This is in an article about the mind blowing technology of the next ten
years. Funny, I didn't see any mention of "drill baby drill" for
energy!!

http://tinyurl.com/9r6e5xs

Solar energy will soon leave fossil fuels and inefficient wind farms in
the dust. According to Kurzweil, ?the cost per watt of solar energy is
coming down rapidly and the total amount of solar energy is growing
exponentially. It has in fact been doubling every two years for the past
20 years and is now only eight doublings away from meeting all of the
world?s energy needs.?

Emerging technology from a company called Sandia is making the reality
that much closer:



Sandia?s solar cells are made of 100 times less material than the
current top solar cells while operating at the same efficiency. Since
the biggest hurdle in the path of solar power is the expensive and large
nature of solar panels, these new microscopic cells will make a huge
difference. For example, current panels are massive and require large
motors to move them to track the sun. Sandia?s cells, on the other hand,
would only need to be moved a fraction of a millimeter to track the sun
efficiently while weighing next to nothing.

Even more amazing, they can be suspended in liquids and printed on
flexible materials, allowing the cells to be places on any surface. What
if your entire car was covered in these powerhouses? Bye bye, Chevron.

On 9/12/2012 3:32 PM, iBoaterer wrote:
This is in an article about the mind blowing technology of the next ten
years. Funny, I didn't see any mention of "drill baby drill" for
energy!!

http://tinyurl.com/9r6e5xs

Solar energy will soon leave fossil fuels and inefficient wind farms in
the dust. According to Kurzweil, ?the cost per watt of solar energy is
coming down rapidly and the total amount of solar energy is growing
exponentially. It has in fact been doubling every two years for the past
20 years and is now only eight doublings away from meeting all of the
world?s energy needs.?

Emerging technology from a company called Sandia is making the reality
that much closer:



Sandia?s solar cells are made of 100 times less material than the
current top solar cells while operating at the same efficiency. Since
the biggest hurdle in the path of solar power is the expensive and large
nature of solar panels, these new microscopic cells will make a huge
difference. For example, current panels are massive and require large
motors to move them to track the sun. Sandia?s cells, on the other hand,
would only need to be moved a fraction of a millimeter to track the sun
efficiently while weighing next to nothing.

Even more amazing, they can be suspended in liquids and printed on
flexible materials, allowing the cells to be places on any surface. What
if your entire car was covered in these powerhouses? Bye bye, Chevron.


How much $faith$ do you have in this?

In article m,
says...

On 9/12/2012 3:32 PM, iBoaterer wrote:
This is in an article about the mind blowing technology of the next ten
years. Funny, I didn't see any mention of "drill baby drill" for
energy!!

http://tinyurl.com/9r6e5xs

Solar energy will soon leave fossil fuels and inefficient wind farms in
the dust. According to Kurzweil, ?the cost per watt of solar energy is
coming down rapidly and the total amount of solar energy is growing
exponentially. It has in fact been doubling every two years for the past
20 years and is now only eight doublings away from meeting all of the
world?s energy needs.?

Emerging technology from a company called Sandia is making the reality
that much closer:



Sandia?s solar cells are made of 100 times less material than the
current top solar cells while operating at the same efficiency. Since
the biggest hurdle in the path of solar power is the expensive and large
nature of solar panels, these new microscopic cells will make a huge
difference. For example, current panels are massive and require large
motors to move them to track the sun. Sandia?s cells, on the other hand,
would only need to be moved a fraction of a millimeter to track the sun
efficiently while weighing next to nothing.

Even more amazing, they can be suspended in liquids and printed on
flexible materials, allowing the cells to be places on any surface. What
if your entire car was covered in these powerhouses? Bye bye, Chevron.


How much $faith$ do you have in this?

I have a lot of faith in emerging technology.

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:32:09 -0400, iBoaterer wrote:

Even more amazing, they can be suspended in liquids and printed on
flexible materials, allowing the cells to be places on any surface. What
if your entire car was covered in these powerhouses? Bye bye, Chevron.

===

That's a bit optimistic even though the technology is interesting.

One of the credibility problems with solar power is the wildly
optimistic press releases that come out periodically. They raise
expectations to unrealistic levels which casts doubt on the whole
effort. It's always better to under promise and over deliver.

That said, with the price of solar panels down to about $1/watt, we
will be starting to see a lot more of them. I'm in the preliminary
planning stage for a small "proof of concept" project, probably a grid
tied system that will help meet our peak power needs in some small
way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid-tie_inverter

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:14:57 -0400, Sarah Ehrett
wrote:

When someone can successfully power a medium sized US city 24/7 using solar
and wind then I'll be impressed.

