The improvement in battery technology is pretty slow compared to the technologies that need those batteries. Really the next power supply for small electronics will probably be micro fuel cells that are fueled with methanol. Since batteries are basically the same thing as fuel cells, any advancement in battery technology (like the Li-Ion electrode materials advancement) will also be available to fuel cells, but the fuel cell has the advantage of instantaneous refill.
I guess there's always the problem of where to get that damn methanol from though...
I think that the argument though is that the hockey stick has happened before in the past. I mean, the earth naturally warms and naturally cools, there has been global warming before the advent of fossil fuels.
This is the big problem for people trying to fight the critics. For me though it's easy. The CO2 levels in the atmosphere have never been as high as they are now (at about 370ppm) and they're expected to increase up to 700ppm if we finish off the oil (which may be in 70 years or longer). But the point is, even if global warming is/is not happening, having over 370ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is just not good! Here's a pretty good summary of the global warming argumnts.
It seems to me that there's a lot of hype going on for Li-ion batteries. Remember the breakthrough that increased the power of existing Li-Ion batteries by three times and reduce the recharge times to a few minutes rather than hours and all this without compromising price? What happened to that?
I guess in the age of high tech toys where batteries are the real limitations, every body's trying to get a one up on the battery front. I mean, can you have a super PDA that acts as a cell phone, GPS, mp3 player, movie player, connects to the internet etc etc? Sure, they can make it but the battery that powers it will only last for about 5 minutes.
There's a big market for batteries and anything that can make them better but pretty much, I think their maxed out technology wise. Fuel cells are the next big hope for tech toys.
Yep, but if you live in Washington, DC there's a Shell gas station that sells hydrogen for $1.99/kg. Apparently 1kg H2 produces about the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline.
Now that it seems as if GM is going down hill, what will the status of fell cell activity be? GM has long been the biggest proponent of fuel cell activity among the top 3 auto manufacturers but has been hit hard because of high oil prices and the fact that their SUVs are not selling well.
It could be ironic that high oil prices might actually hurt fuel cell development since the companies that rely on cheap oil are the ones that are also pushing the development of fuel cells.
Carbon nanotubes are also all over the map these days so why not nanotubes and solar? I guess we'll have to wait a while until this becomes commercial though because I don't think carbon nanotubes can be scaled up very easily.
Sure, there are other costs...but everything has other costs. Can you put a price on the fact that coal spits out 100 times the amount of radioactive material into the air than a similar sized nuclear plant? How do you even clean that up? Also, everything in the energy sector is subsidized. No nuclear power station has EVER broken even in North America...but still our energy bills are cheap...why? Because our energy is subsidized. Maybe you don't need a subsidy to build a coal power plant, but your tax dollars sure do go to paying for environmental damages, health damages and other things associated with the coal power plant.
These solar towers sound pretty cheap to me. At $2.5-$3.75/watt, they're far cheaper than solar pannels which go for about $8/watt. And, nuclear has had subsidies out of the wazoo. Nobody's subsidizing this thing at all (this is mentioned in the Wired article).
I'm surpised that the solar chimny is actually cheaper than solar panels. Basic calculations show that the solar chimny costs between $2.5-3.75/watt but solar panels cost about $8/watt. I would have expected the solar chimny to be much more expensive, considering that it's going to be twice the height of the tallest structure today (the CN Tower in Toronto).
One cool thing about the solar chimny though is that apparently it can generate power 24hrs/day, unlike wind that fluctuates. Basically the solar chimny generates electricity from the same type of turbine that a wind turbines use.
Design your house so that you can add a solar power array. Dollars to doughnuts there will be some incentives for doing stuff like this in the future and it might even save you money in the long run. You can add a 2.6kW solar array for $23,000 as was done in Rochester NY recently, it works quite well. You can sell any excess power back to your utility and also check the status of your solar arrays online.
