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I got into a conversation about alternative energies over the holidays with a friend of mine who has her PhD in something Agricultural Science related from Purdue, and when the conversation went to ethanol she informed me that apparently there's a much better alternative in butanol. According to the first link I've provided, Butanol is both a "cleaner" fuel source than ethanol and has a higher energy content (110,000 Btu per gallon for butanol vs. 84,000 Btu per gallon for ethanol, for reference gasoline is 115,000 Btu per gallon). It requires little to no modification of existing engines and can be shipped through existing fuel pipelines. Historically it's been considered less viable than ethanol because of relatively higher production cost.

About Butanol Energy

However a researcher from the midwest (Ohio I think) has patented a process by which it can be produced more cheaply than ethanol *without having to change existing gasoline infrastructure.*

Here's the researcher's company.

More Butanol Information

From what my friend told me, the only thing preventing this right now is a lack of funding and public awareness. So please read it for yourself and spread the word.

Since when do street lights work with batteries ?

Since early October, only in Austria. Here is a link that tells you all about it.

In other news: RTFA.

How much non-renewable energy does it take to produce each solar tree?

I presume you meant to try to revive the tired old myth that solar cells take more energy to manufacture than they produce over their lifetime?

Simple argumentum ad absurdum:

We (the continental US, but this applies to most places on Earth) receive 5.5 useful sunlight hours per day, on average.
Modern solar panels have an effective lifespan of at least 20 years.
That gives 40k hours over which a given panel can repay its initial cost, or 40kWh per Watt of panel.

The cheapest commercially-manufactured home solar panels currently cost $3 per Watt.
At $3 per panel, 40kWh costs $0.075/kWh.
I currently pay $0.174/kWh.

Thus, for every $3.00 Watt's worth of solar panel I buy, the manufacturer effectively gives me the panel plus $3.96 worth of energy they must have put into that panel's creation.

Not really the best business model, I'd have to say...

Not to belabor the obvious, but this quote, when contrasted with all the comments I've seen, shows that there is also an 'asymptotic decaying exponential' number of people who actually RTFA.

I haven't clicked on the PopSci link but I do have the Aptera site bookmarked, and am actively campaigning the wife to buy one. My employer has a solar farm on site. I wonder whether with a little sweet talking I can wheedle a spare 120V output?

I'm a Massachusetts residence who's been observing the whole gambling thing over the past six months. I don't know exactly why Deval wants to criminalize online gambling, but I can give you some background into the whole debate.

First of all, why does the state want to legalize gambling in the first place? You guessed it: money. The state is facing severe budget shortfalls in pretty much all areas, but especially the transportation infrastructure (and for you non-Mass Romney supporters out there: remember this when Romney brags about his economic accomplishments. He didn't to shit except turn Massachusetts into the butt of his jokes). Some of the state's biggest cities (Boston, Springfield, Lawrence, Lowell, etc) have violent crime problems and these cities are looking for money to fund the police and outreach programs.

The state is trying very hard to develop new revenue streams by encouraging investment in biotech and green energy. But the problem with trying to bring those industries into Massachusetts is that land/rents in the eastern part of the state (with access to MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, etc) is very expensive. Costs in the western part of the state is significantly cheaper, but you don't have the highly-educated workforce like you do in the eastern part of the space. Also, these initiatives are long-term fixes, and we need money now.

So some Mass residents have been gazing longingly at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut (especially since lots of Mass residents spend money there) and have decided "we want some of that!" Hence the push to legalize gambling.

Of course the push toward casino gambling has created opposition with their concerns. Most of the concerns center around the potential for increased crime - some of the proposed locations (including Springfield) are dealing with crime problems and are worried that the casinos may create more crime, but since the state will be taking most of the money, the city/town will have to deal with the crime levels on their own. This isn't an unreasonable concern - western Massachusetts used to have homeless and public assistance centers all over the region, but they were consolidated by Romney into Springfield. Since western Mass doesn't have an extensive public transporation infrastructure, people on public assistance (and in too many cases, their deadbeat/criminal children/SO/spouses, etc) came to live in Springfield without a corresponding increase in the LEO/outreach budget which help cause our crime levels to spike.

Patrick (or his advisers/aides) spent some time meeting with people on both sides of the issues and researching the expected benefits and disadvantages to weigh the tradeoffs. Patrick finally recommended legalizing gambling at three casinos (eastern Mass, western Mass, and the Cape) after deciding that those three casinos could be prove beneficial, and create manageable problems.

That's where we are. So why the harsh penalties for online gambling? Maybe he is corrupt, but having seen how he kept his composure in response to a brutal campaign waged by his gubernatorial opponent last year makes me doubt that. My guess would be that it's a gift to casino opponents who are worried that unchecked gambling in the state might lead to increased problems in already high crime areas.

