advantages of the high temperatures (along with non-catalytic electrodes that aren't adversely affected by carbon exposure), which allow the fuel to be broken down into hydrogen and other elements within the fuel cell, instead of in a separate reformer.

Most types of fuel cells being actively researched have comparable electrical efficiencies, some better, some worse. They're also all very big. The news is this company released a new model, an alternative energy blogger thought it was cool and wrote a few non-technical notes on it, and now half of Slashdot seems to think it is something revolutionary. It looks like a good product, but it's far from as significant as the summary implies.

By the way, I looked up the company's page on this product, which is much more informative. Also on the page are links to a spec sheet, suggested applications, and a couple pictures so you can get a sense of scale. These things are clearly a lot bigger than a typical 5 kW internal combustion generator.

The DOE has a decent overview of solid oxide fuel cell technology.

You could have written a very similar story about the internal combustion engine. Working prototypes existed as early as the first decade of the 19th century, but still it took them 100 years to really catch on. And look where we are today.

Awareness of the coming energy crisis and our pernicious dependence on foreign oil has sparked an increase in R&D and general interest in alternative energy that is orders of magnitude higher than anything ever witnessed before. As this page demonstrates, yes, there has been sporadic research on SOFCs dating back to the 1930s, but all of it pales in comparison to the infusion of human and financial capital we're now seeing. The capitalist incentive to develop alternative energy never existed so long as oil was basically free, and of course miniscule amounts of government funding would never amount to much. But that was yesterday. This is the tipping point.

Actually, it can, but you need to gasify the coal first to create syngas (steam + coal --> CO + H2). Both CO and H2 can be oxidized in a solid-oxide fuel cell. There is a lot of research being done in these areas by the USDOE. I've worked on both SOFC (wrote a CFD model for SOFCs) and gasification (writing a CFD model model for fluidized bed gasification reactors). The "Next-Gen" power plant designs basically take in coal, gasify it, run it through a fuel cell, burn the effluent gas, run it through a turbine topping cycle, and finally separate out the CO2 and sequester it. The overall system efficiencies are quite good and can produce industrial CO2. There is more information here:

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems /vision21/

What are you going to do to the house, renovate/fix or build new? Assuming you are above the FEMA floodline, I would prefer rebuild with Insulated Concrete Form walls. You can get wind rated windows, they absorb a lot of noise as a byproduct of being wind rated. (Wind being hurricanes and what not.)

In the past, houses have not been built with an eye towards eventual renovation. There are some groups looking into this now. A good stop is Pathnet ( http://www.pathnet.org/ ), which is a partnership between the US Housing and Urban Development Commission and the housing industry. One progressive commercial site is Bensonwood Homes ( http://www.bensonwood.com/ ). They are now doing things like planned crawl spaces and chases in walls. If you watch This Old House, Ted Benson did a timber frame in MA. Same guy (as far as I know). A civil engineer from the south, now doing cutting edge housing out of MA is Building Science Corporation ( http://www.buildingscience.com/bsc/ ). Lots of good info on his site. The US DOE has a good site out of Colorado ( http://www.eere.energy.gov/ ). I know New Orleans and Canada are a long way apart, but snoop around the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation site (probably via Google is better http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/ I'm assuming English). All kinds of useful information.

In an incident like Katrina, power can be important. But even in general. Cogeneration is nice. On a per-house basis, you sort of get sucked in to Otto or Diesel cycle prime movers. At some point (micro) gas turbines come into play. What prime mover you choose depends on the work/heat balance, but I really like gas turbines compared to either Otto or Diesel cycle. The ability to burn biodiesel would definitely tilt things towards the Diesel cycle. For fuel independence, nothing beats Stirling cycles, but very little happens on that side. Which is really a pity. There is no reason why your cogen plant can't run your heat pump or air-conditioner, or for that matter your refrigerator (largest power user in a typical house). Finding refrigerators capable of having "off-site" heat transfer is difficult. Marine seems the best place to start looking.

It's bloody difficult to build a nice house on stilts. The Dutch have an approach where "house boats" are anchored to pipes. If a flood happens, the house just floats up. The anchors (big pipes in the pictures I've seen) keep the house in place.

There are LED lights (pucks) which can be inserted in almost any surface (wall, floor, ceiling) that only require about 7mm machining. Supplier I seen is ( http://www.eyeleds.com/ ).

The tornado rooms (steel box inside the house) are probably a good investment.

