How Clean Can We Get? Solar E-Bike Discussion...

[Xase]

The general public have a very shallow understanding of nuclear physics and are easily frightened by it. What most people don't know is that you get three times as much radiation as normal by just being at high altitude. Pilots and flight attendants get cancers at rates way above the national average and they know it's because of the excess radiation exposure. Radiation is a normal part of the universe, and often the places that demonstrate a higher risk are not what people expect. (like flying at high altitude)

The "common man" fears the wrong things most of the time and are easily manipulated by public opinion. The greatest irony of America is that we are "free", but often so willing to accept wild gossip to form opinion that our "freedom" can seem in question.

Can we (as Americans) really be free when we accept media manipulators so easily?

I've got to say that when it comes to emotional manipulation the left is clearly more eager to use that as their primary weapon. The left tends not to "think" but instead they "feel" and feelings are what get manipulated.

That's just my observation... (and I grew up in California and used to live and work in San Francisco, so I've been very intimate with the culture)

Yeah, and the Californian left are known for their elitist diatribes... which seems to have rubbed off on you a bit.

Look, people are skeptical about nuclear power because we are in the middle of cancer epidemic right now. Not to mention the fact that we've all seen the photos of Nagasaki & Hiroshima in August of 1945.

 

[Mark_A_W]

"Can we (as Americans) really be free when we accept media manipulators so easily?"

Dunno mate, I'm not American, and neither are about half of us here.

One thing I do know, when I had Faux news on Cable, the same story was typically presented very differently to the regular news here, particularly the government funded stations.


Can someone explain the physics of Fast Breeders? Seems to break the 2nd law to me, if it creates it's own fuel..

 

[Xase]

As for growing hemp, that's a 7 billion dollar economy here in BC. Of course none of it goes to biofuel :lol:

Indoor marijuana cultivation and consumption appears to be higher in BC than in the rest of Canada. Easton points out that the most striking difference is that only 13 percent of offenders in BC are actually charged while that number climbs to 60 percent for the rest of Canada. In addition, the penalties for conviction in BC are low: fifty-five percent of those convicted receive no jail time.

"If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as trees for paper and construction were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the Greenhouse Effect and stop deforestation; Then there is only one known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world's paper and textiles; meet all of the world's transportation, industrial and home energy needs, while simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil, and cleaning the atmosphere all at the same time...And that substance is - the same one that did it all before - Cannabis Hemp!" -Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes

 

[Lowell]

Unfortunately it will never happen due to political reasons.

 

[Xase]

HAH! I'm not a utopian loon! Ok... not completely anyway.

I found these while researching for my e-sidecar thread:

http://www.solartrike.com/

I know, I know... they're trikes not bikes... but it proves that it works & gives me a much better idea on what size/kind of photovoltaic panels to use!

 

[xyster]

HAH! I'm not a utopian loon! Ok... not completely anyway.

I'm a utopian pragmatist. Technology, providing accelerating leverage, seems to shove society simultaneously towards dystopian hell and utopian grandeur. I think, as the social force of technology overpowers all other social forces, society, unlikely to balance on the head of a pin, will fall one direction or the other. Wishing in chaos theory, I'm trying to do what little I can to...huff puff... blow it the correct direction.

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

... but it proves that it works & gives me a much better idea on what size/kind of photovoltaic panels to use!

Hate to splash you with a cold dose of reality (he laffs with maniacal glee), but what size are those panels?
I'm guessing 75 peak Watts or thereabouts or 2 amps at 37 Volts, if that.
Don't need to spell out how fast that will get you moving.

Right now solar is really only practical for stationary applications.
Like with battery technology, you just have to wait patiently a little longer until the nano-particle paintable solar cells become available.
They make greater use of the IR part of the spectrum which the sun produces a lot more of compared to visible, supposedly 5 times more efficient & about 100 times cheaper to produce.
So don't give up hope just yet, but maybe hang on to your money for now.

 

[Deepkimchi]

Well, I wake up in the morning here in Korea, and check the ES index

Here we are again, starts out with somebody wanting to slap a solar panel on a bike, thread ends up hijacked with a full blown discussion of nuclear power...

If it's longer than 3 pages Safe must be in there somewhere :wink:

 

[TylerDurden]

If it's longer than 3 pages Safe must be in there somewhere :wink:

Bingo.

It's very safe.

 

[xyster]

Looks like Dick Cheney performing dentistry on a young Dustin Hoffman....curious.

 

[Storm]

......

 

[Xase]

Sept. 10, 2007 -- Colorado State University's method for manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production. AVA Solar Inc. will start production by the end of next year on the technology developed by mechanical engineering Professor W.S. Sampath at Colorado State. The new 200-megawatt factory is expected to employ up to 500 people. Based on the average household usage, 200 megawatts will power 40,000 U.S. homes.

Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes and businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost as traditionally generated electricity.

Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process for solar panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin film instead of the standard high-cost crystalline silicon. Because the process produces high efficiency devices (ranging from 11% to 13%) at a very high rate and yield, it can be done much more cheaply than with existing technologies. The cost to the consumer could be as low as $2 per watt, about half the current cost of solar panels. In addition, this solar technology need not be tied to a grid, so it can be affordably installed and operated in nearly any location.

The process is a low waste process with less than 2% of the materials used in production needing to be recycled. It also makes better use of raw materials since the process converts solar energy into electricity more efficiently. Cadmium telluride solar panels require 100 times less semiconductor material than high-cost crystalline silicon panels.

"This technology offers a significant improvement in capital and labor productivity and overall manufacturing efficiency," said Sampath, director of Colorado State's Materials Engineering Laboratory.

Sampath has spent the past 16 years perfecting the technology. In that time, annual global sales of photovoltaic technology have grown to approximately 2 gigawatts or two billion watts -- roughly a $6 billion industry. Demand has increased nearly 40% a year for each of the past five years -- a trend that analysts and industry experts expect to continue.

By 2010, solar cell manufacturing is expected to be a $25 billion-plus industry.

http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=14932

 

[TylerDurden]

Sounds nearly identical to First Solar's process.

nasdaq: FSLR

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=fslr