Re: U.S. Shines Light on Solar Research

Sam Wormley wrote:

U.S. Shines Light on Solar Research
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/309/2

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) wants solar panels on your roof.
Yesterday, the agency announced a new initiative that aims to make
the technology so affordable and widely available, it hopes you'd be
crazy not to use it.

If it requires execution of every member of the local Housing
Association, Uncle Al will happily supply weapons, ammo, and labor
free of charge. If knife work is mandated to avoid noise pollution,
Uncle Al will afterward clean and resharpen his K-bar on his own
nickel. Garrotting is entirely acceptable, as is 50 cc air injection
into antecubital veins.

Decades of research have driven down the cost of going solar. In
1990, solar panels would set you back as much as 65 cents a
kilowatt-hour--nearly 4 times more than power from the grid. Today,
the price is half that, and millions of new panels have appeared on
roofs across the U.S. as a result. Yet the price is still
prohibitively high for many homeowners and businesses.

Also a matter of sunshine, roof orientation, surrounding trees... some
serious inverters, and lifetime of the rig and its components. You
are looking at minimum 10-year payback even in the perpetually snn and
cloudless American southwest, certainly considering lost interest
income in the interval.

If roof solar became hot spit, every electric company would ban
running your meter backwards. "Potential phase and reactance
incompatibility with mains, plus UNKNOWN HAZARDS. We cannot endanger
stability of the distribution grid."

Who cleans dust and dirt off the roof panels every weekend? A
zero-reflection coating to increase output 10% will not like being
either occluded or abraded.

As part of its new initiative--called Technology Pathway
Partnerships--DOE has charged 13 consortia of companies with the goal
of making solar technology affordable for everyone by 2015.

No problem. 100% subsidize it. Then everybody can have power for
free from the sun. Free power would be the most expensive power
anywhere on the planet. Distributed generation vs. central generation
is fucking stupid. The Industrial Revolution had a lot to say about
cottage manufacture vs. factories. When was the last time you darned
a sock?

The
companies, which include big ones such as General Electric and Dow
Chemical and smaller firms and startups, will investigate new
technologies such as all-in-one organic cells, conduct adhesive
studies to create roofing materials that include solar cells, and
commission new engineering work to create cheaper cells that
concentrate the sun's rays.

Follow the money. Which Congresscritters are being paid off as Board
Members and consultants?

DOE will spend up to $168 million over
the next 3 years on the program, with consortia members chipping in
an additional $189 million.

See: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/309/2

$350 million over three years? FEMA lost 10X that in three weeks
giving credit cards to New Orleans niggers post-Katrina without any
personal identification required. There was an economic boom in strip
clubs. It didn't sustain.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2
.