Mold likes to eat most of modern construction. There are mold resistant lumbers (I prefer concrete, especially the stronger/later curing concretes with fly ash additions) and drywalls available. Don't use fibreglass, it's useless in a fire. Use mineral wool for insulation.

Don't use nails. Use screws, or screws and adhesive. Some acoustic applications might only want adhesive. Go to 5/8 inch, fire rated drywall. It gives straighter/flatter walls, and absorbs more sound. Visit http://greengluecompany.com/ to find out about Green Glue for acoustic uses.

Somebody mentioned poor insulation (cotton based) for wiring, getting good concrete is a problem. You might end up being better to make the stuff yourself in nobody locally will guarantee their concrete.

If the temperature of the outside is precisely what you would want at any time of the day or night, you don't need (thermal) insulation. For any other situation, you need insulation. Use as much insulation as you can afford. (I would prefer

Some people should be shot for the FUD they post. As somebody else posted the report you linked to is from one professor that used decades old data to come up with his numbers. You probably should have atleast posted the link to the real report instead of a news report where the Media just hunts for the most striking headline.

I can at least point you to reports from our own government that say there is a 1.34 ratio of return from corn crops:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/net_energy_bal ance.html

Or if you continue to believe that the agriculture buisness has more pull then Big Oil then check out this report from UC Berkeley that says it has a 1.30 ratio of return from corn crops:
http://rael.berkeley.edu/ebamm/summary.html

I don't think the corn ethanol is the fuel of the future. But I think it is a stepping stone in the correct direction towards other alternatives like Algae or Switch grass which is cheaper, easier to grow, and produces many more gallons per acre. Corn based ethanol will first establish the infrastructure for ethanol then these better alternatives will hopefully take over.

https://reports.energy.gov/BlackoutFinal-Web.pdf

Again, page 133-134.

I'm really looking forward to watching you rationalize this one away.

Improved traffic control would cost more tax dollars, something a lot of communities and States are unable to provide. Most of them can barely handle education, health care and crime prevention.

Automated systems where all vehicles are controlled by a central system as to their speed, lane location and destination would be a solution, totally unlike the present day setup where everyone owns their own vehicle, and is completely in control of where it goes, how fast it goes and what lane it travels in.

As far as "gas mileage" is concerned, we have missed a lot of opportunities to design and build electric cars, powered by electricity produced by atomic power plants, which could easily meet the demand for such vast amounts of electricity.

To our credit, however, work is being done on all sorts of alternative energy sources for automobiles, progress being made every day, and needed yesterday.

You mean other than the fact that it is just an idea and nobody has actually proven the method to be (cost) effective at producing biodiesel, ethanol, OR hydrogen? I won't criticize something that doesn't exist.

You get an "I" for "Ignorance". In A Look Back at the U.S. Department of Energy's Aquatic Species Program you can read about how the US Federal government did tests that show that without using cultured strains of algae, in a raceway-type pond, they are not only able to grow algae economically (the study indicated that it would become economical solely for reasons of increases in fuel costs before diesel fuel reached $3 per gallon, and was not dependent on other reductions of cost) but they can also capture up to 80% of the CO2 output of a coal or oil-powered power plant at the same time, which dramatically increases the rate at which algae was grown.

Now, please criticize.

For a solar tower you..

I wonder how this would be for growing winter crops as well

The thermal storage would be deep enough to not interact with the surface or shallow groundwater. The Drake Landing project has some information. This is another research document on thermal storage.

There is a lot of potential for integrating bio-methane which requires a very constant temperature as well as this Solar Hydrogen from methane production system. Algae farming also has a potential integration with the solar thermal storage.

Thanks. I'm looking for a number though.

I don't mean to avoid the efficiency question. Again, in an arid location with the majority of electrical usage for AC, Solar PV or Solar Thermal is simpler and probably more suitable. The cost/m2 of collectors is substantially cheaper in a thermal system, so I'm not sure what you are comparing. Marginal and poor land that isn't suitable for crop production or the roof of a Walmart isn't the cost factor, the solar collector is. The MIT group was able to get 1kW from 14m2 of trough collectors on a straight thermal system and the SHPEGS additions should improve on that.

There are also 2 heat sources in the SHPEGS system, solar and hot summer air along with two power generation systems, thermal and the wind turbine. In theory, the absorption system should improve not degrade the straight solar thermal system, so I would expect something better than 10% efficiency on the solar portion if you include the additional heat from the air. The conversion efficiency of the heat being extracted from the air is difficult to calculate. The energy cost is the energy going into the solution pump to pressurize the aqueous ammonia and there isn't the same direct cost in the volume of air being moved, in fact the more air that is moved the better the output of the wind turbine portion.