I can't say I'm all that happy that these penalties are in the bill, but given the various problems the state is

You do realize that Audubon New York, the state's largest bird conservation organization, has gotten behind wind power 100%, right? The effect of wind turbines on birds is generally so ridiculously overstated it's embarassing. Here is the data from New York on bird kills from turbines: Madison site, 7 turbines, one year, 4 bird deaths. Copenhagen, 2 turbines, two migration seasons, zero bird deaths. That's it. The Madison site was the only site in the entire northeastern US with any reported bird deaths.

Want to save birds? Protest glass windows (especially on skyscrapers), housecats, habitat destruction, excessive pesticide use, climate change, and coal power plants. You know, the things that we do that *actually* kill large numbers of birds.

Don't like the look of wind turbines? Don't live near them; there are plenty of people willing to take your place. I, for one, find them quite attractive. You can go live near a nice pretty coal power plant instead (that is, after all, what those turbines are displacing).

I agree with some of your concerns. But I don't think this would be something we are going to put up over night. The solar cells you linked to are already in place so it is likely that they are some of the less efficient panels then what we can get today

Add that to any progress being made between now and when we can find a reliable way to deliver the power back to earth, then take into account the stronger light waves that aren't filtered through the atmosphere and you could see a large drop in size with any luck.

but I wasn't figuring on shielding from meteorites and so on so I guess we wouldn't save much weight by stitching the cells to a fabric or thin tube and releasing some gases into them to extend it out. (And I think it is a good reason that I don't send things into space on purpose)

An anon comment, referring to E.ON Netz Germany which is mainly (if not only) on shore. Let's forget about it.

> Wiki

Here it is: "Offshore ... Capacity factors (utilisation rates) are considerably higher than for onshore and near-shore locations"

Remember that even nuclear plants did not immediately reach their present impressive capacity factor: it took 40+ years

Offshore windfarms will gain from better site selection and more ambitious approaches enabled by technology enhancements.

On particularly favorable locations and in theory some can run an impressive 96% of the time (8440 hours per year), and at 5 MW full power 38% of the time. On an existing site: Since opening in 2000, the turbines at this wind farm have had an average capacity factor of 52% and, according to this report, in 2005 averaged a world record 57.9%..

Not to sound like an ass or anything, do you happen to have a link quoting that?

This site has comments seeming to esitmate a 35% capacity factor for an off-shore program.
Wiki talks about both on-shore and off shore, and for capacity factor mentions 'A well-sited wind generator will have a capacity factor of about 35%.' You'd tend to think that if off-shore had that much better of a capacity factor they'd mention it.

Offshore wind assessment for California: This project alone could produce 9.7 TWh annually (39% capacity factor),

Because they are many plants. A set of windfarms in different locations also can produce in a "mostly demand based" fashion.

They still can't without building three times as many watts of capacity as you would have to for a nuclear plant, and still likely have to build a storage system to level peaks out.

I consider myself a wierd green. If I had my way, I'd be building nuclear plants as quickly as I could in favor of shutting down coal plants, starting with the most polluting per kWh. Yes, I'd do some more research into breeding reactors and reproccessing facilities. It's quite possible to reduce the amount of nuclear waste by an order of magnitude - matter of fact some of our oldest rods are getting cool enough that the measures needed handle the residual radiation are vastly reduced, making reprocessing a much cheaper task.

Sure, build wind and solar farms where it makes sense - it just doesn't make sense in many areas yet.

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

California, the third-largest market for solar on Earth, has over 30,000 home and small-business systems installed, and in 2006 put in place a 10-year, $3.3 billion program termed "Million Solar Roofs" that should add a whopping 4,000-10,000 MW of solar over the coming decade.

Kenya, not a place that comes readily to mind as a PV leader is, in fact, just that. With roughly 30,000 small (truly small, 20-100 watts, not kilowatts, per household) systems sold per year, has the world's highest household solar ownership rate.

Subsidies are an interesting question. All energy sectors get them. Here is a link that looks at the period 1943-1999: http://www.crest.org/repp_pubs/pdf/subsidies.pdf. Hyrdo is included, but much of the hydro capital investment happened before 1943. The Hover Dam was completed in 1935, for example. Non-market interest rates play a big role in hydro subsidies since hydro also plays a role in flood control, a government function. Wind gets a production tax credit which is not permanent while hydro appears to recieve a tax break in addition to production credits http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner/s tory;jsessionid=0D08A08E27326292C69011005A97F1DE?i d=49601. It seems to me that we can manage a subsidies accounting when wind reaches the market penetration of hydro. I suspect that owing to less favorable financing (private rather than public), wind will turn out to have the lower subsidy at that point.

