The Future of Energy

[headband 707]

IMO, we've got some logic and some politicizing.

Grape has a point. Taxes and subsidies have different meanings. However, subsidy has a broad scope that can include taxes. Or in this case, not.

But the fact that many of these corporations pay no taxes, receive subsidies and in some cases receive refunds makes the word game a bit moot.

There's only so many ways to turn economics on it's ear. Spin and pejoratives are but two. Pejorative is the loser's first tactic in introductory debate. And 21st-century spin has been honed to fine art.

WELL... LOL actually the real number in subsidies is really closer to 80billion lol and not 40 billion but for some strange reason I couldn't find that info so we will leave what I could find for now but the number is really "80" billion so so much for the tax part LOL.. peace out Headband707

 

[alkalien]

The EU will not be able to pay for it. Not only do you have Greece collapsing. Italy bonds are now junk. Portugal's bonds are almost junk. Ireland is collapsing. Spain is right behind them. No one can save the EU especially not an insolvent ECB (European Central Bank) which is chasing insolvent paper with printed money (just like Bernanke is doing). The entire European banking system is finished. Totally insolvent. That's not to say they won't extend and pretend until the last prole wakes up with nothing.

The only thing that makes me believe we will be able to is that for the momentthe credits countries like Italy, Spain and Germany have to repay are held by people instead of banks. Meaning those coutries can pull the money from the taxpayers as they are the creditors. Greece on the other hand owes to foreign banks, mainly the EZB today. But the total amount in Greece isn't that bad.

Germany is really the only country in half decent shape. They will get sucked into the black hole along with everyone else though. Their is no escaping the black hole debt vortex that is sucking the western world to their demise.

Well, Germany is working hard on raising the debts as well. Instead of paying their credits they think about tax cuts...

I'm too curious if we all will be able to break that circle. Perhaps we should think about making the banks pay for the harm they cause or perhaps we should take away their proits from them until they paid for what harm they caused. I can't believe they turn the bailouts into profits they then can give away as bonus.

but thats all kind of OT

 

[alkalien]

solar roads and thorium reactors and we're set for lyfe yo

Solar Roadways: The Prototype

LFTR in 10 Minutes - Thorium Remix 2009

Germany gave the Thorium reactor a try because it was believed to be the safest and overall best way to do a reactor.

Conclusion: They fucked up! Thorium reactor is not possible with todays technology. They lost parts of the nuclear fuel, cracked the containment and now the costs of disassembling the plant will most likely reach 1 billion €.

 

[grapeman]

Your bookends narrow between comments. The reference wasn't just insurance (a several hundred million dollar expenditure in a 20 billion dollar subsidy program.) But nice try, anyway.

I can agree that some regulation, while mitigating economic problems causes additional economic problems. Less than responsible regulations need to be reconsidered.

Ethanol (the low hanging fruit of irresponsible subsidies) was seen as a way to reduce air pollution and pay farmers for excess corn. But it costs more than it's worth and we don't always have corn surpluses to devote to ethanol. Wouldn't be surprised if the majority of Americans agree that ethanol subsidies should be ended.

Yet a single pundit in Washington sees ending irresponsible ethanol subsidies as a tax increase. Apply this reaction to every issue under the sun and we see enough politicization to dupe the public interest.

A third grader could vote their best economic interests but politicization will reach them before they cast the first vote. Some will consider facts and some will consider points of view. As long as the top income earners spin the politics of progress, we'll get less of it.

You can blame dumb politicians for dumb politics, not me.

Yet herein, you answer your own team's questions about "oil subsidies". They seem to think that normal tax incentives for business are subsidies, which they are not.

 

[grapeman]

Biomass energy production.

What place should it have in "the future of energy"?
I also remember talks about a trash/biomass "turbine" for a rural county in northwest Florida before I left... Wonder ifin they ever went anywhere?

We have a plant near me. I live in So, Cal where there are over 120 golf courses with 2nd homes for the union bosses scattered all along the fairways. All the gardeners/home owners/farmers used to take their grass and tree/vine trimmings there and dump them for free. But the plant, even though it was receiving fuel for free, was still not operating in the black. So the county passed an ordinance "requiring" everyone to deliver their 'green bio-mass" trimmings to the plant. Then the plant, now with a captive supply, began charging everyone $$$ for privilege of delivering their free fuel to the plant. Now the plant is in the "black". A strange type of government subsidy but a subsidy none the less.

 

[Nor'Easter]

wow now I HAVE a whole lot more catching up to do, GREAT THREAD!

 

[habeeb]

...population control.

my friend, there already ahead of you..

may I present to you, Chief Science Advisor....

 

[SpasticGramps]

wow now I HAVE a whole lot more catching up to do, GREAT THREAD!

Glad you enjoy it.

The argument exists that due to depletion of oil humans are moving from a classical progression of less condensed forms of energy to higher condensed to the reverse.

