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A quick Google search turns up results from at least as far back as 2007 and one article (apparently offline) from 2004.

I guess the new product will be more efficient, but this is definitely nothing new.

Current renewables like well-sited wind and solar PV have energy payback ranging from around three to six months for wind:
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/EnergyBalanceofWindTurbines.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/wind_turbine_lca.php

Solar estimates seem to range around one to four years:
http://www.pvresources.com/en/economics.php
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_payback_time#Sustainables

That last one is citing 2 to 4 years for PV, but it is out of date for thin film solar (if it was accurate back then).

Basically, the power to put in more renewables can come from other renewables in a bootstrapping way. Still, I'd agree that in practice a lot of the energy to make a lot of wind and PV systems quickly is coming from fossil fuels and nuclear. In many way, older nuclear power plants represent embodied fossil fuels used in their construction to pour concrete and mine fuel, too.

These pictures shows how little land or ocean surface is required to power the world entirely from wind or solar:
http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/AreaRequiredWindOnly.jpg
http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/AreaRequired1000.jpg

Something like 1% of the USA's surface area is already devoted to things like power line rights of ways, or areas around fossil fuel mining, or roadways, etc..

Something like about 50% of the land in the USA is devoted to animal product production (meat, dairy, etc.) one way or another (mostly growing fodder for animals), and the animal products are actually mostly harming US Americans, so there is plenty of room for renewables from that angle, too: :-)
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html

Also, a lot of land can be dual use, like farming under windmills, or PV used on roofs.

So, the amount of land being talked about to be fully renewable is not disproportionate to other activities like the US interstate highway system or especially agriculture.

I'm not saying nuclear does not have interesting applications following the Hyperion approach or similar designs like the Toshiba S4. But to flat out say renewables are not going to work is just not accurate.

> I don't know of any energy source that can power airplanes other than carbon-based fuels.
Your unawareness of alternatives doesn't mean that carbon is a requirement for flight. Consider these planes:
Hydrogen
Solar
Electric

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.

Not true. Just for starters, (and at the risk of repeating myself)..

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=46415

Summary: Australia plans to build a 154MW solar plant which powers 45,000 homes. No info on cost or scalability (the government is contributing $120 million, but we're not told how much the total cost is). Is 154MW max energy, or average/expected energy?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/worlds_largest_4.php

I don't go to "treehugger.com" for unbiased news about energy, but okay. Summary: They announced they would build an experimental 500MW plant over a 20 year period. Once they've built 1MW they'll see if it works, and if it does they'll continue to ramp it up to a potential 500MW in 20 years time. And is 500MW max energy, or average/expected energy? It's interesting, but it's not available here and now, and I question the 6c/kWh price too (which is coming from the people seeking investment).
See Wikipedia for information on why no-one is rushing to invest in the Stirling Engine.

Nuclear power, by contrast, is here now; ready, and waiting, and capable of taking on the entire burden of our energy needs.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/21/BUG9VJHBLB1.DTL

Summary: A company is investing $100 million in another experimental solar technology that hopes to solve the problem of our limited silicon resources. No mention of efficiency, timeline, or why we haven't heard anything about the technology since the article was published, as they said they would be pumping out "200 million" cells by 2007.
Again: Nuclear power is not an experimental dream or the idea of a gambler looking for investors; it's a tried, tested, readily available technology.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1321857,00.html

Summary: The worlds largest solar plant in 2004. $26.5 million, 33k cells * 150W/cell = 495KW = 5MW. It also uses silicon, which we don't have enough of to make enough of these to contribute a significant chunk of power. Is 150W/cell max energy, or average/expected energy?

http://www.pvresources.com/en/top50pv.php

A list of solar sites, no mention of costs. Topping the list is a solar site that generates 20MW (max energy, or average/expected energy?). Your average nuclear reactor generates 1000MW (max energy, but it can be maintained at max energy, unlike solar/wind power which depends on sunlight/wind). Did I mention nuclear is scalable, and ready now?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6031995.stm

Wind farm. 300MW *max energy, or average/expected energy?), $300million. It beats the $30 million for 5MW for the German plant you gave above, but it won't work too well in places which aren't as windy as Scotland. Nuclear power can be used anywhere, and in any amount. Things like hydroelectric power are good where there are canyons, and wind power is good where there's wind, and solar may possibly be good if you're a small town in the middle of a desert, and geothermal is good if you live near a volcanic site, but nuclear is good everywhere.

All of Americas power needs could be supplied by (for example) covering 100x100 km of the Nevada Desert with PV cells. Why not just bite the bullet and do it?

Because we don't have the silicon required, and it would be massively expensive even if we d

Ok, additional info to my original post..

