SpiderMan’s Supplemental Origin

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The amount of solar energy that strikes the Earth is irrelevant. Superman only has access to the energy that strikes Superman.  That gives him access to the energy of a single solar panel, or a small bush.

It shouldn’t be necessary to do the math.  Anyone who spends 5 minutes outside should have a rough idea of how much energy strikes a human
being.  (Were you instantantly incinerated?  No?  Can Superman incinerate a large boulder with heat vision?  Yes?  Gee, wouldn’t it take at least a few weeks to accumulate that much energy?)

But let’s do the math anyway:

At this distance, the sun provides about 1353 W/m^2 of power in space. On Earth, you have to divide by 4 because about half the energy is
reflected by clouds, and another half is lost at night.  Toss in a reasonable estimate of 100 cm^2 for the surface area of Superman’s face and hands (which are the parts he normally exposes), and you get 33.8 Watts.  Call it about 30 Watts if you want to account for the fact that Superman must reflect *some* light, or he’d be jet black.

So the next time you see a 30-Watt light bulb, just think: that’s how much power Superman has access to.  If he stores it like a battery, he should be able to lift a 1-ton car a couple of hundred feet into the air once per day, or a major feat (such as the ship he lifted in MOS #2) once every 20 years or so.  Logically, Superman’s batteries should have been depleted after his first week on the job.

 As is becoming increasingly apparent, this is really just a matter of  preference. Some like it more complicated, some less.

In the case of Superman, I’d say the “solar battery” people are squarely in the “less complicated” camp.  Accepting an obviously-false explanation is less scientific than saying, “Kryptonians get superpowers under a yellow sun, and nobody knows why”.

In the case of Spider-Man, I’m torn.  On the face of it, spider venom shouldn’t have any more connections to a spider’s abilities than, say, snake venom.  So why didn’t Peter get snake powers instead?  The whole bit about “it was a spider, therefore you get spider-like powers” does have a hint of sympathetic magic about it.

Frankly, I find it hard to be too worried about it.  As far as I’m concerned, Spider-Man’s origin has nothing to do with how he got his powers — the spider bite is the McGuffin part of the story.  His *real* origin is when he found out who murdered Uncle Ben.

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THE LANDMARK PENNSYLVANIA DECISION

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

PUC commissioners approved a plan for restructuring Southeastern Pennsylvania’s electric industry in a landmark case decision on Thursday, December 11, 1997.  
      The decision, made on a 3 to 2 vote of the commissioners, promises a 15% savings to customers who shop and permits PECO to recover $5 billion.  Under the plan, PECO starting January 1999, will give residential customers who shop for electricity a credit of 5.2 cents per kilowatt hour.  One third of PECO’s customers will be eligible to start shopping 1/1/99 with another third the following day and the remainder beginning January 1, 2000.
      The outcome which was called “an easy decision to appeal” by PECO officials seemed to be a compromise which left all parties unhappy. The parameters for the PUC decision were established in three competing restructuring plans; the Philadelphia Electric Company’s self-christened “Pennsylvania Plan”, Enron’s “Choice Plan”, and the Environmentalist’s  ”Better Choice Plan”.  
      The contentious portions of PECO Energy’s plan included the level of compensation requested for expected losses from its monopoly based investment decisions and the treatment of so-called default customers who do not chose an electric supplier.  To Enron’s credit, their Choice Plan reawakened local public debate about the future of our electric industry, the size of offered rate discounts, and the handling of so-called default customers (those not choosing a supplier).  It also cast a new light on a negotiated “public” settlement agreement with PECO over the level of stranded cost allowed and other key elements of introducing competition.  
      The Environmentalist’s, which include the Philadelphia Solar Energy Association (PSEA), developed a plan that promised a more
environmentally friendly electric industry.  The proposal would assign customers who decide not to choose an electric supplier to a supplier
according to criteria which promote a healthier, safer, and economy boosting electric industry.    Local environmental organizations
offered the Better Choice Planto the PUC as an alternative that goes beyond the submitted plans and settlement agreements to insure the
promised benefits of a competitive market.  
      A broad coalition of Philadelphia area environmental non-profit organizations established standing before the Public Utility Commission by filing an intervention in PECO’s request for stranded costs.  The primary issues for the environmental coalition include nuclear decommissioning, universal service, consumer education, fair competition, and renewable energy development.  Concern remains about the environmental effects of the generation mix employed to serve our electric needs and the public’s ability to effectively and positively influence that mix with their choices.
       PSEA members are working to ensure that renewable energy sources are not disadvantaged by the new rules for electric competition.  Many believe that our best hope for building a healthier electric industry lies in the unfetered ability of individual customers to generate their own electricity using renewable technologies such as rooftop photovoltaics.  We are working to remove the institutional barriers to net metering which would enable
self-generation to become cost effective.