In other words humans progressed from wood, to steam, to coal, to oil (the most condensed energy harnessed to date). If one subscribes to "peak oil" then the conclusion is we must, as a global society, move to a less condensed source of energy. An unprecedented human feat as of yet.

Some consider "peak oil" as a conspiracy theory between corporate oil companies to maintain high prices. Maybe.

I don't subscribe to either view yet. Although "peak oil" and overpopulation do seem to make mathematical sense in that you are extracting finite, and now difficult to acquire resources, for an exploding consumer base (population). I reckon it possibly ties into the overpopulation argument.

Something I've had to reconsider.

An interesting caveat to this is the "huge field" the BP Deep Water Horizon was drilling would have supplied the world's liquid fuel consumption for 24-48 hours. That a bit different from back in the day when you could poke a shallow straight hole on Spindletop and become a king.

 

[alkalien]

I'm more confident than ever, that the new fuel for everything will be hydrogen or hydrogen based. It is actually more condensed than oil (141MJ/kg vs. 45MJ/kg for Diesel)

 

[Nor'Easter]

yes unfortunately or not it will take some govt mandate or program to get this going, some incentive to get the infrastructure in place (hydrogen filling stations, mass production of hydrogen cars and fuel cells for home use, etc) I just wish Obama would embrace what he said he would embrace as I am so much more for his ideals than the hooray for me and the hell with you ideals of the Repub's, but he does not do enough for the environment as he said he would. If the infastructure was put in place as only he has the power to do, hydrogen could solve most of our energy problems both with power plants and especially transportation. Why can't they get in gear already?

 

[Nor'Easter]

Glad you enjoy it.

thanks man! still have a lot of catching up to do, have to make some time to listen instead of just talking! and doing instead of just talking too! Are you the oil man (the dude involved in the past in the oil industry)? If so or if not, it is great to see someone from that background or at least someone who is conservative (or was it libertarian?) that actually cares about finding alternatives to using oil and coal. You seem intelligent and are an inspiration.
happy holidaze and peace!

 

[med_breeder]

The future of fuel is poop.


Well the methane that is captured from it.

 

[NashvilleN]

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- JA Solar Holdings Co., the world’s largest solar cell maker, jumped after announcing a product that converts as much as 18.5 percent of the sun’s energy into electricity.

JA Solar’s American depositary receipts gained 11 percent to $1.37 at 3:07 p.m. in New York, the most since Nov. 30. Before today, its ADRs had dropped 82 percent this year. Each ADR is worth one ordinary share of the Shanghai-based company.

JA Solar is producing its Maple multicrystalline cells “in large volume production,” it said today in a statement. Maple’s conversion efficiency tops the industry average of 16.8 percent for multicrystalline cells, the company said.


By harvesting waste heat, researchers from the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have for the first time built a solar cell with an external quantum efficiency over 100 percent.

A cell's external quantum efficiency is the number of electrons flowing per second in its external circuit, divided by the number of photons per second entering it, and is different at different wavelengths.

The best result for the NREL solar cell was 114 percent. it means, says the team, that solar energy has a competitive future, making it possibly cheaper than energy from fossil or nuclear fuels.

The team used a process called Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG), whereby a single absorbed photon of appropriately high energy can produce more than one electron-hole pair per absorbed photon.

Ten years ago, NREL scientist Arthur J Nozik predicted that MEG would be more efficient in semiconductor quantum dots - tiny crystals of semiconductor - than in bulk semiconductors.

Quantum dots, by confining charge carriers within their tiny volumes, can harvest excess energy that otherwise would be lost as heat – and therefore greatly increase the efficiency of converting photons into usable free energy.

The researchers hit the 114 percent external quantum efficiency with a layered cell consisting of antireflection-coated glass with a thin layer of a transparent conductor, a nanostructured zinc oxide layer, a quantum dot layer of lead selenide treated with ethanedithol and hydrazine, and a thin layer of gold for the top electrode.

They claim the fabrication of quantum dot solar cells lends itself to inexpensive, high-throughput roll-to-roll manufacturing.


According to a recent University of Texas (in Austin) press release, solar cells could soon extract twice as many electrons from each photon of sunlight received. This would be achieved using an organic plastic semiconductor material.
Solar cells are, themselves, a semiconductor material which is often printed onto a substrate such as glass or plastic (just to clarify this for you), and they are encased in solar panels for protection.
“Plastic semiconductor solar cell production has great advantages, one of which is low-cost,” said Zhu, a professor of chemistry. “Combined with the vast capabilities for molecular design and synthesis, our discovery opens the door to an exciting new approach for solar energy conversion, leading to much higher efficiencies.”
The maximum theoretical efficiency of the type of silicon solar cell that is usually used today is 31%, and these researchers say that they can achieve a 50% to 100% efficiency improvement.
Much of the electrons received by solar cells from the sun are of the “hot” type and are usually converted into heat in the panel instead of electricity. Capturing the “hot” electronics could facilitate 66% efficiency, which is extremely high for any type of generator.
Zhu and his researchers demonstrated that the hot electrons mentioned could be captured using semiconductor nanocrystals.
There are challenges still, of course. “For one thing,” said Zhu, “that 66 percent efficiency can only be achieved when highly focused sunlight is used, not just the raw sunlight that typically hits a solar panel. This creates problems when considering engineering a new material or device.”
A type of solar power plant that requires concentration in order to function correctly uses gallium arsenide solar panels, which achieve 42% efficiency, which is impressive compared to the 20% efficiency that typical solar cells achieve.
Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/14WHE)