Uranium regeneration is a good thing. A nuclear reactor only uses about 4% of the uranium until it has to be either discarded or regenerated (because of reduced efficiency issues) but the regeneration process makes plutonium, which can then be used in a bomb. Most of the time, the plutonium is actually mixed with uranium and it can then be used as a fuel.
theWatt has a summary of the important details. Basically 127 countries have signed up (but not the US). Countries that have ratified the protocol must reduce emissions (such as CO2, methane, NOx etc) by 5.2% of 1990 levels by 2010, this is expected to be about a 29% cut if Kyoto was not implemented by 2010. If a country exceeds their target, then they can sell carbon credits (at about $30-40/ton in the US and $70-80/ton in Europe), if they're under, they can buy credits.
The second round of Kyoto starts in 2012 and will try to lure in those emerging countries like China and India. The omission of China and India is the big reason why the US isn't going for Kyoto.
One big reason why people may like water power is because nobody can see it...unlike those big wind turbines. Actually, I like seeing wind turbines, maybe because they don't exist yet where I live.
And now Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy doesn't have any reason to boycott water power either.
Playing around and exploring is how science is done man! Most nobel prize winners were actually trying to find something other than what they found. All science is beneficial.
I doubt we'll be oil free. Oil is used for everything. 1 calory of food has 10 calories of hydrocarbons in it (and this doesn't include transportation of the food). There will always be oil in the ground. The theory of peak oil says that there will always be oil in the ground but once we hit peak oil we'll never be able to increase the rate of oil extraction, which means that unless we find another energy source, we won't be able grow economically since economic growth requires energy growth.
CBC television is pretty dependent on advertising revenue I'd say, especially after the NHL strike. Ad revenue from Hockey Night in Canada generated half of all CBC ad revenue...for a while they were worried that they would have to cut back on some programs but Movie Night in Canada has even more viewers now...plus I suppose they don't have to pay Don Cherry.
Europe was also much much much faster at adopting the diesel car...I think there only about 4 cars that I can buy today (at least in Canada) that are diesels and 3 of them are VWs.
I get this too! Mostly it seems to happen when I open a window that has large directories in it...I always thought that it was calculating the size of the directory. It also happens when I'm downloading or moving a large file and it re-calculates the size of the file on the fly (every time it flickers it recalculates the file size).
This is quite annoying, I just shade the window until it stops flickering...sometimes this can take a while though...
At very high temperatures, such as 1000C, you can actually crack water into H2 and O2. This would be the most efficient design because it doesn't require using electricity, just the heat generated from the reaction.
This would require a new design of a nuclear reactor though but maybe it's the next step after this high temperature electrolysis method.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess there's always the problem of where to get that damn methanol from though...
This is the big problem for people trying to fight the critics. For me though it's easy. The CO2 levels in the atmosphere have never been as high as they are now (at about 370ppm) and they're expected to increase up to 700ppm if we finish off the oil (which may be in 70 years or longer). But the point is, even if global warming is/is not happening, having over 370ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is just not good! Here's a pretty good summary of the global warming argumnts.
I guess in the age of high tech toys where batteries are the real limitations, every body's trying to get a one up on the battery front. I mean, can you have a super PDA that acts as a cell phone, GPS, mp3 player, movie player, connects to the internet etc etc? Sure, they can make it but the battery that powers it will only last for about 5 minutes.
There's a big market for batteries and anything that can make them better but pretty much, I think their maxed out technology wise. Fuel cells are the next big hope for tech toys.
Yep, but if you live in Washington, DC there's a Shell gas station that sells hydrogen for $1.99/kg. Apparently 1kg H2 produces about the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline.
So did theWatt
It could be ironic that high oil prices might actually hurt fuel cell development since the companies that rely on cheap oil are the ones that are also pushing the development of fuel cells.
I'd bet my bottom dollar that this will last for a long long time. Oil prices have been going up for some time now and even OPEC is saying that the prices are out of their hands now and even increased supply isn't going to stop oil prices from increasing. OPEC says that oil could hit $80/bbl within 2 years. Many people think that oil has peaked and the oil available in Alaska won't last long.
Within more nuclear plants will come online the next 15 years there will be 60 new nuclear plants coming online. Nuclear power's share in the world electricity market will then increase from 16 to 17 percent, reversing previous downward estimates.
