'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

[DanS]

Originally posted by snoopy369
It will presumably work for any space power... there's no other logical way to get power in space.

Not true. RTGs and fission devices are the most useful for many space applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Theben


Actually solar power is available RIGHT NOW and at less cost than coal. Problem is the company that manufactures it is a year behind in sales, due to huge demand.

Nanotechologies I was wondering why I hadn't seen their solar ink out on the market yet. Last I heard, the were predicting their electiricity would cost less than 10% of other solar-generated electricity.

[Dinner]

Dan, about the NIMBY factor when it comes to building nuclear plants. In my mind the federal laws need to be radically changed to prevent vocal minorities from blocking much needed infrastructure projects. Failing that pass a law making Federal lands free from all state regulations and then build nuclear plants on every military base or BLM land possible.

[DanS]

Good luck with that.

On the other hand, there's an astounding amount of BLM land available in photon-rich areas of the country.

[onodera]

I'll wait for the time when humans are able to photosynthesize.

[Arrian]

In my mind the federal laws need to be radically changed to prevent vocal minorities from blocking much needed infrastructure projects

Think this through, Oerdin. On the one hand, we have NIMBYs who don't want wind turbines mucking up their view. We can all point at them and *****. Fine. But alter the specifics just a little, and suddenly the idea that the government can just push aside "whiney local minorities" to build "important infrastructure" isn't so grand.

And look, I understand that nuclear power has a lot of upside, but can you *really* fault people for worrying about it? The risk of catastrophy, while low, is non-zero.

-Arrian

[reismark]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
The POTUS candidates are Barack Obama is gonna jump all over this.

Fixed. McCain would merely be content to continue writing large tax rebate checks to the oil companies.

[Dinner]

That's what I don't get. The oil companies are bring in record profits and the market is providing all the incentive in the world to drill yet we keep subsidizing them? It's time for ExxonMobile to get off welfare.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Arrian
And look, I understand that nuclear power has a lot of upside, but can you *really* fault people for worrying about it? The risk of catastrophy, while low, is non-zero.

-Arrian

There is no risk free energy only risk minimized energy. Coal is a very dangerous fuel which causes air pollution, puts mercury in our food supply, and causes global warming. All of those are real and happening right now. In my book those real facts trump extraordinarily small possible risks.

[Arrian]

There is no risk free energy

Um, solar?

edit: and if you're going to throw chemicals/metals in solar panels at me, fine. But I fail to see how that compares to nuclear waste.

-Arrian

[Dinner]

Solar isn't a real source of power. Call me back after it finally produces a single exajoule of power which it hasn't done even if you totalled up all solar power output from the 60's until today. Remember that most real sources of power produce perhaps a dozen exajoules per year per type.

[Arrian]

Wind?

I assume that's not "real" either?

I know the vast majority of our electricity is produced by coal, nuclear and some hydro, dude. For now. I'm looking ahead.

-Arrian

[Ramo]

The great advantage solar has is that it's distributed power; you don't need huge economies of scale to get it to work. A whole lot of energy is attenuated through transmission.

Obviously, there are a lot of engineering issues to be worked out (and it looks like clever battery designs are advancing pretty rapidly right now) before we can make it a huge part of our economy, but that's clearly where we're going in the medium to long term (along with deep geothermal).

But short term, we need nuclear.

[DirtyMartini]

Wasn't there a story recently about a company that is making "solar collectors". Basically something that captures the solar energy and directs it to photocell, which, therefore, can be much much smaller?

Oerdin,
I don't really understand the complete disdain for solar power. Yes, I agree we can't meet all demand with solar, and we definitely need to build more nucs plants. But guess what? We can work toward affordable solar AND build nuclear plants.

[Theben]

Heavy industry is the only reason we need coal/oil/nuclear these days. The average consumer can get by with solar panels in his home, in some places generating enough power to sell some back onto the market.
The only downside atm is those panels aren't very asthetic.