Is the Future of Silicon Valley Solar?

Noryungi writes "In this provocative article, Brian McConnell argues that Silicon Valley, instead of staying in the saturated IT field, should apply its resources (including its chip-producing plants) into Solar Power/Renewable energy. Intel branded Solar Panels, anyone?"

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No consumer appeal, no 'wow' factor

[shaneh0]

The Personal Computer has always been a very compelling product. It appeals to business, parents, students, teachers, gamers, etc.

This is the reason they've sold so well.

I just don't see it happening with solar panels. Personally, I don't want to be in the electricity production business. How many people actually do?

I'm more for the advancement of Fusion technology discussed yesterday. It's clean AND it doesn't waste my time.

Any Increased attention

[Exter-C]

Any increased attention to renewable energy would be fantastic. Not only would it in the long term benefit the environment but it would also give the IT industry something else to fall back on in certain areas. For example the silicon valley turn down that we all to well know about would have been stored for a little longer if they had some other industries that they could fall back onto for revunue during tough times.

See most large companies wont just be doing one thing often touching in many induustries to try and diversify the bussines model for tough times.

What's with the moderators today?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first three posts to this thread have been modded down unfairly. None of them are particularly worthwhile, but hardly trolls.

the moderation system needs fixing badly.

seriously;

1. negative moderation should cost two points or three, not one. This would encourage upmods on good posts. 2. Metamoderation should be able to remove the Karma burn people get from unfair moderation.

3. Enough negative meta moderation should == no mod points for that moderator for several months, allowing the moderators who are using the system correctly to keep upping visibility on good posts and modding oftopic stuff (like this) into oblivion...

is anyone listening?

Re:What's with the moderators today?

[fyngyrz]

Same here. Since it only takes one moderation to hide a perfectly good post, there is no way to reasoanably read slashdot at anything other but -1.

I tried to post the following ideas in a slightly different format as a story, but it was rejected. Perhaps it'll do better here:

Moderation is anonymous

I say this is a Very Bad Thing. You can compare this to Kuro5hin, where you can easily see who did what to whom. Moderation with accountability allows anyone to see when a vendetta is being pursued, or when someone is systematically modding a subject down because they disagree, rather than because the issue is actually off-topic, a flame and so forth. I cannot begin to count the number of comments I have seen that have been modded down because they were contraversial, as opposed to offtopic, flamebait, or whatever else the down-mod claimed they were. The site's editors are also anonymous and that provides a hidden power structure which isn't a particularly good thing in any venue. I have read multiple claims that this poster or that poster cannot get mod points "because they modded something [a slashdot luminary] posted some time ago." If this is an illusion, exposing who did what to whom will in turn expose the illusion. If it is not an illusion, then exposing what happened should reduce the problem, because such action would rightfully be condemned by readers if it is inappropriate. I find the idea that the site's editors might be sneaking around and quietly muzzling moderators in a punitive manner more than a little disturbing.

Dark humor: Prior to the day I submitted this as a story, I had mod points about every third or fourth day. From the day I submitted the story that most of this was taken from, I have not had mod points. It's been many weeks. Do I miss moderation? Not really... because it doesn't work for beans. I'd miss it if they fixed it, but if they fixed it, I probably would be able to moderate. :)

So my suggestion here is simply to lose moderation anonymity. My second is that if and when mod capability is removed from a user, the date of, and reason for, that action be posted right in their user page.

Many - perhaps even most - down mods are punitive or inappropriate

I suggest that the meta-moderation process be adjusted to include the ability to flag down-mods as obviously inappropriate, and to remove moderation privileges from those who commit such down-mods, as well as the down-mods themselves.

Up-mods don't need metamoderation

I suggest the outright removal of metamoderation of up-mods; if someone considers something interesting (or whatever) positive characteristic, who are we to say that this isn't so? That's the moderator's take on the comment, and up-moderation is a (very limited) opportunity for a moderator to "uplift" the story to the rest of us based on that perception. Upmods aren't harmful the way down-mods are - quite the contrary - and it seems to me to be a complete waste of time to metamoderate upmods for that very reason.

