Is this too good to be true?
The claim is that this technology and the related new work in electrical transmission could solve the electrical needs of the universe. There’s more at this site and here.
There’s a test site in the Mojave. And it’s been there since the 1980s? What’s up with this?
energy solar powerIn an interesting letter, the writer raves about Concentrated Solar Power … with links. This is the mirrors and heated sodium salts approach.
Love the claims … 7,000GW from the southwestern deserts.
In this Global Public Media article Heinberg takes a look at Peak Coal and its implications.
Can we say, “Burning the house down”?
In The New Math of Alternative Energy, a reprint in the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization from the WS Journal, there’s a quote from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) that only 0.01% of US energy was supplied by solar. I’ll bet it’s at least 0.02%.
The fallacy here, like the fallacy of Gross National or Domestic Product (GNP or GDP), is that it is what they choose to measure. The EIA has no idea how many $30 solar cell phone and iPod chargers are charging their gadgets and what amount of energy that constitutes. I suspect they have little or no clue how much solar energy is being generated for home consumption. They get nice, convenient computerized reports from The Grid and that’s that. No mention of the many amateur radio stations with solar backup emergency power. 0.01%, hrumph.
The real problem is that if we all put photovoltaics on our roofs and replaced, say, 30% of our home’s electricity needs, they’d never notice. They might declare a softening of demand (shock and horror or in a post peak-oil world, perhaps a sigh of relief outside the board rooms of the power generating industry) but since they don’t meter it, it doesn’t exist … it didn’t happen.
New math where 1.0 + 0.02 = 1.01 … or worse. And the economics are anything but clear. Remember, for every kilowatt generated at a powerplant (that’s 1,000 watts) we get about 480 watts at the house. What does that mean if we can generate a kilowatt at the house and deliver it at closer to 100% efficiency? It means that if it costs double what it costs the energy company (fully burdened), we’re more efficient. That’s old, boring math. The subtext of all this industry-supported arm waving would seem to be that photovoltaics, with a little cost help from higher volumes, are probably more cost effective right now assuming sun shine.
[sigh].
On Global Public Media, a long essay by Heinberg. Couple it with Limists to Growth: the 30 year update and you have bookends.
Not a description of how to become sustainable, a definition of what sustainability requires. Achieving it is left as an exercise for the student. There’s a comment that doing it in a just and equitable way is a secondary challenge for the advanced student.
He touches on Collapse … well, more than just a touch. Collapse is getting to be the new Black. If Rapture is the fundamental Christian’s White, being forced to live through the Collapse will be their (and our) Black. I know which one my money’s on.
From Clusterfuck Nation (Jim Kunstler). An agenda. Not a bad start at an agenda. At least he has one and he puts it out there.
Daily Kos: ResponsibleAccountable’s post is very clear. They want to set things up so they and their elite can survive. At least that’s the initial premise. Money quote: “It’s the food.”
Hard to argue against. Remember the basic observations from The Soil Association’s Peak Oil conference. This is neither rocket science nor new. As ResponsibleAccountable says: “…Global warming…pah…real men have restless nights over Peak Oil…”.
Let’s see:
That about wraps it up. The details about warrentless domestic spying, the loss of habeus corpus and posse comitatus, the routine use of torture and extreme rendition, and people holding the patents on the human spirit are merely the ornaments stuck into the icing on the cake.
It may look ugly now, but this is probably only the beginning of ugliness. I hate to think about where it’s going.
Quite a good speech in the Congress by Bartlett of Maryland.
I love how speeches like this get made to empty rooms.
Today’s NY Times report is its usual purple propaganda. A nicely edited quote of Biden, a ton of “wink wink” previews. It must be nice to be given all that inside information. It’s nice being part of the shadow Executive Branch, it’s a shame they’ve given up being a newspaper.
It’s become COMPLETELY obvious that this Iraq thing is ENTIRELY about the oil. In the midst of a bunch of who-gives-a-crap chatter about better funding for Sunni regions and benchmarks, we get the word that the “final completion of the long-delayed national oil law that would give the central government the power to distribute current and future oil revenues to the provinces or regions, based on their population” which is an incidental comment about what that bill’s really about. The Independent yesterday ripped it all a bit of a sphincter, tearing into the benefits to the transnational oil companies that are way outside the norm. A sweetheart deal to be sure. And in the middle of that, it drops the bomb that the Big Oil still wouldn’t be satisfied.
[UPDATE: See the reasonably well balanced analysis at The Oil Drum which partly refutes my paranoia. But it has a bit of a flip side, too, saying the Big Oil guys don’t necessarily trust negotiating with a puppet at gunpoint, either.
No, Big Oil wouldn’t invest until the situation is stable and it’s safe enough for them to make risk-free investments in their rape extraction infrastructure. The fields have been well mapped for years. There’s apparently little or no exploration risk. It’s a matter of drilling more virtually guaranteed profitable wells, pumping it out, refining it and cashing in. But the troubling expense of controlling the locals establishing a stable environment is an externality the transnationals are not willing to pay. That’s the job of the US Government (apparently, Big Oil hasn’t made their payments to the UK government officials as they’re quietly pulling back).
Lots of work for the US Military Police, the Halliburton/Schlumberger crowd, and Bechtel and friends once the situation is stabilized. It’s a shame the US citizens don’t have a clue that they’re paying the expenses of the oil companies’ access to all that oil that the government is so desparate to secure. They’re already fed up with paying for a war that’s killed, maimed, and wounded tens of thousands of US citizens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens. They want OUT but it’s obvious that nobody in the NeoLiberal Corporate Hegemony can let that happen.
The NY Times has to support the President’s commitment to securing the oil for the US and to getting a favorable commitment to recycle the dollars through US-based or favored transnationals. It’s an obvious obligation to its own profits and ongoing ability to get “wink wink” leaked information from government officials.
So why would we look for fair, transparent, or balanced reporting?