Panels are tilted to account for the dilution of sunlight owing to the latitude. What you are mostly seeing is that you get rain while deserts don't.
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Better power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Calpine's "Geysers" geothermal power plant network in Lake County, California, are still online. http://www.geysers.com/ According to Wikipedia and Calpine's web page it is the largest geothermal network of power plants in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calpine & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geysers). According to the same sources, it is currently producing 750MW and they are pumping about 11 million gallons of "treated wastewater" (read: sewage) from Santa Rosa PER DAY into a geothermal area and producing steam to spin turbines to generate electricity. I haven't read that they are losing output - where did you read that? If anything the output has been steadily increasing. It was 700MW a few years ago, and it has been rising. http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=48784

For all it's non-CO2 generating goodness, however, it definitely produces a LOT of earthquakes. We have a house near Pine Grove, CA, (near the Geysers) and throughout the day the earthquakes are so frequent that it's like living next to a major freeway. Look at this map of California and Nevada http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latest.htm and then note the massive number of squares just NNW of the SF Bay Area on the map - or look at this list: http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/quakes0.htm and note the extremely high number that are situated around "The Geysers".

Geothermal is a neat solution to producing power, but to say that it has "nearly zero impact on the climate or the environment" as the original article states is a bit misleading. It may have zero impact on the environment around the world, but it has profound (and frequent) impacts if you happen to live near the power plant stations. No matter what anyone says, you never quite get used to them - either. They wake you up at night, they rattle the dishes during dinner - some of them feel like the house just dropped a foot, some shake like a large truck crossing on a bridge.

There are already laws on the books in a number of states that can help to protect landowner's rights to solar energy access. In NYC, local zoning is controlling: http://www.dsireusa.org/library/includes/tabsrch.c fm?state=NY&type=Access&back=regtab&Sector=S&Curre ntPageID=7&EE=1&RE=1 Most solar access laws were passed after the oil shocks of the seventies.

Senator Menendez of NJ has introduced federal legislation to ensure access rights: http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner/s tory?id=47928
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Rent solar power with no installation cost: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

It is difficult for me to understand how paying your electric bill is an investment that you profit on so I wonder why you insist on profiting on solar personally. It is just a switch at the same cost (or less http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y;jsessionid=2CF573B3AE8AC8D63C2FB2045CEA992F?id=4 8624). At least with coal, we are operating fairly close to extraction costs http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/05/three-cornered -ghost.html so I don't see your argument about price competition as having much strength here. What is more likely is that energy prices will fall low enough that coal won't be extracted. On liquid fuels, I think you might have a point, but there is limited capacity to produce them because your argument about land area does apply here http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html so oil prices will likely be sustained.

In your calculations, I think you are not taking account of net metering so you should be including some negative numbers is your seasonal breakdown. Further, you are mistaking the cost of building a plant for the cost of operating a plant. Building a plant is a big investment to be sure, but it comes out to be a small fraction of revenue. The key is that a large plant is about four times less costly than a small plant to operate on a cost per panel basis, so you need to divide your roughly $10/Wp installed figure by more than 2. The $4/Wp figure I use is likely conservative since installation labor saving are likely with large volume. SunEdison and others routinely use cranes and other labor saving devices in their commercial operations. Large scale at the residential level will justify investment in similar kinds of equipment reducing the need for a larger workforce.

But, if you are feeling down on owning solar, you might want to consider renting it at close to what you pay your utility now. Click on the map at the bottom of one of the links found at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html with your utility bill available and see if the offered rate is attractive. If so, the first installations for this deal are anticipated for the first quarter of 2008 and if you are OK with that kind of timing, go ahead and sign up.

I recently read an article about solar power in Wired magazine: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/solar.htm l

The article mentions a new design for a concentrator that only uses two motors. To quote the article -

"Then, in a weekend flash of inspiration, a young Caltech physics grad named Kevin Hickerson figured out how to reduce the number of motors needed to move 25 mirrors independently, a major cost factor. Instead of two motors for each mirror - the traditional approach - Hickerson's solution requires only two motors for any number of mirrors. The key is a mathematical curve known as the conchoid of Nicomedes (named for the ancient Greek mathematician, who discovered it). A grid of ball bearings arrayed to match the conchoid is attached to a frame inside the Sunflower. As the motors move the frame, the bearings control each mirror's position individually."

I have found this but it is not helping me much:

http://nvizx.typepad.com/nvizx_weblog/2005/08/conc hoid_of_nic.html

I have been unable to locate a more detailed explanation of the system and I'm not sure if this basic math is patentable. My advanced math skills are very rusty and I'm not quite sure where to start to understand this. I have an idea that this technique might be useful and I want to understand how to design such a frame. I did look at the concentrator page here: http://www.sandia.gov/pv/docs/PVFarraysConcentrato r_Collectors.htm but it was not much help.

