The impending Age Of Abundance was prophecied in the scriptures thousands of years ago.
 |
| Solar cells (Photo credit: SamGewinski) |
New technology could be twice as efficient at converting sunlight to electricity..... In theory, solar cells that exploit this technique could reach efficiencies over 60 percent.At that point solar competes with fossil fuels. That would be a tipping point.
The whole city is designed to be fairly self-sufficient. Tidal energy will power the island, and farms and hatcheries around the edge will provide food. Trash will be converted into more energy on site. The island will even have its own factory producing some hyper-local goods..... As futuristic as it seems, the island may be coming soon--a large Chinese property investment firm is reviewing the design now and expected to begin testing some of its components in 2015.
 |
| English: Solar panel installation at an information center adjacent to Ögii Lake (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Semprius's solar panels use glass lenses to concentrate incoming light .... using materials other than silicon, the most common semiconductor in solar panels today. ....... a highly efficient material called gallium arsenide ..... maximizes their power production by putting them under glass lenses that concentrate sunlight about 1,100 times. ..... Semprius's small cells produce so little heat that they don't require cooling, which further brings down the cost. ..... make enough solar panels annually to deliver six megawatts of electricity. The company hopes to expand that to 30 megawatts by the end of 2013 .... conventional silicon panels, whose prices fell by more than half in 2011 alone.
 |
| solar-powered solar system 19/365 (Photo credit: Faisty.com) |
The solar industry has done a spectacular job lowering costs in the past three years, slashing per-watt costs in half.... The challenge isn't lack of innovation or financing ..... smaller players face the powerful headwinds of competing against giant incumbent providers with access to large amounts of cheap capital, all while needing to work out the kinks of a new production process at scale ..... Many upstart solar companies did the right thing by betting on new technologies to bring the cost of solar power closer to that of fossil fuels. In the end, though, market woes may trump their technical advances.
Image via WikipediaWired: What Solar Needs: Its Own Karl Rove: Eighty percent of Americans rated solar power favorably, compared to 39 percent for nuclear and 32 percent for oil. Seventy-four percent believe that solar is a “long-term solution for the country’s energy needs.” ..... 94 percent of Americans see solar as important and 80 percent want to see subsidies transferred from fossil fuel to solar...... Unfortunately, the public also said solar is too expensive, will remain an intermittent source of power, and can’t really directly compete with coal or natural gas. Only 41 percent thought solar was affordable, and only 34 percent thought it was reliable..... Seventeen percent said solar would “never” be the largest source of new electricity for whole cities. Most of those polled were largely in the dark about the subsidies provided to oil and gas. Just 19 percent correctly estimated that the fossil fuel industry gets more than $10 billion in subsidies.Freedom is not free. The trucking industry killed trains in this country decades ago, and the country is still reeling from it. The best does not always get done because this is a democracy. The people have to actively make the choice, and if they don't actively opt for the best, they don't get the best. Because this is a democracy.
Image via WikipediaTechnology Review: Clearing the Way for Cheap, Flexible Solar Panels: lightweight, flexible panels that are cheap to ship and easy to install (by unrolling them over large areas). .... The protective film is a multilayer, fluoropolymer-based sheet that can replace glass as the protective front cover of solar panels ..... Glass has been the armor of choice because it's cheap, weather-resistant, and durable enough to last decades. .... Blending solar panels into roofs also can overcome aesthetic objections .... a plastic film that is 23 micrometers thick, much thinner than the 3,000-micrometer glass typically found on solar panels today .... Flexible solar panels also can be larger than glass panelsSlow but sure innovation in clean tech is happening. One just wishes it were happening much faster.
Image via WikipediaChristian Science Monitor: Will Google wind power project harm wildlife? Depends on location.: The mid-Atlantic venture would position wind turbines at least 12 to 15 miles offshore, which means they would not be easily visible from land. ..... 6,000 megawatts .... equivalent to five nuclear power plants .... “It is so much better than each of the wind generators building their own transmission lines all over the seabed.”Nokia did not start out a cellphone company. Nokia as a company has gone through many incarnations, in fact so many that its founders will not be able to recognize the Nokia of today. Google might have started out as a search engine, but these forays far and wide are welcome. This not only makes corporate sense, but this is also Google being a good citizen. This is Google turning Don't Be Evil into an active verb.
Wall Street Journal: Google’s Wind Project Got Lift From Vail Ski Trip: a planned giant wind farm designed to run 350 miles along the Eastern seaboard .... laying undersea cables to connect the wind turbines to electrical grids on land ..... 1,200 to 2,000 wind turbinesGoogle Earth. Google TV. Google Car. Google Wind. I say bring it on.
Google Blog: The wind cries transmission: offers a solid financial return ..... both good business and good for the environment ..... equivalent to 60% of the wind energy that was installed in the entire country last year ..... superhighway for clean energy. .... stronger and steadier winds offshore. .... Mid-Atlantic region ..... offers more than 60,000 MW of offshore wind potential in relatively shallow waters that extend miles out to sea. .....
