Scientists working at IBM have found an additional use for their advanced water cooling system developed for the aquasar super computer project proving once again that water is an intrinsic component of the energy process.

They have a working prototype of a concentrated PV module integrated with the cooling device allowing them to achieve upto 5000x concentration levels without vaporising the PV modules. The way it works is at the nano level where water is piped directly onto the surface of the silicon chips and immediately pumped away. The physics are based on the human blood system so we know that is works for us.

Tags: Construction, e=mc2, Environment, Research, Solar, Water by sparky
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20 KW of solar for each house will become the new standard for Solar PV installations once the all electric car becomes the dominant form of private transport. That will allow the owner the option of fast charging during daylight hours directly from their own power supply.

How much space does 20 KW of Solar require?

The average PV solar panel currently on the consumer market can convert 20 – 25% of sunlight to electricity. The average amount of sunlight absorbed by a solar panel turns out to be around 70W/sq meter over a daily basis. At peak sunlight during the middle of the day that number rises to around 150W/sq meter. That means approx 10 square meters will provide a daily average of around 1KW of electricity. So the average house will require 10 x 20 or 200 square meters of solar PV to allow a daily average of 20KW to be generated locally. The average roof is about that size and with the addition of a Garage or carport it is entirely reasonable that most home owners will adopt a 20KW installation target over the coming decade. Especially as the price of PV continues to drop and the efficiency of the panels continues to improve.

However while that is good news for home owners who have the fund and space to make the transition to an all electric private transport system that doesn’t really help people in densely populated urban areas where apartment living is the norm. In that case they will continue to use metered electricity from the large suppliers. The issue for the large suppliers is how to pick up the coming dramatic decrease in available off grid energy that the decline of fossil fuels will create. If each car requires 20KW to make it viable to fast charge and provide a decent transportation infrastructure on the level that we are accustomed to they will need something a bit more efficient than solar PV.

CSP is the only quick and viable solution in that case. To quickly scale up to cover the losses represented by the decrease in available fossil fuel each city will have to provide additional electricity for the millions of new all electric cars that are about to hit the roads before the end of this decade. CSP is almost 100% efficient. A standard oil based CSP plant requires a lot of steel but not much more than a large building or ocean liner. Sure they also require a Steam turbine but they can be bought from large companies like Seimens pretty much off the shelf. The tech is well understood and highly efficient already.

The global daily output of Stainless Steel in 2012 was 94,520 tonnes which is almost 100,000 tonnes a day. Each panel in a CSP plant is approx 2.5 sq/m and weighs approx 8 Kg/sqm or a total of 20 Kg at 100mm thickness. To cover 2 square kilometers requires 1000mx1000mx2 = 2,000,000 square meters / 2.5 = 800,000 panels at 2.5 square meters per panel. 1 tonne of Stainless Steel provides 1000kg/20kg = 50 panels. 100,000 tonnes x 50 = 5,000,000 panels. That means in a single day we produce enough Stainless Steel to provide the raw material to cover 5,000,000 / 800,000 = 6.25 CSP plants each one with a total area of 2 square Kilometers.

Each CSP plant will be able to produce enough electricity to fast charge 2,000,000 / 200 = 20,000 cars at the same time in peak solar hours. Fast charging will enable a normal car to charge in 5 minutes so in the hottest part of the day between 10:00 – 14:00 a single plant will provide enough electricity to the grid to charge 4 hours x 60 minutes = 240 minutes / 5 = 48 x 20,000 = 960,000 cars. Each car can drive for anywhere between 60 – 400 Km om a single charge and as the average daily commute is approximately 35 km in most major cities that mean a single 2 sq/km CSP plant will be able to provide enough electricity to power over 7 million cars per week with a cycle rate of around half of that actually required on a weekly basis.

While constructing the large fields of Concentrated Solar Panel systems the local economy will see a substantial increase in income. Once completed the Energy companies will be able to continue to cover base load electricity without major disruptions to the supply and availability of normal electricity use. Electric car owners who do not have their own roof tops will be able to charge quickly and easily. Fuel stations will not have to completely shutdown operations and will remain a central part of a car owners lifestyle as they will be better placed to provide fast charge services to the large pool of commuters who don’t have easy access to electricity at street level.