These articles as well also have some implications for the benefits of a simple energy source:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/1 2/1621204&tid=126&tid=14

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816, 1101299,00.html

Also, this today triggered my interest again:

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=46765

I want to understand how to make a spreadsheet or something that would allow me to input number mirrors, focal length, size and it tell me shape, size a location of pivots. Can you explain it to someone who hasn't touched calculus in 18 years? I want to build a cheap one on my roof!

It is hard to find panels that cheap because the raw material supply is tight just now. As this clears up in the next couple years $3/Watt should be pretty common (delivered not installed). The other thing that has kept prices high is lack of industrial scale. You can look at page 20 of this report http://www.redrok.com/pvreport.pdf to see that a 500 MW production plant reduces costs by a factor of 4. One of at least two plants of this size going into the US this year is described here: http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=47621. As these crank up, you should see prices drop even farther. If you want to signup for renting panels from the other plant follow the links at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html.

Seantor Menendez of NJ has introduced legislation that would deal with the HOA situation with solar power http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner/s tory?id=47928. It has also been introduced in the house by Reps. Cardoza (CA) and Ferguson (NJ). Some states already have this kind of legislation so you might want to check to see if you are already covered.
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Rent solar power with no installation cost http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

For all the bad flack I've heard about MBNA, my treatment from Linux Fund has been absolutely amazing, reflecting not one bit of MBNA's bad press. I have been more satisfied with the service and benefits of this card than any of my others (and there is a LONG list). This started as a 0% APR promotion, but after the promotion ended and I paid off my debt, I started using it as a real card ... I've used this card as my primary ever since, and now my APR is quite reasonably below prime and my available credit is enough to buy a car on. To top that off, I'm currently in a 1.99% APR promotional period.

I have been very very happy with this card ... and that's even ignoring the fact that my use of this card has helped F/OSS AND has been a part of the WorldPoints program (I'm almost qualified for a cheap vacation...). Naturally, when I saw the letter, I decided to keep my membership with the Linux Fund card as long as possible and then request transition to a different WorldPoints program in May. ... though the articles linked here seem to indicate that this won't help the Linux Fund charity any (is that even legal?).

There are other WorldPoints programs out there, but BofA doesn't list any of the cooler ones on their All Cards page. A quick search for worldpoints "bank of america" pulls up a very raw list showing that there are tons of them out there, though mostly for groups I am neither affiliated with nor care about (like the various alumni programs). The only promising one was their upcoming WorldPoints Rewards for the Environment card, which is slated for release later this year (I'm not sure if this will be before June).

To the Linux Fund folks: If you jump on the Mastercard/Visa bandwagon with another major bank, I will happily take up your new card. I wouldn't go with Chase, CapitalOne, or other bad-rep banks, but good bank with a Free Software fund would be my card of choice (and while rewards stuff is enticing, I operate under the assumption that it might get me some free stationary at some point).

You can get tethered wind turbines now. One company is http://www.magenn.com/. Here is a writeup from a distributor http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner/s tory;jsessionid=89EBAB338FE0B78CFA33259EF429902B?i d=41478. This is not for placement in the jet stream but it is not bad for getting into more steady power generation.
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The Sun makes the wind blow: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Here is a good article on using pond scum for bio fuel. It allows us to use our arable land for growing food sources. http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=47237

Actually the case of hydro is kind of interesting. I can't sell contracts for renting solar power much in the north west. The market is restricted else where because of the lack of net metering laws, but in the north west that is not the problem. There it is that power is too cheap for solar to compete yet. Solar can compete with nuclear power and coal power, but when it comes to hydro, it can't do it. That is because renewable energy is cheaper. You'll see news of at least a GW per year new solar fabrication capacity going in. (That's 10 GW of new solar in a decade). 500 MW will be in Oregon http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=47621 where power is cheap and I can't say yet where the other half will go. But, that's renewable power making renewable power. You only need to do that about 19 more times to cover our electric power use. That is much less investment than new nuclear power requires, and, as you can see, it is politically easy to do.

So, if you really want those new nukes, better hurry.

