A blog for sustainable energy students
George Monbiot is so alarmed by recent scientific findings that he has released an update to his book Heat.
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The last time we had two degrees of warming in the Pliocene 55 millionyears ago, the ice sheets at the poles did not melt - as the IPCC proposes -over a millennia, but within the course of one century. And they did not cause a maximum sea level rise within the course of one century - as predicted by the IPCC - of 59 centimeters, but of 25 meters.
Has anyone any further information on this solar farm ……
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/16/2093119.htm
Cost has always been one of solar’s biggest problems. Traditional solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity (exacerbated currently by a global silicon shortage). What’s more, says Peter Harrop, chairman of electronics consulting firm IDTechEx, “it has to be put on glass, so it’s heavy, dangerous, expensive to ship and expensive to install because it has to be mounted.” And up to 70 percent of the silicon gets wasted in the manufacturing process. That means even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce. To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt.
Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. “You’re talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,” says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. “It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar.”
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html
A few of us were fortunate enough to join John at the Lincoln after class tonight for a few drinks. The talk got around to how the notion of Sustainability seems to oppose with the overwhelming economic paradigm of Growth.
This reminded me of something I had read recently that seemed to tie in with what we were discussing. Its a transcript of a lecture by Dr Albert Bartlett who is professor of Physics at the University of Colorado in the USA. His lecture concerns energy consumption and resource depletion and how it all ties together with the growth of human civilization. Despite its length (~10,000 words) most people find it enlightening, engaging and easy to absorb. Dr Bartlett has a light touch and his lecture is peppered with interesting anecdotes and a wry sense of humour.
-Christian
For those people that would rather watch or listen to the lecture it is available here:
Sorry, could have interpreted it wrong, but still I guess, logging at the current rate would be detrimental to all the efforts to counterbalance that….would be interesting to know what you guys think about it….
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/gunns-tasmania-agree-on-logging/2007/10/19/1192301045759.html
A recent report from CSIRO encourages farmers to look to renewables and carbon offsetting as a source of future income:
Riches in energy harvesting, farmers told - National - theage.com.au
A heads up for anyone thinking of heading in to Uni in the next few days. Apparently the asbestos dust is circulating in building 11 which is on Latrobe Street so hopefully will not affect us too much.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22574041-661,00.html
Trying to get back on topic here is an interesting Website about Energy Storage Systems. It covers Dams, Compressed Air and Thermal Underground storage as well as capacitors, fuel cells and a few others.
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~matti/ise2grp/energystorage_report/storage.html
With 65% of its energy already coming from renewables, New Zealand is in a much better starting position than Australia. That said they are now planning an agressive strategy to cut their dependance on fossil fuels even more.
Biofuels push to make more Kiwis fly - World - theage.com.au
Pretty strong opinion from the man. He calls ‘Australian strategy’ - rubbish !!! interesting…well, infact the truth!!!
Hi guys,
The basis for the whole community cruising towards Renewable / Sustainable energy way is to sustain the earth & mankind by minimising the wastage and reusing the wastes in a useful and safe way so that we put out less emissions into atmosphere. Recently read a renewableenergyfocus magazine and understood that BP is setting up a plant for BioEthanol production from WHEAT, completing in late 2009. This is going to have an imbalance on the wheat price and finally poor people are going to suffer. I don’t see any ethics at all. If somebody wants to produce biofuel, why can’t they find a a way to produce from the waste material and not snatching the wheat from food bowls of so many poor mankind on earth. I will be interested in others’ views.
visit : www.renewableenergyfocus.com
ABC Energy News
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