The viability of CSP as a solution for every major city on the planet to solve the impending energy crisis represented by the sudden loss of fossil fuels should be a no brainer!

Unfortunately it is patently clear that providing a consistent and cheap source of electricity to each major city is going to be fought to the death by the coal, nuclear and oil companies. It’s a sad thing that the world has been held to ransom by these people for over a century when we have had the means to be energy self sufficient for the entire time.

Tags: Construction, e=mc2, Solar by sparky
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Al Gore is a strange person. He is a backer of “Bloom” fuel cell power stations but he refuses to speak publicly about the energy crisis. Instead he puts all his efforts into climate change. What is the point of his overt insistence that climate change is the real problem when finding lasting solutions to the energy crisis will fix not only the energy crisis but also mitigate climate change?

It appears that an Hereditary Elite is not allowed to publicly discuss the fact that we are running out of fossil fuels and the massive impact that is having on the global economy. Since the officially accepted “peak oil” was reached in 2006 the global economy has been in tatters. Since the unofficially accepted “peak oil” in 2000 the global economy has been in a constant state of decline. Now that we are only 3 years away from the logical conclusion to the first decade after the official “peak oil” we can see a lot of countries that were previously publicly antagonistic or apathetic to “peak oil” becoming very concerned with their energy security.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE all have massive Concentrated Solar Power plants under construction. China has raised again it’s official target for Solar energy production by pushing forward it’s timeline from 2020 to 2016. In China’s case they are being urged on by the sudden realisation that they are unable to breath the air around them any longer due to the over use of fossil fuels as they continue to grow their consumption rates and keep the big indebted players in the global economy from completely collapsing.

The truth is that it only requires 2 square kilometers to generate 1 GW of electricity from the sun using conventional oil based parabolic mirrors. Even greater efficiencies can be achieved with more advanced technology. The costs in terms of time and effort to build a 1GW CSP plant is equivalent to a large office building or ocean liner. There is literally not reason why every major city in the world could not have complete energy independence within the next 5 years. The only reason is political will not logistics or technical issues. Throw in the ability to desalinise sea water and they become not only an energy source but also a source of fresh water for farming and drinking. Add in large stored water reservoirs and you have a backup supply for periods when the sun is not shining or at night.

Tags: Construction, e=mc2, Environment, Oil, Solar by sparky
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Recent news from Stanford and RICE Universities have focused on results of advanced research being undertaken to improve battery performance. Both projects have made use of carbon fibre nanomaterials in the form of nanotubes and Graphene sheets to achieve the results.

The paintable battery project from RICE University allows the possibility of turning any surface into a battery. They employ carbon nanotubes in the paint along side lithium. Examples of use include painting the exterior surface of the house and then covering with solar panels or the same could be done for a car by covering the entire surface interior and exterior that has the potential for greatly increasing the travel range of a single charge. When combined with Spray on solar it seems likely that future vehicles will become self charging with a constant supply of energy from the sun to keep them topped up throughout the day.

The results from the Stanford research focus on using Graphene sheets to increase by 1000x the efficiency of nickel-iron batteries. As the components are abundant, cheap and long lasting this approach should enable very powerful batteries for industrial purposes.

Clearly this technology has been kept under wraps for a while and the US is allowing it to be brought to market. The question remaining is will they make it to manufactured stage before we run out of the energy to manufacture them?

In related news it seems that nanomaterial research is going to take it’s spot this year for the solar industry too in the shape of two improvements to thin film technology that utilise nanomesh and dielectric nanostructures to greatly reduce the thickness of the thin film panels and even to go so far as to allow for completely transparent surfaces that are able to absorb technically perfectly across the specific spectrum of light that they are designed to absorb.

Tags: Construction, e=mc2, Research, Resources, Solar by sparky
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With all the focus on the demise of Solyndra last year and the attempts by the mainstream media to portray the death of Concentrating Solar Power due to the decrease in price of Solar PV thanks to the increasing efficiencies of Chinese production lines, it seems that CSP has been quietly making steady progress across the globe.

With facilities coming online recently in California and the Torresol facilities in Spain coming online at the end of last year. We also see the increased activity in the UAE as they seek to shore up their internal electricity supply due to the impending demise of the oil industry.