Some good discussions are here here and here. This sounds like a great idea, I'm all for it. But, the collective 'naysayers' have a lot of really good points, and several misconceptions. The misconceptions are quickly and vociferously explained. The numerous good points, however, are usually met with changing of the subject. The best of those points are:
Q: Who is financing the $650mil? Where is the manufacturing plant?:
A: 'We'll release that info in the next few days... er, next couple weeks....er, end of January...er, 1st ½ of February...er, end of February':
People in the solar manufacturing business know when any new plant is being built. Somebody, somewhere, will leak that info to the blogosphere. It takes many months of planning, then 6 months to years to build the plant, then another 6 months to years to get the equipment going, and the first product they produce never actually works - it takes at least another few months to a year to get even 20% working. But for the biggest solar plant ever built, not a word? Hundreds of workers at every step of the process, but nobody leaks any info? In January, they said 20% capability by Sept. 07.:
:
Q: How much will it cost per kWh?:
A: $1.53. This was mentioned on a conference call end of January, but it wasn't printed anywhere on any advertisements, or even the internal website, including the knowledge base. I've been looking, and didn't see it anywhere, ever, until mdsolar wrote it today. Why not? For a piece of info that the 'naysayers' have been screaming for, why not reply to them?:
:
Q: Solar power cheaper than coal is the 'holy grail' the industry has been searching for relentlessly. Citizenre claims not just to have broken that barrier, but smashed completely through it, like skipping 5 years of Moore's Law in 1 year. 'Vertical Integration', while very buzzy, doesn't explain that. If you could do it, people would hear about it, and sign up. You dont need the risks, bad name, and expense of MLM - you'd max out your capacity by putting a website up.
A: Long answers that dont add up usually follow, but sometimes, "Forget the numbers, you have to just believe. I believe in a green future, dont you?"
:
My conclusion is that there is definitely some scheming going on. I just hope its of the Bill Gates variety, like when he licensed 'his' OS to IBM before he owned it (at least that's what I remember from Pirates of Silicon Valley). I believe there is no manufacturing plant or $650 mil, but the Citizenre guys hope to drum up enough hype that they can go to potential investors and say - look, we've presigned 10k customers - give us the startup capital, and we'll chia-grow a business. Every year they delay roll out, the silicon and technology gets cheaper, so they're in a win-win situation, going from investor to investor, every month the numbers get a little better. All the while the hype drives Rob Styler's book sales.:
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The darker possibility in my mind is that they're after the security deposit, which is size dependent. If your system requirements are bigger, you pay more than the $500. The average size people are signing up has been said (without refutation) to be close to $1300. If they could actually convince people to pay the deposit without getting the systems, then they would make 10k customers X $1300 = $13mil. Oh, they are upfront paying the sales associates 10% of the $500 potential commissions, so they would only make $12.5mil. Split that between 5 core people, $2.5mil is not bad for a couple years work. If it were me, I'd sacrifice my good name for $2.5mil and travel the world on a yacht under a false name. Maybe I'd write a book about it - hope it gets turned into a movie.:
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All this said, you don't seem to lose anything to just sign up on the w

Maybe we should use switch grass.

Ten times as many gallons / ton, and grows like the weed that it is!

"Beginning June 1, 2005 all U.S. Navy and Marine non-tactical diesel vehicles will be required to operate on a B20 (20 percent) biodiesel blend" http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=24024 Also, in a reversal of a 2002 USDA study National Renewable Energy Labs finds B20 BioDiesel does NOT increase NOx (Smog) emmisions. http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/npbf/news.htm l B20 BioDiesel can be used in any Diesel vehicle, with no modification. With equal or greater performance. And much less air pollution. For the same energy input as Ethanol, BioDiesel produces 55% more energy. BioDiesel gives you far better Mileage than Gasoline, increase of 20-40% Ethanol gives you far worse Mileage than Gasoline, decrease of 20-30% Protecting America from disaster Protecting the World from disaster BioDiesel

The part I'm confused is : why haven't I seen yet a combined system.

There has been plenty of experimentation with such systems, but the benefit to the PV (which works better when it's cooler) and the quality of the heat extracted (which is basically lukewarm) has not really made it cost-effective. You get a boost of about 3-4% in electrical power output, but the water is really only useful if you use the PV panels as pre-heaters and can move the water to another heating system to finish the job before it loses the heat gained from the PV. Thus far it has been more economical to keep the two systems separated.

That said, a company called Solarwall recently announced a combined PV/air heating system that it put together. No word on economics or commercial plans, though.

Attorney John Lear's new offices in the Major George Downey Mansion will be the testing ground for the system. Lear, who specializes in gas and oil law, stumbled upon the idea last year while investigating alternatives to traditional heating and cooling systems.

The project includes each utility installing a new boiler, fuel handling system and auxiliary equipment to tie into existing turbine generators. The project will use biomass from a tree farm in Aitkin, as well as right of way clearings.

Biomass is organic matter (such as wood) that can be processed into energy for heat, liquid fuels or power generation. Biomass can be combusted directly to produce steam for electricity or it can be converted into a gas to power a turbine.

The boilers will produce 20 megawatts of biomass electricity in Hibbing and 15 megawatts in Virginia.

The two utilities, working jointly as the Laurentian Energy Authority, hold a contract to sell 35 megawatts of biomass power to Xcel Energy.

Biodiesel has a double hit, you have to burn fossil fuels to make it, at about 1.4:1 joule loss ratio, then you burn it again and get even more pollution.

No. For every joule of energy used to make biodiesel, 3.2 joules worth of fuel energy are produced. That's using soybeans; obviously using waste food oil would give even better numbers. High-oil algaes are another promising possibility.