If you are comparing Solar PV, you need to account for battery cost and cut all the numbers by at least 50% to account for the daytime only output. Regardless of what is used for electrical storage, there are 3 months of the winter in Canada and the northern US where Solar PV isn't going to put out anything substantial and seasonal electrical storage isn't feasible.

I was interested in learning more about (like Calculus) on Wikipedia and found that I couldn't even understand the description of the subject!

I was interested in learning more about (like Calculus) on Wikipedia and found that I couldn't even understand the description of the subject!

... even if all CFLs were to break open, the mercury released would be less than would be released if the lights had remained incandescent ...

1. 2.931 * 10^14 watt-hours of energy produced by coal plants each year [1]
2. one-third of total electricity production if from coal [1]
3. 48 tons of mercury emitted by coal power plants, will eventually reduce to 15 tons under new rule [2]
4. 48 tons converts to 4.35 * 10^10 milligrams [3]
5. A compact fluorescent bulb lasts up to 10,000 hours
6. One 15 watt companct fluorescent bulb produced as much light as a 60 watt incandescent and contains 5 milligrams of mercury

• [1] http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/stats_ctry/Stat1. html#1foot1
• [2] http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems /pollutioncontrols/overview_mercurycontrols.html
• [3] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=48+tons+in+mi lligrams&btnG=Google+Search

All of the proposals have merit and need research. I suggest, however, that we do it with knowldge of what is being reserached now. The best sources for gathering all the research together is linked here:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/
http://www.nano.gov/
Yes, our government is working on the problem(s), if budget cuts don't go too far, this is one place where our Tax money is well spent.

Like the FreedomCAR program? (excuse the lame name). A number of US auto manufacturers and the US Dept. of Energy are participating in this. From my small corner of the program (research), it seems more like "catch up to the Japanese" than "leapfrog new technology", but it's something...

I'm going to play devils advocate and ask some questions.. In this article did he quote any sources that can be verified? Why did he quote only 2 energy companies that said it had no impact. Are they the know-it-all's on the subject? Why does he quote the same references his own article references ? What was the impact? Is he saying there is absolutly no measureable impact? He says the DOE doesn't think it will make an impact. Is he referencing this article? http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/news_detail.cf m/news_id=10625 I'm not saying he is incorrect, I just think his article is very poorly researched.. ..just my 2 cents

Which might not be as hard as it sounds. The University of New Hampshire did a study in 2004 where they concluded that biodiesel from algae could -- at least theoritically -- supply all the nation's fuel supply without require food oil (like soy or palm) to be used at all.

Yes, and the US Government concluded the same thing in 1998.

US DOE's approach was to use algae grown in foot-deep "raceway" size pools built in ring shapes and agitated by paddlewheels. Local algae was found to be the best algae to use; just build ponds and the algae will come along and colonize them. Using specially selected algaes produced a single-digit percentage improvement in efficiency at best and actually worked less well than the local stuff in some cases.

They found also that they could capture up to 80% of the CO2 output of a coal power plant and put it into algae growth. This approach is not carbon-neutral but at least the CO2 is used twice.

Interestingly, the same algae can be used to create both biodiesel and ethanol, because the former is made from fats and the latter is made from carbohydrates - and algaes produce both in various ratios depending on species and environment. Remaining solids can be used (without processing) for fertilizer.

Here's another link for you: Motor efficiency by load.
Sorry about the pdf format, couldn't really find it elsewhere.

Taking a 'Best Case' 75-100 hp motor, at 20% load(15hp) would be 95% as efficient as at full load. We're down to about 90% efficient. Still pretty good. If we drop to a more realistic econobox level motor, 30-60 hp(6 hp at .2), We're loosing ~8% over it's max, which is 93-94% efficiency. Around 86% efficient.

One oddball thing: the 75HP motor is likely to be just as efficient in the 30-60 hp range than the one operating at full load. It started higher, and hasn't really started to loose efficiency yet.

Cars run over a much wider load range, and typically operated at between 20 and 40 percent of max load.