With mod points so scarce (and I agree they should be) we are forced to pick the things we really appreciate to up-mod. I rarely see an honest need to down-mod (obvious "first post" and gay/nigger trolls excepted), but I simply do not see a need to counter an up-mod. Someone thinks this, that or the other thing is insightful or interesting or sexy or whatever? Ok, that's at least notable - and that is exactly what an up-moderated and hence higher point comment does, it becomes more notable - not more interesting, not more insightful, but more notable. It might not actually seem that the applied moderation is accurate to us on reading the modded comment, but it is interesting that so-and-so (or at least "someone", if moderator anonymity remains preserved) thought it was worthy of a mod point. Comments can argue the issue if a poster is so motivated, and that seems like plenty of recourse to me. We see this all the time anyway; why not simply make

Solar Power in my Michigan future

[jaredmauch]

Not sure what part of michigan you live in, but there are some interesting things that can be done on this front.

Just because you're not getting a lot of sunlight, the fact that there is ambient light coming through the clouds still does generate some power. It may be reduced, but it is still there. If you read the related article Hacking Your Way Off The Utility Grid he approaches it from a reducing his expenditures on power, and providing a cushion for any future price increases.

Additionally, depending on where you're at in Michigan, there are varying classes of wind power available. The inputs listed in the system in the article are pure DC inputs. That means anything that generates DC at the same voltage can be used for input, being a generator, solar, wind or even a generator attached to your gutters that takes the rain and does hydro power from it. The point is that if you approach it from an overall viewpoint of reducing your power consumption from a grid, you will be helping the system. If everyone reduced their needs from the grid by 1kWH/person/month it would count for a lot.

My approach i'm taking towards my home system i'm planning is to do a combined solar+wind system. Usually where I live (in Ann Arbor/Dexter area, Michigan) the wind is blowing or there is some sunlight. The average wind speeds combined with a wind generator may help reduce the power. If you're living near one of the great lakes, the amount of wind power you can generate is quite reasonable. I know today we're under a high wind advisory (again) so if I had my wind generators up and going now, it would help offset my other electricity costs.

Philips already does this

[Free Bird]

While not a Silicon Valley company but instead residing in The Netherlands, Philips already has a solar panels division. And it makes a lot of sense, because they're active in both lighting (solar panels are just the inverse of what they've been doing for over a century) and semiconductors (so they have lots of "waste" silicon which is useless for ICs, but not for solar panels).

So, yeah: get with the times, Silicon Valley! ;P

The future isn't now, but it's soon.

[Shikatsu]

An effective alternative fuel/energy source may be closer than you think. United Nuclear currently has in development what appears to be a practical and safe hydrogen fuel adaptor for a standard internal combustion engine.

When this is released, they'll also be distributing hydrogen generators, enabling the average consumer to extract the gas from water at virtually no expense by using the electricity provided by such devices as wind turbines and solar panels.
Such an event would provide silicon valley with a much wider niche in the industry, should they elect to go that route.

This one's for real, folks! United Nuclear is a fairly high-profile company involved in everything from rocket science to personal defense systems.

From the author ... It's not just about solar elec

[Anonymous Coward]

While I chose solar electricity as an example the intent of the article is to start a discussion about clean energy technology in general and how Silicon Valley can accelerate its development.

What SV has that the renewable energy industry lacks is a well developed system for financing new businesses and technologies .. and creating consumer markets for new classes of products.

This can be applied to many different ends and is not limited to PV arrays.

Also I meant no disrespect to companies already making clean energy systems. The point of the article is to pose the question of what might happen if SV were to invest heavily in energy whether through startup businesses or acquiring in established firms.

Brian McConnell

Silicon solar cell technology soon to implode!

[geohump]

Traditional silicon-cell solar panels are too expensive and too fragile for robust, long term applications. This severely limits Solar panel technology feasable applications.

A better technology has been created. "Solar Fabrics". Several companies are using "Nano-materials" based on titanium-oxide to do "roll to roll" printing of Solar-to-electric energy fabric. Cost is less, is much more rugged ,integrates with buildings better, more usable capture space. Yield not equal to Solar Panels, but it is new and is improving. It is likely to surpass traditional panels on a volts per unit of area basis.

Two companies already doing this: konarka and nanosolar:

One possible application: building materials (roofing, exterior siding) which can generate power.

http://www.konarka.com/ http://www.nanosolar.com/