The question that still needs to be answered is can the global community bring enough of these large and relatively low output facilities online in the coming decade to make a serious contribution to the urgent issue of replacing the loss of oil from the energy supply infrastructure.

To get an idea of the daunting task that we face the facility in the video below is only capable of producing 5MW peak. Combine that with results from Australia of the total combined output of all the wind power facilities only able to produce an average of 30-40% of full capacity and we start to get a feel for the immensity of the challenge.

Tags: Construction, e=mc2, Solar by sparky
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A recent knowledge release has put forward the idea of splitting water to hydrogen with nano scale silver trees. The idea being that trees absorb more light than flat surfaces. The researchers have found that they can capture sunlight at greater incidence angles and for longer periods during the daylight hours with these little trees. One thing they don’t discuss is what happens to the heat that is also captured by the tress. Is it enough to keep the water from getting too hot and evaporating before it gets split into is constituent parts of hydrogen and oxygen?

In other solar news there is a lot of take in the past couple of weeks about the idea of solar towers. There are various concepts being pushed out that include a solar accordion which folds down into a box for easy portability. They say that due to the falling cost of solar these ideas have now become economically feasible to produce. After all if we can produce televisions at a cheaper price than solar panels there is obviously a long way down for the solar panel industry to go before it reaches the true cost that actually manufacturing and shipping the end product should be once the cost of setting up the plants, building all the machinery and paying for all the scientific research has been covered. Take that massive cost out of the equation and the cost of solar falls so dramatically that the fossil fuel industry has absolutely no way to compete on price.

The only thing left going for the old energy market is that they are already up and running and have a high energy output as well as portability in the case of oil and gas. Definitely the nuclear industry must see the rise of extremely low cost solar as a threat to their ability to build massive and expensive power stations all over the place. Relegating nuclear power to the annals of history and research facilities or space exploration where it belongs. Places where the people in charge have a very real need to keep things in top shape or the will loose their own lives. That tends to make scientists more cautious in the way they handle and care for their nuclear facilities than psuedo government/private cash cows like TEPCO.

Tags: e=mc2, Elite, Government, Hydrogen, Nuclear, Research, Solar, Water by sparky
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Finding the real numbers on the current capacity of installed solar generation is not such an easy task. The information available is conflicting in several places.

An alternate way to achieve an answer that might be reliable is to look at how much Wind capacity is currently installed and use that for comparison. The numbers say that wind capacity in the US is currently around 44 GW which makes approx 2.5 percent of the Total electricity supply. Using those numbers we can see that 1% of total US electricity capacity is somewhere around 18 GW.

44 / 2.5 = 17.6 GW

So if the current installed Solar capacity in the US is 4.5 GW and this year they are looking at doubling the amount of installations from 1.6 GW to 3 GW based on the record of 750 MW installed last quarter we can see that at 3 MW per year it will take 600 years to convert all the electrical infrastructure to Solar.

18 x 100 = 1800 GW (total US Electricity Capacity)

1800 – 4.5 = 1795.5 (not solar)

1795.5 / 3 GW/year = 598.5 years

The good thing is that number is not as dramatic as the number from the previous post as we have effectively made the jump from 13000 years to 600 years. But that number is still a long time when we look at how much time we have left on fossil fuels. To make things simpler the US has a stated goal of achieving between 20 and 30% of electricity supply from Solar. To get there at the current rate it will take between 120 – 200 years.

600 / 5 = 119.5 (20%)
600 / 3 = 199.5 (30%)

So clearly even at the record breaking pace of the last quarter the US is gonna find itself in a bad place very quickly. If the current pace is maintained they will only manage to have 3% of the total capacity converted by the end of this decade including all existing installed capacity. To make the goal of 30% before the oil becomes completely tapped out by all the other consuming nations at the end of this doubling period the US will need to immediately increase it’s installation rate by a factor of 10 times.

And that is just to get to 30% of existing capacity. What we are not factoring in at this point is the additional demand on the grid that electric cars will create. By itself it is not a major problem as there are currently very few electric cars driving around. However with a stated goal of 1 million electric cars on the roads by the end of the decade that will start to impact the over demand for electricity.

