All of it gets resurfaced from time to time so it is not as if there is no replacement schedule. If the task is too daunting, how did all that road get built in the first place?
What you want to look at is what is being replaced. These road plates are pretty complex and might be built to include wireless power transmission to the tires of long haul trucks allowing the replacement of expensive diesel fuel. The roof shingles need to be simple enough to replace much lower cost electricity. Rooftop solar takes off when panels become very cheap but this concept may go with little regard to the cost of PV since there is a lot more than just PV in its cost structure.
What seems strange to me is that these folks have not gone to the effort to accumulate the date themselves and attempt to reproduce the gridded product. Had they done so, and found discrepancies, then one might take them seriously. But, they haven't even been to the library yet. They should be approaching weather services themselves to get the original data first and reproduce the work first. If they get the same answer, then we're done.
There are good reasons to consider this approach and the next step to sequestering the carbon may come in the formation dolomite from the metal ions available in silicate rock and CO2 collected in this way. These devices should take up less ground that trees and thus may provide a quick solution. But, the benefits of biochar may be so large that that will be the preferred method of sequestration in the end. I applaud DOE for providing support at this stage.
DOE is tracking what people in the industry think they can manage. PV is likely to be producing 25 GW of capacity a year in 2012. Probably 9% of that will be priced below $1/Watt http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/report-cigs-could-supply-3gw-of-solar-panels-by-2012-5625.html
the CdTe and CIGS thin film panels. Everyone else will have to get there soon after to survive. It is really really hard to see how CSP can get down to that level very soon or how it can install that much capacity a year soon either.
You forget that to make electricity using CSP, you need a turbine and a generator. That is extra equipment. Further, you need structural integrity in the reflectors which implies minimum material requirements. Solar PV may end up being just hundreds of microns thick on a stretched frame of mylar or some other low energy material.
while goals for CSP are only to be competitive by 2020. One should expect substantial cost reductions in PV beyond 2015 so it would seem that it will be in the lead.
It is difficult to see how solar thermal can take the cost reductions that PV can take. PV is still boosting conversion efficiency, reducing material use, reducing the energy input for the material it does use and is just starting to see a scale advantage.
Solar thermal appears to have fixed material costs, roughly fixed conversion efficiency modulo using much improved surfaces, fixed energy inputs, and has to have scale to begin with.
We might see a factor of two reduction in cost for solar thermal (same for wind) but a factor of twenty for PV could well happen because of all of the multipliers. Certainly PV is already projected to be the cheapest form of future generation, we just don't know how cheap it will go.
Solar thermal is good. The cost advantage in reduced turbine capacity with included thermal storage is a very interesting development, but it just does not have the same potential that taking advantage of quantum mechanics can provide.
There are very promising aspects of thin film, but silicon has not reached its full promise either. Reduced energy costs for purifying silicon are coming and efficiency gains continue to appear as well: 25% currently http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081023100536.htm
I think the US should be doing more with silicon given the large potential domestic market. But, China is surely willing to step in.
At this time in wind's growth curve, the most interesting question is: who is producing the turbines? They are likely to hold market share into the future. My impression is that Europe and the US are doing pretty well with China beginning to ramp up production. This means that the money invested in wind will often stay within a country. This makes some sense because the equipment is bulky and may pose difficulties with long supply chains.
The situation is different with solar panels. China is becoming the largest producer this year while the US is becoming the largest consumer. Solar panels can be shipped at a weight advantage of 200 times over coal or oil and fit well in containers. The US is leading in production in the small market segment of thin film solar however.
The eventual size of the solar market may be five times that of wind given cost projections so the bulk of the money to be made in renewable energy will be in solar. The present market shares for solar production look to disadvantage the US.
What you are saying is pretty much what the parent said: no need for new nuclear power because everything else costs less.
When 70% of the coal plants are shut down because solar and wind have put them out of business, will we be looking for something even more expensive than coal? No, we'll just pick up the tab for the loan guarantees for a few new nukes as tax payers and never finish construction, just like in the eighties.
I see a couple of problems to start. First, it sounds like they want to reprocess spent fuel first. This does not fly in the US.