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Solar Energy In Mexico Training Workshop

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Renewable Energy Training Institute (RETI), with support from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the Organizacion Latino-Americana de Energia (OLADE), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE), and the Instituto de Investigaciones Electricas (IIE-Mexico), is conducting a two day workshop on solar energy technologies in Mexico.

The Solar Energy In Mexico Workshop will be held Janaury 25-27, 1995 during the ENERCON 1995 Conference and Exhibition in Mexico City, Mexico
and in conjunction with MEXCOMM 95, a telecommunications conference and exhibition.  The RETI Mexico Workshop will discuss opportunities for
solar thermal and photovoltaic technologies in the utility power and industrial or commercial process sectors in Mexico.  Solar energy experts
from Mexico and the United States will present authoritative analyses of utility and industrial sector solar energy projects and programs in the
U.S. and Mexico.  The RETI Mexico Workshop will also examine the tools and techniques needed to ensure successful technology deployment, utility
integration, and business development.

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Consumers Aided in Search for Solar Energy

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Colorado Consumer’s Guide to Buying a Solar Electric System provides basic information about the who, what and why of financing, purchasing and installing photovoltaic (solar electric) systems in Colorado. It also includes information about financial incentives such as the Solar Rebate Program, tax credits for businesses and net metering. Net metering means that extra electricity produced by a photovoltaic system is sold back to the utility at the same rate as power is purchased from the utility. “People need easy to follow guidelines for purchasing and installing solar energy systems, and this new booklet answers that need,” said NREL engineer John Thornton, who helped write the booklet.

The Borrower’s Guide to Financing Solar Energy Systems provides information for lenders and consumers about nationwide financing programs for photovoltaic systems and solar thermal systems, which heat indoor air and water. In addition to traditional sources for home mortgage funds, several government organizations offer programs for financing solar energy systems and energy efficiency improvements.

The guide’s glossary includes information about energy saving performance contracts through which energy service companies absorb the cost of more efficient energy systems in exchange for a share of the savings. It also describes energy efficient mortgages, which give special consideration to borrowers who purchase or refinance homes that are or will be energy efficient.

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Atlantic City UA sells solar energy credits for $32,000

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

ACUA sells solar energy credits for $32,000

ATLANTIC CITY — Another part of its renewable energy program is paying off for the Atlan-tic County Utilities Authority. The ACUA reported the first sale of solar renewable energy credits for about $32,000. Those credits are part of an incentive program for companies to use more renewable energy, such as wind or solar power.

The state issues the ACUA one credit for every 1,000 kilowatts generated by its solar energy field. That field generated 135,000 kilowatts of power, or 135 credits. In this sale, the credits were bought by PSE&G Resources & Trade LLC. Each of the credits sold for $237.65.

Companies such as PSE&G can buy the credits rather than build their own solar fields to help meet their renewable-energy requirements, said ACUA Controller Katie Vesey. Vesey said that, in New Jersey, credits linked with solar energy carry the most value because the state is specifically pushing solar energy as a renewable energy source. The other benefit is that, without the credits and other associated state rebates, solar renewable energy
would be too expensive to produce, she said.

“The rebate provided by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities supporting the construction of this project and the revenue derived from the sale of (the credits) makes this solar project favorable from a financial standpoint,” said ACUA President Rick Dovey. The ACUA’s solar energy system at the treatment plant consists of two ground-mounted solar arrays, two roof-mounted solar arrays and one canopy array. The solar panel installation was completed in May.

ACUA officials estimate they’ll wind up with more than 600 credits for the “energy year” that began June 1 and will run through May 31, 2007. The solar energy system is one of several renewable energy products run by the ACUA. Also in May, ACUA officials said power generated by the five wind turbines at the treatment plant here helped the ACUA save almost $168,000 in energy costs during the first four months of the year.

The wind turbines generated on average almost 70 percent of the plant’s energy electricity during that time, according to ACUA figures. The ACUA estimated it would save at least $367,000 annually on electric costs once the wind farm was operational.