What this means is that there is very little liklihood of Solar being able to meet the targeted capacity for replacing the loss of fossil fuels as they have a significant short fall of supply versus demand.

Tags: Solar by sparky
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While there is a lot of talk in the global media about the progress being made in the energy industry in regards to converting from fossil fuels to renewable energy the true cost of the conversion process is rarely mentioned. The problem is that we are consuming massive amounts of fossil fuels in order to create the renewable infrastructure. Just last quarter in the US alone there was 750 MW of new Solar capacity added to the total supply. That results in a substantial amount of fossil fuels that were consumed in order to create the all that renewable capacity.

An interesting way to look at the issue is by looking at the total amount of capacity that needs to be replaced. In the US the consumption rate has peaked in 2009 and stayed steady for the past three years at approx 3.9 billion kilo watt hours per year. With existing installed solar capacity at approx 2660 MWh at the end of 2010 (according to Wikipedia) and an increase in installation capacity of 69% in 2011 compared to 2010 resulting in an additional 1,750MWh we can begin to get an idea of how much ground there is left to cover and how much fossil fuel will be required to make the transition.

Total Capacity : 39000 GWh
Total Existing Solar Capacity : 4.4095 GWh

39000 – 4.4095 = 38995 GWh

In the last quarter installed Solar capacity reached an all time high in the US of 750 MWh. If we can use that as an example of how much Capacity can be installed in a year we would see a total of 3 GWh in 2012. If the US continues to install 3 GWh of Solar Capacity in order to replace the existing infrastructure

38995 / 3 = 12998 years

At this rate it will take approx 12998 years to convert the remaining amount of existing US electricity capacity to an entirely Solar based infrastructure.

Clearly this represents not just a massive issue in terms of logistics but also in terms of the shear amount of fossil fuels that are required to enable the transition. Given that this issue has to be repeated across the globe and we have only got approx 10 years worth of oil left to consume due to exponentially increasing consumption rates while it is increasingly energy negative to extract it in the first place there is a very serious energy supply issue happening at this very moment. We like to call it the “Energy Crunch” (EC) or the “Global Energy Crisis” i.e (GEC). It is tied to it’s very good friend the “Global Financial Crisis” (GFC) which started to kick in most painfully in 2007 with the crash of the global housing market. Now it has spread to Contagion status in the EU and the US is holding on simply by printing more and more money which can only result in Weimar hyper inflation as the instrinsic value of the US dollar falls to it’s real value of zero.

With the only solution that the Banksters, entrenched Fossil Fuel and Nuclear industries and the moronic corrupt political Elite are prepared to commit any significant resources to being the perpetual war machine stealing what resources are left from their neighbours while consuming more fuel than they gain as a result of their theft the whole situation is incredibly dire.

The time is now for a serious change in direction and it cannot be left any longer. Even if there is a 10 fold increase in global installation of Solar capacity this year through a concerted cooperative effort by all the industrialised nations resulting in a 10 fold drop in price over existing already historically low installation prices it would still require 120 years to replace all the existing infrastructure with a Solar economy which is technically impossible as we will have run out of energy positive fossil fuels by that point. That is not forgetting that other parts of the world are yet to see the per capita capacity that is enjoyed in the US.

The only solution at this point is for the consumption rates to decrease dramatically in the coming years. This decade will be the last that we get to enjoy the abundance of cheap fuel. The 20′s are going to be a very lean decade for the industrialised world although it will just be more of the same for the remaining 80% of the worlds population…

Tags: Solar, Uncategorized by sparky
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In recent news there has been a lot of discussion of various announcements coming out of the World Future Energy Summit being held in Abu Dhabi this week. The primary sponsor of this event happens to be Masdar which is owned by Mubadala Investments. Mubadala also happens to be a prime investor in several other “companies” that have dubious ties in the world of global finance and power. The very interesting thing about these announcements is not the number of projects that are being planned but the shear size of the budgets that are being forecast.