That might be possible right now using energy storage technology. It
would not be cost justified at this time however.

Until then we're tied to oil, coal, and
natural gas because the environmental nutters are against nuclear power.

There are some very real issues with nuclear power. Fusion is the
big pie in the sky if someone can figure that out.

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:14:57 -0400, Sarah Ehrett
wrote:

When someone can successfully power a medium sized US city 24/7 using
solar
and wind then I'll be impressed.

That might be possible right now using energy storage technology. It
would not be cost justified at this time however.

Until then we're tied to oil, coal, and
natural gas because the environmental nutters are against nuclear
power.

There are some very real issues with nuclear power. Fusion is the
big pie in the sky if someone can figure that out.

--------------------------------------------------

I spent a good amount of time during my working career in programs
supporting efforts to achieve nuclear fusion from deuterium, highly
compressed in enormously high powered, multiple beamed lasers. This
technology has been in development for many decades ... going back to
the 50's and 60's. Progress has been made, but unity gain was only
recently achieved ... meaning as much energy was used as produced.
The lasers only fire for a nanosecond before the power supplies that
power them have to be recharged.

It's technically possible, but still a very long way from any form of
commercial applications. It's strictly R&D.

Newest program is "NIF" or National Ignition Facility at Lawrence
Livermore National Labs. Before NIF, research was also conducted at
the
Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester. My
company's involvement was building the systems that applied
thin-film, high energy laser coatings on the optics used in the laser
bays. NIF is a very impressive laser system ... details he

https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/about.php

On 9/12/2012 7:03 PM, Eisboch wrote:


"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:14:57 -0400, Sarah Ehrett
wrote:

When someone can successfully power a medium sized US city 24/7 using
solar
and wind then I'll be impressed.

That might be possible right now using energy storage technology. It
would not be cost justified at this time however.

Until then we're tied to oil, coal, and
natural gas because the environmental nutters are against nuclear power.

There are some very real issues with nuclear power. Fusion is the
big pie in the sky if someone can figure that out.

--------------------------------------------------

I spent a good amount of time during my working career in programs
supporting efforts to achieve nuclear fusion from deuterium, highly
compressed in enormously high powered, multiple beamed lasers. This
technology has been in development for many decades ... going back to
the 50's and 60's. Progress has been made, but unity gain was only
recently achieved ... meaning as much energy was used as produced. The
lasers only fire for a nanosecond before the power supplies that power
them have to be recharged.

It's technically possible, but still a very long way from any form of
commercial applications. It's strictly R&D.

Newest program is "NIF" or National Ignition Facility at Lawrence
Livermore National Labs. Before NIF, research was also conducted at the
Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester. My
company's involvement was building the systems that applied thin-film,
high energy laser coatings on the optics used in the laser bays. NIF
is a very impressive laser system ... details he

https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/about.php





Just spent some time there.. all I can say is "cool"... but not just
cool, like, really cool...

In article ,
says...

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:14:57 -0400, Sarah Ehrett
wrote:

When someone can successfully power a medium sized US city 24/7 using solar
and wind then I'll be impressed.

That might be possible right now using energy storage technology. It
would not be cost justified at this time however.

Until then we're tied to oil, coal, and
natural gas because the environmental nutters are against nuclear power.

There are some very real issues with nuclear power. Fusion is the
big pie in the sky if someone can figure that out.

Yes, indeed.

On Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:07:14 -0400, Sarah Ehrett wrote:

Such as? And what are viable alternatives? France seems to be able to
run dozens of nuclear power plants. I say follow their example.


Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, ... By the way, we use produce
close to twice as much nuclear energy than France.


Fusion is the big pie in the sky if someone can figure that out.

And in the mean time hopefully we won't be living back in the 16th
century by depending on wind mills and solar panels.

In article , says...

On Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:07:14 -0400, Sarah Ehrett wrote:

Such as? And what are viable alternatives? France seems to be able to
run dozens of nuclear power plants. I say follow their example.


Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, ... By the way, we use produce
close to twice as much nuclear energy than France.


Fusion is the big pie in the sky if someone can figure that out.

And in the mean time hopefully we won't be living back in the 16th
century by depending on wind mills and solar panels.

France didn't build each nuke plant from scratch like we did. They
weren't trying to provide a jobs program for engineers.