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Spectrolab Terrestrial Concentrator Solar Cell Achieves Unparalelled Solar Energy Conversion

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Using concentrated sunlight, these photovoltaic (PV) cells can convert 36.9 percent of the sun’s energy to electricity, a technology capability that
could dramatically reduce the cost of generating electricity from solar energy.

Spectrolab’s achievement is a necessary step to achieve one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s major PV initiative goals, to develop solar modules
that convert more than 33 percent of the sun’s energy into electricity as targeted in the High Performance PV Project.

“The modified cell design better suits the terrestrial solar spectrum and opens the path for higher performance terrestrial concentrators” said David
Lillington, president of Spectrolab. “And because the terrestrial cell we have developed is similar to our conventional space cells, it can be
implemented in production, and manufactured in very high volumes with minimal impact to production flow.”

Spectrolab uses these state-of-the-art solar cells in concentrator modules of various sizes and power-generating capabilities. Several modules are
already being tested throughout the world by PV concentrator system manufacturers.

A significant advantage of concentrator systems is that fewer solar cells are required to achieve a specific power output, thus replacing large areas
of semiconductor materials with relatively inexpensive optics that provide optical concentration. The slightly higher cost of multijunction cells is
offset by the use of fewer cells. Due to the higher efficiency of multijunction cells used in the concentrator modules, only a small fraction
of the cell area is required to generate the same power output compared to crystalline silicon or thin-film flat-plate modules.

The terrestrial solar cell is a modified version of Spectrolab’s Improved Triple Junction (ITJ) space solar cell.

“There is considerable synergy between space and terrestrial cells, and improvements in space cells are expected to drive efficiency improvements
for terrestrial cells. During the last few years, multijunction solar cells have doubled the power output of large commercial satellites, and
substantially improved their revenue-generating capability. We believe that further optimization of the improved terrestrial concentrator cells will
yield the potential to surpass 40 percent conversion efficiency,” said Dr. Nasser Karam, Spectrolab vice president for Advanced Technology.

Terrestrial solar cells will also be the driving force to reduce the cost of materials used in space and terrestrial applications. This will add to the
economic attractiveness of multijunction solar cell technology both for high power space satellites and large terrestrial systems.

The terrestrial concentrator cell, measuring approximately one-quarter of a square centimeter in area, was fabricated and tested at Spectrolab and then
re-measured at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), located in Golden, Colorado. NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s premier laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficient research, development and deployment. Development of the device technology embodied in the record efficiency multijunction cell was funded in part by NREL, in part by the Air
Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and by Spectrolab.

Spectrolab, founded in 1956, has been supplying solar cells and panels to the space industry for 40 years. Spectrolab is headquartered in Sylmar,
Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles. It also is a leading supplier of searchlights and solar simulators. With its heritage mirroring the history of flight. It is the largest manufacturer of satellites, commercial jetliners and military aircraft. The company is also a global market leader in missile defense, human space flight and launch services.

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Molecular Assemblies Created to Convert Water to Hydrogen

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Wonder where the fuel will come from for tomorrow’s hydrogen-powered vehicles? Virginia Tech researchers are developing catalysts that will convert water to hydrogen gas.

The research will be presented at the 228th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Philadelphia August 22-26, 2004

Supramolecular complexes created by Karen Brewer’s group at Virginia Tech convert light energy (solar energy) into a fuel that can be transported, stored, and dispensed, such as hydrogen gas.

The process has been called artificial photosynthesis, says Brewer, associate professor of chemistry. “Light energy is converted to chemical energy. Solar light is of sufficient energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, but this does not happen on its own; we need a catalysts to make this reaction occur.”

One major challenge is to use light to bring together the multiple electrons needed for fuel production reactions. Electrons are the negatively charged particles that surround an atom’s nucleus, allowing atoms to react and form bonds.

Previous research has focused on collecting electrons using light energy. The Brewer group has gone the next step and created molecular machines that use light to bring electrons together (photoinitiated electron collection) then deliver the electrons to the fuel precursor, in this case, water, to produce hydrogen.

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Vast New Energy Source Almost Here: Solar Hydrogen Fuel Dream

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Will Soon Be A Reality, Australian Scientists Predict

Australian scientists predict that a revolutionary new way to harness the power of the sun to extract clean and almost unlimited energy supplies from water will be a reality within seven years.

Using special titanium oxide ceramics that harvest sunlight and split water to produce hydrogen fuel, the researchers say it will then be a simple engineering exercise to make an energy-harvesting device with no moving parts and emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants.

It would be the cheapest, cleanest and most abundant energy source ever developed: the main by-products would be oxygen and water.