Or Universal Studios might go after you! Seriously, this is a wonderful innovation. In the past, making a new roof out of solar cells was so prohibitively expensive that states such as California had to offer homeowners incentives in the form of buy-down rebates, tax breaks, and so on--basically footing part of the bill just to get them using the technology. With the advent of CIGS, these kinds of environmentally-conscious bribes may not even be necessary. Cheap solar technology will now be far more accessible to people, companies, and governments. That is a Good Thing[tm].

They're not the first to use solar power. Fedex installed soloar panels a year or two ago. Other companies are doing it too.. In fact, there was a Modern Marvels show on the History Channel about alternative energy. They said the US could receive ALL of its power requirements, and then some, if the SW Nevada desert was one big solar panel (or Wind farm). Thats pretty impressive for a renewable resource.
 
There was also mention on that episode of a new "solar paint", using nanotech, that the scientists envision painting buildings with, so the buildings can be self powered and only on the grid for backup power. Neat stuff.

Thank god that hippies have not made any inroads. Here they were busy pushing such weird ideas as Organic Food, Alternative energy, cleaner environment (they blew up so much crap). And best of all, the military never listens to such weird ideas.

And they are getting more expensive. I think a lot of the PV solar industries use off-spec or lower grade silicon (refuse?) from the high end CPU / RAM chip fabs.

With chip demand increasing, the supplies are getting tight on silane in some cases, so the lower cost PV that operates closer to margin gets the shaft.

http://renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id =45235

Your information is way out of date (if it ever was true). PV is relatively clean and cost effective now, and per unit these advantages will only improve with increasing volume. We just don't need centralized nukes in the next few decades, propping up a nuclear industry with a history of lies, murder (Silkwood), and pollution, built on government subsidies for R&D and insurance, and initmately associated with WMD production.

On scalability, PV solar systems work well especially when integrated with a system that gets some of its energy during cloudy or nighttime from cogeneration, which could be fueled using hydrogen made elsewhere by solar panels, or by biodiesel fuelds derived from farms, or from synthetic carbon based fuels (like synthetic propane) created from power from solar panels deployed in equatorial areas or the ocean. To see such an solar and cogeneration system working cost effectively in a major northern city, consider:
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/popup/hhtoronto/works.h tm
"What is truly amazing is that CMHC's Healthy House in Toronto provides all the comforts of home - without using municipal services. It has been designed to rely on sun and precipitation as the basis of its heating, electrical, water and waste water management systems. And right from the start, the way it is built and the materials used in construction mean more comfort, less maintenance and lower operating costs. That goes for the landscaping, too. CMHC's Healthy House in Toronto is located near public transportation, and is designed to provide maximum usable space on a minimum amount of land, to limit air and water pollution, and to use locally available materials and durable renewable resources wherever possible. It is an affordable solution to housing now that will keep on working for many years to come."

On pollution:
http://greennature.com/article641.html
"These differences, however, may not be particularly meaningful, according to Vasilis Fthenakis, a senior chemical engineer at Brookhaven National Laboratory who specializes in the potential environmental impacts of solar cells. "There are no significant environmental and safety hazards with any of [the types of solar cells] to the scale that they are manufactured today," he explains. And although there are some hazardous materials used, such as silane gas, cadmium, carbon tetrafluoride, and lead, he says, "if you look at the quantities in relation to their use in other industries, they are very, very small." But these risks will become more significant as the industry grows, he adds."

Still, the fact remains that either we clean up all manufacturing towards zero emissions, or we will be burried in waste and pollution no matter what our energy source. R&D into all forms of low pollution manufacuring in the future will benefit PV.

Overall they make sense right now compare to what we have:
http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1119
"An average U.S. household uses 830 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month. On average, producing 1000 kWh of electricity with solar power reduces emissions by nearly 8 pounds of sulfur dioxide, 5 pounds of nitrogen oxides, and more than 1,400 pounds of carbon dioxide. During its projected 28 years of clean energy production, a rooftop system with 2-year payback and meeting half of a household's electricity use would avoid conventional electrical plant emissions of more than half a ton of sulfur dioxide, one-third a ton of nitrogen oxides, and 100 tons of carbon dioxide. PV is clearly a wise energy investment with great environmental benefits!"

And consider innovative approaches towards lifetime recycling of PV products:
http://www.renewableenergyacc

We don't need to do that - the tech exists to coat radiators with a catalytic coating that will clean the air as you drive.
http://www.engelhard.com/documents/1999-01-3677.pd f

If they took the money they spend on sucking up to oil companies (and car companies http://www.evadc.org/news.html ) and handing over pollution credits to them http://www.edmunds.com/news/column/carmudgeon/4682 9/article.html http://www.houstonmopars.org/noscrap.html and trying to kill the hobby of automotive work... ...then we could easily have a state full of NEVs (Negative Emission Vehicles) - the state could retrofit existing vehicles with the new radiators.