Second they want to have one of these for every dozen or so conventional reactors. This means transporting waste and an inevitable accident. They might be able to build one of these transmuters and take it around to each decommissioned power plant site to help with clean up, but what of the transmuter itself? How soon does it become radioactive waste?
I think I'd like to see something a little more controlled, like an accelerator, if we are going to go with transmutation. It might be costly in terms of energy, but it is more likely to be safe. We should have plenty of extra cheap energy once solar ramps up so the energy cost may not be a big deal. We probably don't have to pay back much more than we've already generated from nuclear power which is not all that much.
In the end, I bought a desk lamp for about $25 at Target. There is no way to change the 20 (0.25 Watt) LEDs in the lamp, but they are suppose to last 30,000 hours so I would guess that there will be better lamps around before that one needs to be replaced. For sure, the transformer in the lamp isn't likely to last all that much longer than the LEDs. Perhaps the concept of replaceable light bulb needs to be reconsidered.
At the Museum of American History today, at the (otherwise very good) Edison display, I noticed that the "future" technology section did not mention LEDs at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Fortunately for the article, there are 4 million miles of road in the US http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2002/html/table_01_01.html
All of it gets resurfaced from time to time so it is not as if there is no replacement schedule. If the task is too daunting, how did all that road get built in the first place?
What you want to look at is what is being replaced. These road plates are pretty complex and might be built to include wireless power transmission to the tires of long haul trucks allowing the replacement of expensive diesel fuel. The roof shingles need to be simple enough to replace much lower cost electricity. Rooftop solar takes off when panels become very cheap but this concept may go with little regard to the cost of PV since there is a lot more than just PV in its cost structure.
No, the clean up cost for the experiment we conducted, which didn't even work all that well, is $130 million. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment#Decommissioning This is a loser technology that has rightly been abandoned.
What seems strange to me is that these folks have not gone to the effort to accumulate the date themselves and attempt to reproduce the gridded product. Had they done so, and found discrepancies, then one might take them seriously. But, they haven't even been to the library yet. They should be approaching weather services themselves to get the original data first and reproduce the work first. If they get the same answer, then we're done.
This story has been covered as it developed in the past on Slashdot.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/07/04/26/0226222/First-Successful-Demonstration-of-CO2-Capture-Technology
There are good reasons to consider this approach and the next step to sequestering the carbon may come in the formation dolomite from the metal ions available in silicate rock and CO2 collected in this way. These devices should take up less ground that trees and thus may provide a quick solution. But, the benefits of biochar may be so large that that will be the preferred method of sequestration in the end. I applaud DOE for providing support at this stage.
It is stuff for which Yucca Mountain won't work. 'Nuff said.
What's your problem with storage in place? Don't want it in your back yard? What an infantile response.
Nuclear waste needs to be stored in the congressional districts where it is generated for now. Transporting the waste is very hazardous.
The sun spot cycle appears to be on track: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
Like the increase in cancer for those living in the plume. http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/467/4637.html
Don't you hate it when nuclear power causes people to get sick and die?
The Dartmouth Review never supported NASA so there is no reason for NASA to support one of their scum now! http://www.nofactzone.net/wp-content/images/dartmouthalumni.pdf
This purrfect for today.
Checking this ephemeris server: http://observatory.tamu.edu:8080/solarsystem/planet.html Pluto does not seem to get above a declination of 24 degrees so it never passes over Il.
DOE is tracking what people in the industry think they can manage. PV is likely to be producing 25 GW of capacity a year in 2012. Probably 9% of that will be priced below $1/Watt http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/report-cigs-could-supply-3gw-of-solar-panels-by-2012-5625.html the CdTe and CIGS thin film panels. Everyone else will have to get there soon after to survive. It is really really hard to see how CSP can get down to that level very soon or how it can install that much capacity a year soon either.
You forget that to make electricity using CSP, you need a turbine and a generator. That is extra equipment. Further, you need structural integrity in the reflectors which implies minimum material requirements. Solar PV may end up being just hundreds of microns thick on a stretched frame of mylar or some other low energy material.
PV is suppose to reach grid parity by 2015: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/photovoltaics_program.html
while goals for CSP are only to be competitive by 2020. One should expect substantial cost reductions in PV beyond 2015 so it would seem that it will be in the lead.