You would need to build a solar plant of about 100 x 100 Miles in the Nevada desert to generate the USAs electricity. USA had around 743 GigaWatt (0.743 TerraWatt) installed generating capacity in 1998 - I will dig out a newer figure, but lets say about 1 TerraWatt today.. This scheme in Nevada:

http://www.reuk.co.uk/Nevada-Solar-One.htm

Delievers 64 Mw for 350 acres = 45 watts per sqr meter.
100 x100 miles = 26 000 000 000 m2.
* 44 (watts) = 1.17 TerraWatt supply. Is 100x100 miles too much? How does it compare to coal-strip mining?
It is true that the sun doesnt shine at night - so in reality you would have a mix - wind power, tidal, etc - backed up with ready-to-roll capacity, pumped hyroelectric storage, and new tech like very large SuperCapacitors. Technology is moving all the time..

Cost? Figures vary, but Nevada Solar quote about $0.07/Kwh, wind and others maybe a little less. With oil hitting $80 a barrel this looks good, its hard to compare to Nuclear because of the huge hidden subsidies it recieved, both in terms of research and hidden unknown costs like waste disposal and decomissioning..

More links on power schemes..

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=46415
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/worlds_largest_4.php
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/21/BUG9VJHBLB1.DTL
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1321857,00.html
http://www.pvresources.com/en/top50pv.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6031995.stm

As for Three Mile Island, read this link. Years later, when they could actually inspect inside the reactor, they were horrified to see just what a mess it was in - a huge glob of melted reactor fuel nearly breached the containment vessel - it was very very close to a Chernobyl type meltdown..

http://americanhistory.si.edu/tmi/tmi03.htm

Is it really going to be cheaper than (say) paving large areas of desert with ever-cheaper solar cells? Or building the really large wind-farm projects in the many available on/off shore locations?

Yes, with a capital 'Y'. Much, much cheaper, much, much more scalable, and also more environmentally friendly.

Nuclear is really the only option, and it's great that your government is going with what's right rather than what the misinformed majority think about nuclear power.

But, dammit, nuclear energy has no alternative for the moment.

Not true..

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=46415
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/worlds_largest_4.php
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/21/BUG9VJHBLB1.DTL
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1321857,00.html
http://www.pvresources.com/en/top50pv.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6031995.stm

All of Americas power needs could be supplied by (for example) covering 100x100 km of the Nevada Desert with PV cells. Why not just bite the bullet and do it?

there are risks in nuclear energy production

Hmm.. People dont realise just how close 3 mile island came to being as bad as Chernobyl - by sheer luck the vessel held the molten glob of reactor fuel. For a little exersize, extrapolate a Chernobyl scale incident to the 3 mile island area..

http://americanhistory.si.edu/tmi/tmi03.htm

i have a cedar shake roof now, and will be replacing it with standing-seam steel with integrated PV as soon as the price reaches the break-even point. Shakes suck ass at rainwater reclamation, which is half of my motivation for replacing this (very expensive) perfectly good roof.

PV tiles are available that match the terra-cotta tiles, currently mostly in the German market, where those tiles are dominant.

The PV will always be colored dark, as they need to absorb the light in order to work. If one is so hide-bound to the notion of traditional "good looks" then i guess it's just buy electricity from the grid. There are some currently available PV roofing materials that look almost exactly like slate, which is another "premium" roofing material.

As usual, Google shows the way:
http://www.pvresources.com/en/rooftile.php
http://www.etmsolar.com/roof.htm

Wrong. The average insolation in the US is 6 hours of peak sun per day, no desert required (ie 6000 Wh/sq. meter per day). For a flat panel, the deviation from the best southern nevada site to the worst northern washington state site is only 2-to-1!

8-12% is a little low. Current product cell efficiency are around 14-18%, and Concentrators w/ multijunctions get 30%. But who cares?

Module efficiency
Commercial crystalline photovoltaic modules efficiency typically ranges from 10 to 13 %. However, you must be aware, that the solar cell efficiency doesn't equal the module efficiency. The module efficiency is usually 1 to 3 % lower than the solar cell efficiency due to glass reflection, frame shadowing, higher temperatures etc. Table 1 represent some features of different solar module types. Amorphous modules have the lowest price, yet their lifetime is short and their efficiency is up to 8 % only.

The Helios Solar Airplane probably could have flown around the world. But with a cruising speed of only about 40 km/hr it would have taken 1000 hours (41 days). Such a long duration flight is fine for an unmanned aircraft, but poses severe challenges for manned flight. Carrying weeks worth of food, water, and oxygen represents additional payload that such a vehicle can ill afford. Onboard recycling/extraction systems could reduce the need for consumables, but they add weight also.

But without a person in the cockpit, the venture won't get much media attention. And without media attention, the project won't attract much sponsorship. ..... SIGH!