But the politicos would never do that, just like Arnie et al pussed out on the big solar bill that he could have signed when he first took office http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=36390 - it would have put California far ahead in terms of distributed solar PV usage. No politicians have the guts to do something on the order of the "National Defense Highway System" http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/nd hs.htm , Rural Electrification System, Golden Gate Bridge, Hetch Hetchy, etc.

Some research on Wikipedia? You mean the exact thing YOU obviously did not do?

"However, all subsequent studies have concluded that ethanol production yields more energy than it consumes (most agree on a ratio of 1.34:1 -- [8] and see below). ... ethanol production is 81% more energy efficient than gasoline. (Groschen http://www.mda.state.mn.us/Ethanol/balance.html>)"

And newer technologies are only improving this : http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=38601

You should try talking to biologist and physicist who have updated their data in the past 20 years, or who do not rely on studies that have been almost universally criticized for serious flaws.

And how the Hell do You conclude that ethanol is non-renewable? What will stop its future production? When will the world run out of ethanol? The answer is simple : Never, there is nothing to stop ethanol production. Suitable feed stocks for ethanol have been growing for hundreds of millions of years, and will continue to do so. Once the current crop is harvested, a new crop can be planted, ad infinitum.

Nuclear energy on the other hand, is absolutely NOT renewable. There is a finite supply of uranium on Earth. And eventually, it will be exhausted. The current supply is far greater than the need for the immediate, but that is true of coal too, and it was once true of oil. That does not make them renewable.

Instead of coming exclusively from corn or sugar cane as it has up to now, thanks to biotech breakthroughs, the fuel can be made out of everything from prairie switchgrass and wood chips to corn husks and other agricultural waste. This biomass-derived fuel is known as cellulosic ethanol.

We can't remember how many times we've been asked the question: "But doesn't ethanol require more energy to produce than it contains?" The simple answer is no-most scientific studies, especially those in recent years reflecting modern techniques, do not support this concern. These studies have shown that ethanol has a higher energy content than the fossil energy used in its production. Some studies that contend that ethanol is a net energy loser include (incorrectly) the energy of the sun used to grow a feedstock in ethanol's energy balance, which misses the fundamental point that the sun's energy is free. Furthermore, because crops like switchgrass are perennials, they are not replanted and cultivated every year, avoiding farm-equipment energy. Indeed, if polycultured to imitate the prairies where they grow naturally, they should require no fertilizer, irrigation, or pesticides either. So, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, for every one unit of energy available at the fuel pump, 1.23 units of fossil energy are used to produce gasoline, 0.74 of fossil energy are used to produce corn-based ethanol, and only 0.2 units of fossil energy are used to produce cellulosic ethanol.

We can't remember how many times we've been asked the question: "But doesn't ethanol require more energy to produce than it contains?" The simple answer is no-most scientific studies, especially those in recent years reflecting modern techniques, do not support this concern. These studies have shown that ethanol has a higher energy content than the fossil energy used in its production. Some studies that contend that ethanol is a net energy loser include (incorrectly) the energy of the sun used to grow a feedstock in ethanol's energy balance, which misses the fundamental point that the sun's energy is free. Furthermore, because crops like switchgrass are perennials, they are not replanted and cultivated every year, avoiding farm-equipment energy. Indeed, if polycultured to imitate the prairies where they grow naturally, they should require no fertilizer, irrigation, or pesticides either. So, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, for every one unit of energy available at the fuel pump, 1.23 units of fossil energy are used to produce gasoline, 0.74 of fossil energy are used to produce corn-based ethanol, and only 0.2 units of fossil energy are used to produce cellulosic ethanol.

Solar Death Ray

Looks like the renewable energy people are in on it, too

I also remember seeing one in my chemistry book last year... it was in france or somewhere (theoretically temperatures could get high enough to ignite something with a low flashpoint like wood or paper). The mythbusters' argument was that copper wasn't shiny enough and that even with mirrors, the soldiers wouldn't have enough precision to focus on a point for long enough.

-TX297

I see. They're "[breeding] a lot of people living in mut huts" to get a "free pass". So you suggest we go by what? Per country? The very few living in Liechtenstein will be happy to hear that. If you want to go by economic output, China looked in fact pretty bad -- they heavily rely on coal to produce energy. They still do, nowhere near as bad as they used to, but they're still about at US levels.
You can find various relevant statistics here, among other measures graphs of carbon dioxide emmissions per economic output for the G7 countries and developing asian nations.

I've been to Beijing. The air there ain't clean. I've never actually felt sick just from breathing a city's air before, and I've been to most major cities in the US and Europe.

At least they're doing something about it.