It is difficult to see how solar thermal can take the cost reductions that PV can take. PV is still boosting conversion efficiency, reducing material use, reducing the energy input for the material it does use and is just starting to see a scale advantage.
Solar thermal appears to have fixed material costs, roughly fixed conversion efficiency modulo using much improved surfaces, fixed energy inputs, and has to have scale to begin with.
We might see a factor of two reduction in cost for solar thermal (same for wind) but a factor of twenty for PV could well happen because of all of the multipliers. Certainly PV is already projected to be the cheapest form of future generation, we just don't know how cheap it will go.
Solar thermal is good. The cost advantage in reduced turbine capacity with included thermal storage is a very interesting development, but it just does not have the same potential that taking advantage of quantum mechanics can provide.
There are very promising aspects of thin film, but silicon has not reached its full promise either. Reduced energy costs for purifying silicon are coming and efficiency gains continue to appear as well: 25% currently http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081023100536.htm I think the US should be doing more with silicon given the large potential domestic market. But, China is surely willing to step in.
At this time in wind's growth curve, the most interesting question is: who is producing the turbines? They are likely to hold market share into the future. My impression is that Europe and the US are doing pretty well with China beginning to ramp up production. This means that the money invested in wind will often stay within a country. This makes some sense because the equipment is bulky and may pose difficulties with long supply chains.
The situation is different with solar panels. China is becoming the largest producer this year while the US is becoming the largest consumer. Solar panels can be shipped at a weight advantage of 200 times over coal or oil and fit well in containers. The US is leading in production in the small market segment of thin film solar however.
The eventual size of the solar market may be five times that of wind given cost projections so the bulk of the money to be made in renewable energy will be in solar. The present market shares for solar production look to disadvantage the US.
It seems doubtful to me that Yucca Mountain will ever open. Storing in place until we have a solution that does not involve transport seems better.
What you are saying is pretty much what the parent said: no need for new nuclear power because everything else costs less.
When 70% of the coal plants are shut down because solar and wind have put them out of business, will we be looking for something even more expensive than coal? No, we'll just pick up the tab for the loan guarantees for a few new nukes as tax payers and never finish construction, just like in the eighties.
I see a couple of problems to start. First, it sounds like they want to reprocess spent fuel first. This does not fly in the US.
Second they want to have one of these for every dozen or so conventional reactors. This means transporting waste and an inevitable accident. They might be able to build one of these transmuters and take it around to each decommissioned power plant site to help with clean up, but what of the transmuter itself? How soon does it become radioactive waste?
I think I'd like to see something a little more controlled, like an accelerator, if we are going to go with transmutation. It might be costly in terms of energy, but it is more likely to be safe. We should have plenty of extra cheap energy once solar ramps up so the energy cost may not be a big deal. We probably don't have to pay back much more than we've already generated from nuclear power which is not all that much.
There is speculation that a supernova from about 5700 BC may have been recorded in a drawing: http://www.tifr.res.in/~vahia/oldest-sn.pdf
That is not writing or oral but interesting.
No, it is yellowish. It is just easier to make than regular diamond and also much stronger than steel.
The NYT article mentioned some of the diamond is hexagonal: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/science/02impact.html
This is a type of diamond that seems to form when meteors enter the atmosphere and it a called Lonsdaleite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonsdaleite
This material is of interest as a replacement for structural steel since it can be formed in a simple manner using chemistry. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2008/01/anaximenes-way.html
I went looking for LEDs for a gift for Christmas. I found some very nice fixtures at Lowes but the bright (1 watt/LED) three fixture string did not have its own switch: http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=283277-82850-29110&lpage=noneUtiliTechatLowe's:3-LightBlackUndercabinet/RopeLight
In the end, I bought a desk lamp for about $25 at Target. There is no way to change the 20 (0.25 Watt) LEDs in the lamp, but they are suppose to last 30,000 hours so I would guess that there will be better lamps around before that one needs to be replaced. For sure, the transformer in the lamp isn't likely to last all that much longer than the LEDs. Perhaps the concept of replaceable light bulb needs to be reconsidered.
At the Museum of American History today, at the (otherwise very good) Edison display, I noticed that the "future" technology section did not mention LEDs at all.