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(Solar) Power to the Masses
D3 writes "This report on a solar power tower (pdf) looks extremely interesting. Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world? How cool would that be?" The NY Times has a good article on solar power in Japan.
...a use for global warming :-)
--This isn't a man who is leaving with his head between his legs.
then more power to 'em!
...the US would takeover those sunny countries.
Will the sunshine nations (OSEC) collude to create artificial shortages and drive up prices in the sunless nations. Rolling blackouts, $700 power bills. The best part will be when they say its the fault of the sunless nations for having draconian environmental laws.
I'm really not this bitter in person.
"The plural of anecdote is not data." -- Roger Brinner
The sun would never set on the American Empire!
I'm sorry, I can't help but smirk and snicker when I think about the Japanese and their
"Solah Powah Towahs!"
*smile*
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
OK, we'll let Grapple build it, but if any Decepticons ask if they can help, just say NO.
So does that mean I can buy one for $40,000?
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Yes, but he wouldn't know because he has been in his parents's basement for the past 3 months.
Tesla fans might say to use an air-grounded circuit with resonant coupling to a VLF wave in the earth's crust rather than bother with wires.
Hey, there's a black helicopter outside...
How short our memories are.. When we get all that solar power the machines will start a war. We'll have to destroy the skies and move the survivors underground to Zion.
Trolling is a art,
I always wondered what that facility out in the middle of Kirkland Air Base was. It's quite visible when flying into Albuquerque. I thought that they were exerimenting with a way to shoot down terrorist planes using sunlight. (Imagine burning up a terrorist's plane over New York by training all the mirrored windows of the skyscrapers on it.)
Of course, burning up airplanes wouldn't work well at night.
Damn those countries with so much son,.. is there a way for us to replicate thier sun over our heads in washington,..
Yes we can, it take a really big parabolic mirror... but we will have to test the focus first on a city in your state... will Redmond do as a test target?
This post brough to you by the Linux for solar mirrors of doom in space council...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
How do they do that? I thought in England, the electrons went on the left side of the wire!
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Does anyone else think that this is eventually going to end up as an imaginative way of killing James Bond? The villain will incarcerate Bond in the salt-melting room, give him a long, detailed lecture about his plans for world domination, make a sub-Bond witticism and then go away, explaining that Bond has until sunrise to live. Of course Bond will escape (using some sand-powered laser which Q has fortunately given to him) and the fat guy, sans cat we hope, will end up taking a bath in molten sand. Or is it just me who thinks like this?
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
--Home on Lagrange (The L5 Song)
(c) 1978 by William S. Higgins and Barry D. Gehm
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
get together in an undeveloped area, far outside the limits of the nearest city, and build something like this from the ground up? Not only will we have a working example of a radically different electric power structure, but think of the implications of a whole town populated with /. readers!
...
Umm... wait. Nevermind. Don't think of that.
Do not read this sig.
I would think it would be pretty hot, actually.
-Sorry, it had to be said.
I envision a future where PV homeowners can share their extra power with their neighbors through a P2P system... of course, the local energy company will call it "stealing" and attempt to sue those homeowners who are engaging in the theft from honest, hardworking oil companies.
I like how the U.S. power grid is divided into 3 parts - Eastern, Western, and Texas. Seems appropriate somehow.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
You're missing the important point here. It's not that solar power is going to save the Japanese a lot of money. They're desperate to ween themselves off nuclear power using any means necessary. After all, if you had to contend with these three smashing your reactors on a yearly basis, wouldn't you be damn anxious to do something -- anything -- to stop relying on nuclear power?
GMD
watch this
"No Blood For Sunlight"
"US forces secure African sunbelt, restore stability"
bash-2.05$ fortune
We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter.
"Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world? How cool would that be?"
You mean Saudi Arabia and Iraq? Damn, they have all the energy!
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