That's for a gasoline engine. Due to a gasoline engine's power factors, in order to give quick starts you have to massivly overpower it. Also, a gasoline engine is rated at it's maximum horsepower. A electric is rated at it's highest sustainable horsepower. Please not that the efficiency scale goes beyond 100%. It's perfectly possible to overdrive an electric motor quite a bit. While the chart only goes to 120%, it's possible to go way beyond that for short periods. Heck, run air through the motor to keep it cool you can raise the max sustained horsepower. Now where would I get air pressure at 75mph... ;)

With the combination of 100% torque at 0 rpm and overdrive capabilities, the conventional sizing rule of thumb for people who convert cars to electric(sorry, no link atm) is to get comparable performance you need an electric motor of 1/3-1/2 the horsepower of the gasoline engine. So you size it to be able to sustain the car at 75-80 mph(use overdrive to get there), that puts your 20% level around 25 mph. You remain more than 80% efficient through the whole range.

Besides, if you're hanging around 25 mph for extended times, odds are you're not going to stress a 150-300 mile range.

ADM and the DOE didn't find ethanol economical WAY back in 1997.

Not even with the 51 cent/gal federal subsidy.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/pdfs/adm_cs.pdf

The news here is not that corn is a bad way to make ethanol. Everybody who isn't in the pocket of agribusiness knows that. The news here is that a true blue bushie (or should I say true red bushie? how did Republicans become red?) has reached this conclusion. Which is going to upset a lot of people. Which means they're up to something. What? Is Bush going to invade Iowa?

A Look Back at the US Department of Energy's Aquatic Species Program (See also USDOE Renewable Diesel Fuel and National Biodiesel Board Reports Search)

the public faces of the global warming scare are building vast energy-hogging mansions

Sigh. He, his wife, their home offices, and the security people who live there are required to share a 15'x15' studio apartment before they get off your shit list? (And, by the way, that "energy-hogging mansion" uses slightly less than average amounts of energy -- from green sources, at that -- than average, per square foot.)

But don't let mere facts get in the way of your attack-the-messenger parade.

Don't let mere facts get in the way of your lame debunking, especially since your religious beliefs are being questioned.

The Krumms are fortunate enough to live in a relatively nice section of West Nashville, just like Al Gore. We moved in to our house in late 2002, just like Al Gore. We then began a major renovation of our home, just like Al Gore. We also have a large home, although it's only about half the size of Al Gore's. So let's do some math.

Rather than taking the TCPR at its word about the Gores' energy consumption, lets rely instead upon documentation provided by Nashville Electric Service just today. It shows that in the last twelve months he consumed 194,250 KWH of energy, ranging from a high of 22,619 KWH in August to a low of 12,098 in December. That compares with our annual energy consumption of 35,215 KWH. Accounting for home size, the five members of the Krumm household consumed 7.34 KWH per square foot over the last twelve months. During the same period, Mr. and Mrs. Gore used 19.43 KWH per square foot-nearly three times our family's energy consumption. ...

But wait there's more. That's just the main house. When you add in the Gore's pool and pool house ($6,528 last year) they paid $1.30 per square foot for gas-more than five times what we spent during the same period just a few blocks away ...

Better numbers come from the 2006 Buildings Energy Data Book which shows that the average American single family home is 2,047 square feet. Dividing that into the 15,447 KWH of average annual usage in the South East Region, and we find that the average energy user in this area annually consumes 7.55 KWH per square foot of home-not the 19.83 KWH that Anonymous Liberal erroneously claims.

If you really believe that global warming is a grave danger, then arguments about usage-per-square-foot might make for an interesting college paper on ethics. But the Earth doesn't care about that, especially if Gore's total output is greater than it should be. An energy hogging mansion is still an energy hogging mansion, no matter how efficient it is. Especially when compared to this guy's house:

The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude

Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this "eco-friendly" dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.

A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.

No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak trying to shame his fe

What I hate about nuclear power lobbying is the dishonesty about who pays for security and disposal in calculations about the economic efficiency of the power source.

Solar PV pays back its energy cost in 1.5-3 years according to this: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pv_basics.html. Solar Cell manufacturers warrant their systems to last 20-25 years with many older systems going 30+ years (as is the expectation for current systems being installed).

In the long run, if we build a electric power infrastructure that encourages decentralization, we encourage a free market for energy production. A market with barriers that individual citizens can enter ultimately gives us all more freedom and makes our society more resilient to disasters - man-made and natural.