New breakthrough shows promise for affordable plastic solar energy cells
Filed under Engineering, Environment, Research on Monday, December 19, 2011.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers report they have achieved a new record in efficiency with a prototype solar cell that could be manufactured using a roll-to-roll process.
“Imagine making solar panels by a process that looks like printing newspaper roll to roll,” said Franky So, a UF professor in the department of materials science and engineering.
Industry has eyed the roll-to-roll manufacturing process for years as a means of producing solar cells that can be integrated into the exterior of buildings, automobiles and even personal accessories such as handbags and jackets. But, to date, the photovoltaic sheets cannot muster enough energy per square inch to make them attractive to manufacturers.
The UF team has crossed the critical threshold of 8 percent efficiency in laboratory prototype solar cells, a milestone with implications for future marketability, by using a specially treated zinc oxide polymer blend as the electron charge transporting material. The full report outlining the details of their latest laboratory success in solar cell technology is published in the Dec. 18 online version of Nature Photonics.
The researchers said the innovative process they used to apply the zinc oxide as a film was key to their success. They first mixed it with a polymer so it could be spread thinly across the device, and then removed the polymer by subjecting it to intense ultraviolet light.
John Reynolds, a UF professor of chemistry working on the project, said the cells are layered with different materials that function like an electron-transporting parfait, with each of the nano-thin layers working together synergistically to harvest the sun’s energy with the highest efficiency.
Reynolds’ chemistry research group developed an additional specialized polymer coating that overlays the zinc oxide polymer blend.
“That’s where the real action is,” he said. The polymer blend creates the charges, and the zinc oxide layer delivers electrons to the outer circuit more efficiently.”
Reynolds’ chemistry research team is aligned in an ongoing collaboration with So’s materials science team, which they call “The SoRey Group.”
The most recent fruit of their collaboration will now go to Risø National Laboratory in Denmark, where researchers will replicate the materials and processes developed by the SoRey Group and test them in the roll-to-roll manufacturing process.
“This sort of thing can only happen when you have interdisciplinary groups like ours working together,” said Reynolds.
So and Reynolds plan to continue their collaboration with Risø National Laboratory, and expand it to include researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology where Reynolds is now moving. Their work is funded by a grant from the Office of Naval Research.

Multiple articles, sorry for the lack of attribution. Near orbit thin film solar arrays next...

 

[SpasticGramps]

thanks man! still have a lot of catching up to do, have to make some time to listen instead of just talking! and doing instead of just talking too! Are you the oil man (the dude involved in the past in the oil industry)? If so or if not, it is great to see someone from that background or at least someone who is conservative (or was it libertarian?) that actually cares about finding alternatives to using oil and coal. You seem intelligent and are an inspiration.
happy holidaze and peace!

Yes I'm the guy who drills holes in the ground for a living. If we want to make it to the next millennium as a species we must bring to market a different source of sustainable energy.

 

[dagnabit]

Your thoughts on keystone gramps

 

[SpasticGramps]

I don't know why they don't expand the refining capacity of the northern states. Pipeline maintenance is a bitch. Russia's pipes leak the equivalent of BP's Gulf Disaster every two months. Different situation yes, but generally they are a pain in the ass.

I hate government regulation and a lot of the energy regulations are dumb, but there has to be major consequences for environmental damage. For instance, some states don't do a good enough job at regulating fracking IMO. If you don't run two strings of casing you run the risk of contaminating water supplies. Some states require it some states don't.

If we are going to agree on having a Federal Government then some sort of environmental protection is necessary cause corporations will pollute if unchecked by either a mass rewrite of private property laws or government regulation.

 

[grozzef]

read this article earlier about researchers at notre dame having developed cheap paint on solar cells, the catch is they aren't very efficient yet. heres where i found it

http://rexresearch.com/kamat/kamat.htm

 

[Wise]

Nuclear fusion and renewables

 

[grozzef]

another one i thought was pretty interesting is bloom energy and solid oxide fuel cells buncha big companies are using them now they seem pretty interesting and are clean.

heres a link: http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/solid-oxide-fuel-cell/

 

[meduser180056]

All the energy on this planet came from the sun whatever it is... Fossil fuels are simply old stored up condensed sun energy. So I'd say it's pretty obvious we need to learn how to make our own mini suns and somehow harness the energy. LOL of course I have no clue how to do this or I'd be dead or rich lol

Or maybe put big ass solar collectors in space and beam the energy down to us, but somehow that seems like a recipe for disaster especially if we relied one solar collector or a small number of them.