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CIA Investing in Modular Green Energy
Paladin144 writes "The CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, has announced a strategic development agreement with SkyBuilt Power Inc. The CIA seems to be interested in SkyBuilt's new Mobile Power Station, which can be parachuted into remote locations and be up and running in a few hours with only 2 people needed to set it up. The MPS harnesses both solar and wind power and is capable of up to 150 kilowatts of electricity. The devices uses off-the-shelf components and easily swappable parts to be cost-effective."
The CIA has tons of front companies it owns, and corporations in it's employ as well. They might as well actually...do something...while pretending not to be part of the CIA... Hey, at least this time they're doing something legal! And don't blame this on "Dubya" this sort of thing has been Agency practice for decades.
Thankfully, there has been building interest in renewables, principally photovoltaics and wind power. At this point, the lifetime cost of a wind power installation (of size greater than, say, 1 MW) is on par or even less than traditional energies like gas and coal-fired plants. Meanwhile, the market cost of 20% silicon-based solar cells is down to something like $3-4/W, depending on how the market for semiconductor-grade silicon goes.
One of the major setbacks in the deployment of such energy is the physical infrastructure in the capital cost. While the solar cells are becoming rather cheap, the structure to support/protect them, and the electronics to interface them with the grid cost at least as much. In both the case of wind and solar, since there is low maintenance and basically no consumables, the lifetime cost of and installation is 90% upfront capital cost. For a coal or gas fired plant, or nuclear, the upfront capital cost is something like 40% of the total cost of running the plant over its lifetime, while maintenance and the cost of consumables take up the rest.
The end result is that people balk at the huge upfront costs of renewable power installations, even though the lifetime costs are nowadays comparable with traditional electrical power generation facilities. However, there are two situations that can give renewables an edge. The first we are already experiencing: the cost of consumables and maintenance are on the rise. Natural gas costs are increasing, coal-fired plants have to run cleaner, and nuclear is an ever-increasing headache.
The second, and more relevant, situation that favors renewables (and the point of TFA), is that there are some situations where one really, really needs electrical power, and is faced either with the choice of an expensive installation cost for renewable power, or a really expensive cost for shipping in the consumable fuel (and someone who can work the power generator itself, which ain't as easy as it sounds). In the case of remote power generation (for relay stations on the side of a mountain, for instance), in very rural areas with little or no road access (developing nations like Afghanistan), or in a disaster situtation where the usual delivery infrastructure has completely gone to hell, the scales tip away from things like petroleum, gas, and coal fired generators and squarely into the arena of renewables.
What these guys are doing is demonstrating that not only is the technology mature enough for long duration, high capacity, low maintenance remote power generation, but that it is rugged enough to be deployed anywhere, anytime, where it is needed. Bravo!
And don't blame this on "Dubya" this sort of thing has been Agency practice for decades.
But this is Slashdot, where the motto is "Blame Bush!"
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
If you live in the right place, wind power is close to being economical.
Solar is still kind of pricy. If you buy an extra-big system, sign up for time-of-day billing, and arrange to sell power back to the utility, you can do pretty well. The buy in is pretty big . . . tens of thousands.
BUT . . .
*B*U*T* . . .
Don't think of wind and solar as an alternative to the grid. Think of them as a backup. An alternative to a noisy, smelly generator.
A modest system that could (for example) power your refrigerator, a small TV, a few lights, and charge batteries for various items, would turn a days-long power outage from a miserable mess to a tolerable nuiscance. Such a system might be a couple of thousand.
(You are better off using gas, wood, etc. for heating and cooking in emergency circumstances. A solar system [heh] that could run your electric range would be formidable.)
(Oh . . . and A/C? Right out. VERY current-hungry. You'd need a huge set-up for that. But you could run exhaust fans and such.)
Stefan
There is no way that a 10x40 ft container is going to produce 150kW of continuous power (for the uses they envision, it would have to be continuous).
It fits into a shipping container for transport. When you set it up, it takes up more land area. You know the ads: "Some assembly required."
But this is Slashdot, where the motto is "Blame Bush!"
Yeah, there are skeletons in their closet that go all the way back to when Bush senior was the director. To be fair, it goes back further than that. In fact, it was a scandal that led to his appointment to the post.
But he (Bush Senior) is the one who "privatized" the agency. He had learned some valuable lessons on how to not get caught, and how to get away with it if you do.
This is either a typo or mistake of some sort. According to SkyBuilt's website (www.skybuilt.com), the device isn't capable of anywhere NEAR 150kW of power.
"SkyBuilt Power® is your premier source for portable, modular, quick assembly, durable, solar, wind, and other distributed power--from 0.5 kW to 50 kW or more."
Yeah. That sounds about right.
Basically its just a shipping container with solar cells or small wind turbines tacked on the sides. Perhaps they did something fancy with the power conditioning or batery circuitry, which COULD make it interesting . . . but ony marginally so. The idea is that you use the inside of the container as a little office or listening post/etc, and it generates its own power. Or it can "use diesel, propane, natural gas or gasoline-powered generators" according to their info, which would seem to defeat the point. Either way I'm not impressed.
Why am I seeing images of a laptop with a photoshopped 2TB "Quantum Memory Unit" in my mind?
A 1.5MW windmill is massive. You have never seen a 10MW wind turbine, none exist. The largest (larger than the statue of liberty) generate 4.5MW. You are probably thinking 10kW. 150kW is a LOT of power from wind or solar. There is simply no way a system that could fit into a shipping container could generate that kind of power unless it includes a large diesel generator.
I did an exclusive interview with SkyBuilt President & CEO, Dave Muchow. The story is posted here: http://pesn.com/2005/10/20/9600192_SkyBuilt_Plop_a nd_Go/
Here is an excerpt:
Muchow said that his inspiration and model in forming the company was the laptop computer, with its plug-and-play versatility of components, from the chips to the hardware and the peripherals. The open architecture enables a mixing and matching of components to suit the individual user so that they don't have more than they need, and they can just add on what they might be missing.
Apply that now to renewable energy systems. That is what SkyBuilt is all about, and has been tackling since 2002 when they started. That is the essence of the 140 claims they have filed in their patent applications.
They want to be the Dell of renewable energy systems.
"We are the world's first plug-and-play, open architecture, mobile renewable power system," said Muchow.
Call them up, tell them your needs, and they pull together a package based on their wide experience and network of experts that they can call upon to make an ideal system, providing the highest value, at the lowest price possible.
Tomorrow's news yesterday -- the bleeding, visionary edge.
This type of configuration is actually pretty common in remote parts of Australia. French island is close to my home in Melbourne but is made remote by being in the middle of western port bay. Every house has a wind turbine, a panel of photovoltaic cells, a battery pack and an inverter.
In one house I did notice that the PC of choice is a laptop. They have a built in UPS, you see.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
You are dreaming. The Pickering Ontario wind turbine
(largest in north america I think) puts out
1.8 MW - it stands 117 meters tall including the blades
(39 meters long each). It's base is 4 meters in
diameter. It weighs 226 tons.
It happens to be situated right beside the Pickering
Nuclear power generating station, which puts out
about 4000 MW of zero carbon emission power.