Google Getting Into the Solar Mirror Business

adeelarshad82 writes with this excerpt from a Reuters report: "Google is disappointed with the lack of breakthrough investment ideas in the green technology sector, but the company is working to develop its own new mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by [25%] or more. The company's engineers have been focused on solar thermal technology, in which the sun's energy is used to heat up a substance that produces steam to turn a turbine. Mirrors focus the sun's rays on the heated substance. ... Google hopes to have a viable technology to show internally in a couple of months, Bill Weihl said. It will need to do accelerated testing to show the impact of decades of wear on the new mirrors in desert conditions."

Comments

Here's a conspiracy theory

[colonslash]

Now that Google is getting more involved with energy production, how long do you think it will be before the DOJ gets more involved in manufacturing an anti-competitive case against them? Threatening oil company profits could turn a lot of 'civil servants' anti-Google.

Re:Talked to a friend at Google about this

[Nadaka]

Do you have any idea how many billions of tons of aluminum ore the US military has stockpiled in bases all across the US?

I still wonder why...now I found out

[zogger]

Just seems that getting cheaper and cleaner energy sources for the nation would be a positive move for any politician long range, jerkoff or not..off to google...

I just found out why, they caught the mafia running the wind business there and shut it down, any additional funding, why they investigate. Just google "italy, wind power" and you'll see a variety of news articles on it. They are doing things like taking the gov cash, then not doing much with it, "fixing" the permitting system, and sabotaging other wind companies-destroying towers- that won't pay them protection money, stuff like that.

They've been battling that mafia gang corruption for years, I am surprised the people there put up with it. Just have a one day "stomp 'em flat with extreme prejudice" national exercise and get it over with.

Anti self defense apologists, those who say that humans shouldn't have the ability for self defense against crooks and badguys, that it is only the state's business, that it isn't "civilized" to be proactive in your own and your community's defense, frequently point to some delusion they have about the US "wild wild west" days.

    Historically, that's inaccurate, crime was much worse by and large in the larger and more established eastern big cities then in the frontier west. Gangs and badguys did *not* last very long back then if they got caught, the locals just whacked them, and that was that. The people knew who their local criminals were, and life was too tough and hard to put up with bogus crap like that or wait for some far away ineffective government to "do something" about it.

Of course, once it gets to the point that all aspects of your government are corrupt, and there's little diff between the private criminals and the public ones..you're screwed, then you are REQUIRED historically to have a national ad-lib "stomp 'em flat day".

Usually it is rather *messy*, but it's been proven it needs to happen once in awhile.

Governments ALWAYS eventually get totally criminally corrupt, because of basic human psychology. Sociopaths and megalomaniacs gravitate to positions of power,(same happens in big business as well..) then surround themselves with other "official" people who are also sociopaths and megalomaniacs, right down to the local level, up and down and sideways through their bureaucracy and organization.

This is the number #1 reason people should *never* put up with the governments disarming them, no matter what bullshit reasons they give. That is always the last big step before complete totalitarianism takes over and things get really really bad. And it doesn't matter what the government call themselves as per description, right, left, centrist, democratic, benevolent monarch, whatever..all that academic wanking voodoo crap is just convenient labels designed to obfuscate reality and keep their "subjects" cowed and complacent. "Why, we aren't corrupt badguys, we call ourselves a democracy, and look, there are 'elections"!

Yah, sure...whatever. You're the "benevolent peoples socialist royal democratic representation and organized delicious organic donut bakers 'government' Vote for us!"

  The time scale differs in all the historical records for heinous dictatorships to evolve in governments, but not that outcome, it's just inevitable.