“This is potentially huge, with a market the size of all the existing markets for coal, oil and gas combined,” says Professor Janusz Nowotny, who with Professor Chris Sorrell is leading a solar hydrogen research project at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Centre for Materials and Energy Conversion. The team is thought to be the most advanced in developing the cheap, light- sensitive materials that will be the basis of the technology.

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A Solution to Global Warming (Denver Post — Guest Commentary)

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Global warming is occurring at an unprecedented rate and is starting to have adverse consequences, such as increased frequency and severity of droughts, heat waves and floods. The World Health Organization estimates that global warming is already killing 150,000 people a year. Here in Colorado, rising temperatures and changes in precipitation are hurting farmers, ranchers and Colorado’s ski industry.

Most of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere comes from burning coal, oil and natural gas, the so-called fossil fuels. The United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, is responsible for 27 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. The federal government under President Bush has failed to take significant action to reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. This policy must change if the world is going to limit global warming to acceptable levels.

Taking meaningful action to limit global warming does not require a massive expansion of nuclear power plants, or new government subsidies to facilitate this. The nuclear power industry received more than $140 billion of U.S. taxpayer subsidies during the past 50 years. It is now a mature industry that should stand (or fall) on its own.

In spite of the hefty subsidies, no U.S. utility has ordered a new nuclear power plant in over 25 years. Among the reasons for this: nuclear power is not economically competitive; nuclear energy lacks public support; highly radioactive nuclear waste still cannot be safely disposed of over the long term; and safety concerns remain. Given these wide- ranging problems, a nuclear power revival does not look promising.

So, if nuclear energy is not the cure to our planetary “fever,” what is? How can we reduce our use of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions while maintaining our economic health and high standards of living? The best response today is to improve our energy efficiency, i.e., using less energy for a given level of service, and expand energy production from renewable sources such as wind power, solar energy and biofuels.

U.S. energy intensity (energy consumption per unit of GDP) declined 46 percent over the past 30 years. Most of this reduction was due to real energy-efficiency improvements: increases in the fuel efficiency of cars, appliances, lighting, buildings, industries, etc. Large additional increases in energy efficiency are technically and economically feasible. Raising energy-efficiency standards as well as expanding federal, state and local energy-efficiency programs will do far more to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than new subsidies for the nuclear energy industry. And stimulating greater energy efficiency saves money while cutting pollutant emissions.

The U.S. gets only 6 percent of its energy from renewable energy sources today. But wind power and solar energy are the fastest-growing
energy sources in the world. Wind power has become cost competitive with other electricity options in regions with good wind speeds. Solar
energy technologies are rapidly advancing and are becoming more economical every year. If U.S. energy policy emphasized increased use
of renewable energy as well as energy- efficiency improvement, the U.S. could obtain more than 15 percent of its energy from renewable
sources by 2020 and even more over the long run.

These are not theoretical solutions. European countries that are taking the global warming threat seriously are not building new nuclear power plants. Instead they are focusing on improving energy efficiency and increasing renewable energy production. Denmark and Germany are the world’s leaders in wind power production. The European Union has set a goal of getting more than 20 percent of its electricity from all renewable sources by 2010. And 14 U.S. states – including Arizona, California and Texas – have established renewable energy requirements for their utilities.

The next U.S. president should make energy-efficiency improvement and renewable energy development the cornerstones of our national energy
strategy. This will reduce carbon dioxide emissions more than new subsidies aimed at reviving the nuclear power industry. It will also lower energy bills, lower oil imports, and support more jobs than an energy strategy centered on building new nuclear power plants.

U.S. citizens seem to have this figured out: Energy efficiency and renewable energy, not nuclear power, are the energy sources most favored by the public. When will our political leaders get it?

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Balloon technology could cut cost of solar energy 90%

December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

With high energy prices and mounting concerns over human-induced climate change, there is intense interest in renewable energy, especially solar, which produces no pollution and is readily available in the form of sunlight.

In recent years, however, the solar-energy market has been hampered by supply shortages of refined silicon, the critical resource needed for solar-cell fabrication. Further,
because solar installations traditionally require a large surface area to capture as much sunlight as possible, solar arrays often take up real estate, occupying land used agricultural production and other purposes. Without government subsidies, solar is not
presently viable in many areas.