Storing 9 wt % hydrogen on a *system* level basis, (i.e., having the ratio (total mass of usable hydrogen: total system mass (including valves, tanks, regulators, storage material, etc) > 0.09) would satisfy the DOE 2015 FreedomCAR targets.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/m ypp/pdfs/storage.pdf

In other words, 9wt% is a lot of hydrogen.

The method is based on using alane (AlH3) as the storage material. Of course AlH3 has been explored for storage for years, but the thermodynamics of storage in alane make it very difficult to re-hydride. (Getting the hydrogen out is rather easy, but putting it back in requires giga-pascal pressures. ) This work supposedly has found a way to re-hydride Al to AlH3 using a chemical route (using a so-called supercritical fluid), rather than a high-pressure route. However, as far as I understand the method, the current conversion yield is 3%.

What!? Most fuel in the US contains 10% ethanol? Only 1/8th of the Gas in the sates has ethanol.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/cleancities/blends/etha nol.html

I don't think I'll reply in detail to everything. I'll just point out that fossils. regardless how you interpret them are very widespread. There are in fact few places of this planet that do NOT have fossils.

Not generally fossils but, areas where specific fossils are not found. If you are in a layer of rock formed in the Precambrian you aren't going to find any bones. Due to certain issues with the oceans we don't find many fossils in the water.

Even if they made some petrified wood, is that the way it really formed? Time is the biggest enemy of fossil making. The is NO known mechanism for making fossils over long periods of time - period. Using fossils, any fossils, as evidence for evolution is a wishful fairy tale.

No petrified wood forms in a very specific way, we simply made the fossilized wood by forcing the process to happen in a few days rather than a large number of years. Having extra time at your disposal wouldn't cause an inability to make fossils. That's just stupid. Secondly, there are many well understood chemical and physical properties which lead to fossil formation.

http://www.safossils.com/fossil.html
http://www.scsc.k12.ar.us/TuttS/fossil_formation.h tm
http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/prehistoric/what/howf ormed.html
http://www.fossils-facts-and-finds.com/how_are_fos sils_formed.html
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/earth/fossils/f ossil-folklore/how_are_fossils.htm
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/education/energylesso ns/coal/gen_howformed.html

Really, it isn't hard to figure out.

(....from multiple radiological clocks...)
To use any clock, you have to assume (believe = have faith) that your clock has always ticked at the same or a known rate over the total time measured.

No. That's why one uses multiple clocks. Firstly, sometimes there are slight (1% or so) fluctuation in the initial content of the radiological clock material. One need only believe that all of these radiological decay rates from the half a dozen methods you use remain constant, as would be expected if the laws of physics hold roughly true. Though, to be fair, they have only held true each and every time we checked, perhaps they magically stop working when we aren't looking.

There is evidence that clocks based on atomic properties have drifted as much as by a factor of 300 million times since the "big bang". This drift is related to very fundamental properties of space itself changing as the universe expanded.

Respectfully, no there is not. It took a long while before heavier radioactive particles even formed and from that time, the half lives have remained constant. It is extremely silly to suggest other wise with "there is evidence", as if that is some forgiving phrase with which to preface lies.

The equations for atomic behavior include Planks constant. Evidence that evolutionists like to keep silent shows that the some of the so called "constants" are anything but constant over long time periods. There are few things in nature that are really constant other than change itself. So your clocks are based on faith.

There may have been some slight change in such things as Planks and the speed of light, these are really really small and only true for the first split second of time. Radiological decay and half-lives are extremely consistent. The idea that some error exists and thus the universe is 6,000 years old is downri

CNG has been in fairly wide use for decades, mostly for fleets in areas with Air Pollution issues. Here's a site with locations for CNG, E85, Hydrogen, biodiesel, etc, etc...

Diesel engines have maximum energy efficiency of 45% and Petrol engines of 30%

50.2% Peak Thermal Efficiency at a Single operating Condition
  EPA 2010 Emissions Regulations over Steady-state and Transient Operation

There were a lot of studies on the idea in the '80's by the DOE, but it was shelved due to low oil prices at the time.

There's nothing wrong with Ethanol, save for studies 30 year out of date that are perpetuating the idea that it's energy negative.

And if the military is willing to try it out on news reporters (volunteers all), as they did in the breaking story, they're pretty confident.

Yes, sure.

the energy cost from constructing solar panels keeps them net-energy-negative for about a decade (!) and when they die out after just over a decade (!) you have to dispose of them, and per megawatt hour generated you'll have to dispose of a heck of a lot more solar panels than radioactive waste