I totally agree about the portal interface. I can't find a damn thing because there's so much stuff going on.
Carbon nanotubes are also all over the map these days so why not nanotubes and solar? I guess we'll have to wait a while until this becomes commercial though because I don't think carbon nanotubes can be scaled up very easily.
Sure, there are other costs...but everything has other costs. Can you put a price on the fact that coal spits out 100 times the amount of radioactive material into the air than a similar sized nuclear plant? How do you even clean that up? Also, everything in the energy sector is subsidized. No nuclear power station has EVER broken even in North America...but still our energy bills are cheap...why? Because our energy is subsidized. Maybe you don't need a subsidy to build a coal power plant, but your tax dollars sure do go to paying for environmental damages, health damages and other things associated with the coal power plant.
These solar towers sound pretty cheap to me. At $2.5-$3.75/watt, they're far cheaper than solar pannels which go for about $8/watt. And, nuclear has had subsidies out of the wazoo. Nobody's subsidizing this thing at all (this is mentioned in the Wired article).
The chimny is twice the height of the CN tower...that's huuuuuuuge!
One cool thing about the solar chimny though is that apparently it can generate power 24hrs/day, unlike wind that fluctuates. Basically the solar chimny generates electricity from the same type of turbine that a wind turbines use.
Design your house so that you can add a solar power array. Dollars to doughnuts there will be some incentives for doing stuff like this in the future and it might even save you money in the long run. You can add a 2.6kW solar array for $23,000 as was done in Rochester NY recently, it works quite well. You can sell any excess power back to your utility and also check the status of your solar arrays online.
Uranium regeneration is a good thing. A nuclear reactor only uses about 4% of the uranium until it has to be either discarded or regenerated (because of reduced efficiency issues) but the regeneration process makes plutonium, which can then be used in a bomb. Most of the time, the plutonium is actually mixed with uranium and it can then be used as a fuel.
Hopefully fusion will come along sometime soon...
The second round of Kyoto starts in 2012 and will try to lure in those emerging countries like China and India. The omission of China and India is the big reason why the US isn't going for Kyoto.
theWatt.com was also reporting this same story.
One big reason why people may like water power is because nobody can see it...unlike those big wind turbines. Actually, I like seeing wind turbines, maybe because they don't exist yet where I live.
And now Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy doesn't have any reason to boycott water power either.
Playing around and exploring is how science is done man! Most nobel prize winners were actually trying to find something other than what they found. All science is beneficial.
I doubt we'll be oil free. Oil is used for everything. 1 calory of food has 10 calories of hydrocarbons in it (and this doesn't include transportation of the food). There will always be oil in the ground. The theory of peak oil says that there will always be oil in the ground but once we hit peak oil we'll never be able to increase the rate of oil extraction, which means that unless we find another energy source, we won't be able grow economically since economic growth requires energy growth.
CBC television is pretty dependent on advertising revenue I'd say, especially after the NHL strike. Ad revenue from Hockey Night in Canada generated half of all CBC ad revenue...for a while they were worried that they would have to cut back on some programs but Movie Night in Canada has even more viewers now...plus I suppose they don't have to pay Don Cherry.
Europe was also much much much faster at adopting the diesel car...I think there only about 4 cars that I can buy today (at least in Canada) that are diesels and 3 of them are VWs.
I suppose North Americans just love inefficiency.
They'll follow their jobs, to India of course.
I get this too! Mostly it seems to happen when I open a window that has large directories in it...I always thought that it was calculating the size of the directory. It also happens when I'm downloading or moving a large file and it re-calculates the size of the file on the fly (every time it flickers it recalculates the file size).
This is quite annoying, I just shade the window until it stops flickering...sometimes this can take a while though...
At very high temperatures, such as 1000C, you can actually crack water into H2 and O2. This would be the most efficient design because it doesn't require using electricity, just the heat generated from the reaction.
This would require a new design of a nuclear reactor though but maybe it's the next step after this high temperature electrolysis method.