The tree huggers of this world like to think that we can supply hydrogen with windmills, solar, and tidal power.

That statement is soooo 20th century.

Now while these alternate energy sources certainly merit investment we are a looong way from being able to produce anywhere near the energy needed to supply millions of autos with hydrogen.

Only if you continue to think in terms of centralized power sources and distribution networks, I think. Nevertheless, there a megawatts of electrical and wind generation facilities coming online a increasingly frequent intervals. I think it's very short-sighted to claim that we're anywhere close to seeing inadequacy to demand from these sources. Obviously, this will continue to be an arguing point, but I think even the most skeptical observers should be stopping short of ruling the possiblity out, at this point.

We'll call them hydrocarbons, so that Susie Homemaker won't immediately pick up on the problem that hydrocarbons are foreign oil.

Hmmm. I'm no chemist, but isn't methane a hydrocarbon? See the article at http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=32730 for an article about producing hydrogen from methane at dump sites. And of course, methane is widely available at sites like the massive factory farms in the midwestern US.

Btw, Susie is pissed that you don't think she knows what hydrocarbons are - she says it's Joe (Sixpack) that was not in class that day, but I'll let her deal with you personally about that...

Says no:

Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study.

"There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel," says David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell. "These strategies are not sustainable." Pimentel and Tad W. Patzek, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Berkeley, conducted a detailed analysis of the energy input-yield ratios of producing ethanol from corn, switch grass and wood biomass as well as for producing biodiesel from soybean and sunflower plants. Their report is published in Natural Resources Research (Vol. 14:1, 65-76).

A prominent USDA/DOE study shows for every unit of fossil fuel used to make biodiesel, 3.2 units of energy are gained in energy output. That's a 320% increase and includes soybean planting, harvesting, fuel production and transportation.

What about Ocean Energy or the different types of Free Energy ?

YOu got a magic wand that'll turn all of our current coal, gas, and oil generators into something else?

The DOE has a "magic wand" (called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) which effectively converts coal-fired plants to (synthetic) gas plants at about 3x the output and 20% greater efficiency. If we got an economical source of non-fossil hydrogen (like the "green algae" trick) gas-fired plants could be converted to burn it at minimal cost. And oil's share of electric power generation is minimal. It's about half the share of hydroelectric, and "other renewables" are going to overtake it shortly (they are already 20% ahead of oil's 1995 minimum)

If I wanted to do something personally and I had a plug-in hybrid, I could just put solar on my roof to offset the electricity used by the car. At 250 Wh/mile, a 20-mile commute would use about 5 kWH/day. A 1 kW solar system would feed this with some extra, and cost around $5000 at today's retail, uninstalled. Today's panels have 25-year warranties, so they'd be expiring about the time I replaced my current car... for the third time.

If it was really that simple, why isn't it done? Answer: it's not that simple. Our economy would crash right now if we all suddenly stopped driving our cars and walked to work.

Yeah, if America sent its Excursions, Durangos, Escalades and Hummers to the crusher and commuted in Priuses, Neons and Focuses instead, we'd all die.

Oh wait, no we wouldn't.

Nuke power (while I'm all over it, really, I am) is still relatively unstable. I'd rate it right at the level of stability of Windows XP.

Today's PWR's were built in the 1970's or earlier, but I don't see you comparing them to Windows 95. Strange... or maybe not.

Then wind. While there are some very nice designs, some excellent prototypes, and even some small-scale deployments that have worked well, wind still isn't up to production-level.

3.6 megawatt wind turbines are in production. The prototype of a 5 megawatt turbine is on the grid.

Solar failed already. It's not environmentally friendly, it's as simple as that.

Your evidence for this assertion is? Are you repeating the fallacy of associating the waste from chip-making processes with the roll-to-roll process used to make thin-film silicon cells? How about titanium dioxide cells, are you going to argue that TiO2 (used in paint, don't forget that) is an environmental hazard?

You're funny.

"Want to move away from oil" isn't the problem. We all want to.

The first step in moving away from oil is just to avoid wasting it, but I don't seem to see anyone holding a "sledgehammer the Hummer for charity" affair. Plenty of Hummers on the road around me (overgrown things, nobody ever parks one right), and I'd be happy to pay a couple bucks a swing with a ten-pounder, but nobody's volunteering their guzzler for the honors. I guess there are some people who just don't want to.

I bet another $2/gallon in gas taxes would get most of them to want to, though. It would barely affect me; the difference between today's $2/gallon and a hypothetical $4/gallon is about $100 for a fairly serious road trip. I couldn't get a hybrid this time around, but if I had the difference would have been even smaller.

Ask anybody on the street "If I had a better way for you to get around car that didn't require gas, would you do it?" Most would probably say "Yes, if I can be as free as I can with a car" or something to that affect.

They're called plug-in hybrids, and they are al