Given the promise of solar, a slew of companies are working to address these concerns. Some are attempting to tackle the real-estate issue by adding solar to office buildings—where routine maintenance is sometimes a hassle—or constructing multiphase structures like carports that can serve as solar arrays. Google and Kyocera are two
firms that have implemented such systems, but these are not practical in rural areas, where solar would sometimes be most useful. Further, these designs require sizeable
amounts of silicon, where high prices remain a limiting factor.

Now an innovative startup is developing a solar design that may put these issues to rest
by reducing the need for costly polysilicon and real estate.

CoolEarth Solar, based in Livermore, California, believes its technology could make
solar farming economically competitive within three years by making solar cheaper than
coal and allowing farmers to become net suppliers of electricity.

“In short we are developing free-market-hyper-competitive renewable energy with the mission of reaching global carbon neutrality,” CoolEarth Solar founder Dr. Eric B. Cummings told mongabay.com via email. “We are working to reduce the cost of solar
electricity by a factor of 25, making it cheaper to produce than energy from coal or
other non-renewable sources. By developing a solution from minimal, low-cost materials,
we aim to make solar generation as profitable as today’s best investment options.”

Cummings’s lofty objectives are supported by an impressive background. Earning an M.S.
degree from Caltech in aeronautics and his B.S. degree from Penn State University in
engineering science, Cummings returned to Caltech for his Ph.D in aeronautics and
chemistry. There he also won Caltech’s top honor, the Francis Clauser Prize, awarded
“for opening new avenues of human thought and endeavor,” as well as Caltech’s William H.
Ballhaus Prize for his thesis work on lasers. After spending eight years at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Cummings founded CoolEarth Solar.

The closely-held firm has developed a technology that uses a string of balloons to concentrate and capture the sun’s energy without occupying valuable real estate or using
large amounts of silicon.

“Inflatable concentrators gather light and focus it onto photovoltaic cells, increasing
the energy impacting the cells many times over,” the CoolEarth website explains. “Series
of concentrators are suspended on support and control cables stretched between poles. By
suspending the concentrators, vast areas of land can be easily converted for solar-energy production with limited environmental impact. The ground beneath the concentrators remains free for other uses, such as farming or ranching.”

The firm notes that its design “costs 400 times less per collected area than conventional mirrors, can withstand 100 m.p.h. winds, and can protect the mirror surface and receiver from rain, insects, and dirt,” issues that can significantly reduce the productivity of solar cells.

Cummings says each balloon, measuring two meters (6 1/2 feet) in diameter, can generate 500 watts of electricity and will eventually cost less than $2. With low maintenance and replacement costs, he believes the system will significantly reduce the cost of solar energy from the current price of around $4 per watt of installed capacity to level where is competes directly with fossil fuel-based energy sources. The technology will offer new economic opportunities for farmers who will be able to “farm” electricity in
addition to their crops.

“Solar farms generate energy inexpensively—and generate profit for their operators,” the Cool Earth web site notes. “We are confident that our minimum-material design and use of commodity materials will cut the cost of photovoltaic electricity in a 1 megawatt installation to 29 cents per watt by 2010. At that price, solar farming is a highly attractive option for land-holders. We can then expect free-market forces to drive the spread of clean solar-energy generation.”

“The big advantage of our system in rural areas is the abundance of area that is easy to access and maintain (far easier than up on a rooftop), the ease of setting up large power plants (at roughly eight acres per megawatt of electricity), and less resistance from homeowner associations,” Cummings explained via e-mail.

Gopal Shanker, president of Récolte Energy, a green-energy consultancy firm in Napa, California, says the system seems to offer a lot of potential for the wine industry.

“While I haven’t seen the technology, it sounds like it could work well for the wine industry, since it’s off-the-ground and wouldn’t shade grapes,” he said in a conversation with mongabay.com. “The ease of maintenance and low replacement costs would
be a big benefit.”

Shanker, who is working on a proposal to make Napa County a net exporter of clean energy within five years, says that if CoolEarth delivers on its goal of 29-cent-per-watt solar power it would be a revolution in the energy industry.

“We’re looking for anything that makes solar cost competitive on a massive scale. Right now the total install cost for solar is running $7-$10 per watt,” he said, “so 29 cents per watt would eliminate the need for subsidies under the California Solar Initiative and transform solar energy from a green decision to an economic one. We’d be very interested in taking a closer look at the system”

Shanker may have that chance later this year. Cummings says that CoolEarth plans to have pilot installations by the fourth quarter of 2007.

“We aim to do what no company or government has yet achieved, and we aim to do it within the next few years,” the CoolEarth Solar web site says. “Our goals are ambitious. Our solution is innovative. Our technology is ready.”

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