On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 07:20:02 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Apr 28, 6:36*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
I have to admit I cringed when Boehner said today (about abortion) "we will
not spend taxpayer money on the taking of human life." *That makes it clear
he believes only American lives have value because we're spending a lot of
taxpayer moolah to kill mostly goatherders and farmers. *

An amazing non-sequitor.



The Pentagon is
fighting video game wars now, and is loving the opportunity to fine-tune its
drone and remote action capabilities.

What's your problem with predator drones taking out terrorists?
You libs just don't like the US miliatry, no matter what they do
or don't do.


*We're at a number of very dangerous
junctures. *Pakistan is going to turn on us in a big way, and soon.

Pakistan has been playing both sides of the fence for a long time.
If they want to turn on us, so be it. Then we'll just deal with them
for what they are.





I had hoped solar energy was that industry that would fuel lots of new
growth, but apparently not. The worst part about focusing on high speed
rail
was a) it was already done and b) we are not a train nation. *In solar,
we
could have at least funded labs to find better materials and given jobs
to
researchers. *This gets back to the issue of long term forecasts. *One
things for sure, solar is getting less efficient in one vector, and the
longer we delay the worse it gets. *The sky is getting slightly darker
year
by year. *It's not very much but it's measurable.
* * *Solar energy is largely pie in the sky and probably always will be.

I have to take exception with that for a number of reasons. First, it's a
bad pun. *(-: *Our existence is "solar powered" starting from the oxygen we
breathe coming from cyanobacteria in the ocean a long, long time ago that
began making oxygen long before a tree ever existed. *Nature makes its way
quite nicely on sunlight and lots of modern aircraft design is based on how
"nature does it."

Which has nothing to do with Kurt's point.



The claims of "it could never work" remind me of what I heard when
introducing PC networks into businesses run by DEC or AS400's. *"They'll
never be fast enough or capable enough to replace midframes and minis." *Oh,
but they were. *Eventually. *I recall so clearly a Bell Lab engineer telling
us the limit of modem speed would never exceed 4800 BPS because POTS
bandwidth was too narrow to ever support more. *Of course, that was
disproved totally just a few years later and the bandwidth expanded
dramatically through innovation.

So based on theoretical solar efficiencies, we still have quite a ways to go
when it comes to improving efficiency. *Recently there have been substantial
improvements in manufacturing techniques that will serious reduce the cost.

The probem is, there is only so far you can go in efficiency and
cost. And
there is only so much energy that falls on a given area from the sun.
One
new nuclear power plant is equal to 50 square miles of solar panels.
Let's
say we double efficiancy of PV panels, which would make them totally
efficient. Now you still need 25 square miles.

....and one day like yesterday and $billion$, gone. It's going to be a mess
restoring power to much of Alabama as it is. If all that are was "energy
independent", it would take decades to repair.


Other efficiencies will assist solar in becoming more useful. *Incredibly
powerful new motor magnets, vastly more efficient lighting and new forms of
batteries have made things run by electricity require less and less power.
LED lighting in the home is something that could be powered quite nicely
with existing solar technology. *More of these synergies will help lessen
our per capita demand. *

All of that has nothing whatever to do with solar. It's just reducing
energy
demand, without regard to where the energy comes from.





Just like in business, every percentage point helps. *The more juice that
comes from solar, the less we need to depend on dirty sources. *Solar is
remarkably clean compared to everything else. *I think that's a very, very
big point in its favor. *We need to take all the other subsidies the Feds
pump out that have outlived their usefulness and divert them to solar
research so we can own the patents and licensing rights - true energy
independence.

Going back to your previous example, was it govt subsidies that took
us from the 4800 baud modem to 56K modems? Or from modems
to broadband? No, it was free markets.





Even at much higher efficiencies, it will not be useful except as a
adjunct to the coal, NG, or nuke fired base plants. The physics, even at
100% efficiency which ain't gonna happen, won't support it for more than
a tens or so of a percent.

It's like the joke "I don't have to outrun the bear, just you." *I think
that any contribution is important. *The benefits of even offloading a
little demand from the grid will compound themselves in time.

Exactly how does it compound itself in time?




Once again, if the Germans are into it full throttle and they were the ones
to come out best from the Great Recession, I think it bears more
investigation.

The Germans eat a lot of sauerkraut compared to the USA. Following
your logic, that bears investigation as an economic driving force too.




More than something like Obama's pet high speed trains which
involve tremendous subsidies to start, lots of money to maintain and require
a social conversion to a train riding rather than car driving nation. *Good
luck with that, Mr. President. *It's almost
...



That's the only part that makes any sense.