There is talk of plans for 48 sq km facilities in Dubai by 2030 generating 1GW of electricity, plans are underway to do similar large scale projects in Oman and Saudi and of course the same companies want to go all the way and install large Photo Voltaic and Concentrated Solar Power installations across the entire MENA (Middle East North Africa) region. These plans are fantastic and forward thinking except for one small problem. The costs for these projects are phenomenally out of bounds. The timescale of the projects are way over what is considered necessary to setup and install a large facility. Considering what has already been spent by these same companies on very mediocre attempts at Solar energy supply there is a serious disconnect between what is required to make industrial scale Solar and what is required to pay for the opportunity of bringing a facility online.

The answer to this mystery appears to be related to the financial crisis and the worlds Fossil Fuel addiction. If Solar energy is priced at the real market value. The true cost of building industrial scale facilities and connecting them to the grid and not the price that is current being forced on the market by the entrenched Oil industry we would see that Solar power is phenomenally cheaper than any of the competing energy sources. In other words the only reason the Solar has not already reached price parity is because the Elite are holding the industry to ransom to prop up the price of the other fuel sources for as long as possible.

The real reason for companies like Solyndra to be going bankrupt is because they were never intended to actually succeed. The entire industry knows full well this dirty little secret. The price of Solar when done correctly and at utility scale is ridiculously low compared to any of the other energy sources. Concentrated Solar power has the potential when combined with Solar Thermal to provide all the energy required for any of the cities that have a regular supply of sunlight. Therefore the entrenched players in the energy industry are quietly but assuredly doing their best to disrupt and stall the transition to the Solar economy for as long as possible.

By keeping the “true cost” of utility scale Solar energy artificially high through the use of excessive budgets on projects where they are essentially paying themselves excessively large sums of money to build pitifully low yield Solar installations Companies like Masdar are manipulating the cost of Solar energy on the world market thereby pushing up the price of oil as the markets continue to bid up the price of the dwindling reserves and keeping the other players like coal and gas satisfied with the status quo while they continue to rake in the profits received from sales of their product to the global market.

In other words, Utility scale solar is massively over priced. The big players know this full well and are controlling the market to keep things that way. In much the same way that they control the production of electric cars to ensure we all rely on petrol they are also drip feeding the world Solar energy to keep their profit margins high. The end result is wasted time, opportunity and resources.

The sad truth is that the word could already have an abundant supply of fresh drinking water and electricity simply by using relatively modest resources to build Concentrated Solar Thermal Desalinisation and Electricity production plants for every major city in the sunny parts of the world. This would free up remaining resources for the countries which are not as sundrenched and lower the price of energy and the global carbon footprint. Now that would just be rational and logical which as we already know is not possible while the Elite of the world remain in charge.

Either that or they really are just idiots over there at Mubadala and have no idea how bad they are getting ripped off.

Just flip a coin to decide…

Tags: Elite, Government, Media, Solar by sparky
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Dubai has thrown it’s hat into the ring with a massive 48 square kilometer commitment to solar energy launched today in the UAE capital. The project seeks to have a first phase development completed by 2013 with a target of 1 Giga Watt capacity by 2030. With the excess of low cost solar panels now on the market thanks to massive Chinese production this looks like it will be a serious infrastructure achievement once completed.

The reasoning behind this is given below:

The President, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, spelt out the country’s goals in tapping alternative sources of energy. ‘‘The UAE is striving to develop and boost its rich resources and expertise in the international energy markets and enhance its leading role as a world centre for renewable energy research and development,” he said.

This can be translated as “we have realised that we can make more money by selling the remaining reserves of oil to foreign powers and we would be stupid if we continued to use it as our primary energy source. The cost in energy of taking remaining oil out of the ground means we are consuming more energy every day in order to keep our power supply steady. Transitioning to a Solar Economy makes perfect sense as we receive some of the most powerful rays from the Sun everyday that make it to the earths surface. Continuing to burn our precious resources when we can sell them tom someone else instead is fiscally irresponsible and damaging to our future wealth potential.”

Given the proximity to the ocean it is highly likely that they will add on a Solar Thermal Water desalinisation plant so they can provide the region with a constant supply of fresh water. Watch for the French to get involved directly in that stage now that Areva have shown their hand with the recent completion and connection to the grid of the Gemasolar project in Spain.

Tags: Construction, Government, Solar by sparky
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