California utility to spread 'solar power plant' across rooftops

I've written about similar ideas before, namely that there is a lot of land area containing large warehouse-style buildings that have flat roofs. These buildings could then have roof-top solar panels. There is breaking news (links below) that Southern California Edison is launching a program to install solar panels on commercial rooftops

Quote:

The program calls for SCE to put enough solar photovoltaic panels on commercial buildings to turn out 250 megawatts of electricity, enough to supply about 162,000 homes....Once completed, the panels will take up 65,000,000 square feet of roofs in Southern California, or 2 square miles.

Quote:

The $875 million initiative also marks the first big move into so-called distributed energy by a major utility. Instead of building a centralized power station and the expensive transmission system needed to transmit electricity to the power grid, Edison will connect clusters of solar arrays into existing neighborhood circuits. A significant hurdle for the massive megawatt solar power plants planned for California’s Mojave Desert is the need in some cases to build multi billion-dollar transmission systems through environmentally sensitive lands to bring the electricity to coastal metropolises....Here’s how the solar roofs initiative will work: Edison will lease warehouse rooftop space from building owners. (The target area is the fast-growing “Inland Empire” of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.) The utility will contract for the installation of the arrays and will retain ownership of the solar systems. California regulators appear inclined to approve the project, which will be financed by a hike in utility rates.

Anybody who drives through modern industrial or office parks knows that there are vast expanses of rooftop space available. As I pointed out in my earlier posting on solar roof tops it's even easier to see this using maps.google.com or other online map services.

Article Reference: 

California utility to spread 'solar power plant' across rooftops

SoCal Edison makes $875M bet on solar

http://www.sce.com/PowerandEnvironment/renewables/Solar/

California utility to add 250 MW in solar cells

California Utility to Install Solar Panels

California utility to turn roofs into solar power plants

ProLogis Announces First U.S. Roof Lease to Southern California Edison for 2.2 Megawatt Solar Panel Installation

SCE files application for renewable energy program

extvideo: 

U.S. Regains Missile Parts; Gates Orders Investigation

Geez, here we are at it again. First they "mistakenly" send a bomber with nuclear weapons on board when it wasn't supposed to be carrying nukes -- now a shipment of nuclear missile parts have been "mistakenly" sent to Taiwan as part of an arms shipment.

Quote:

The U.S. military has regained control of four non-nuclear nose cone assemblies for a Minuteman missile mistakenly sent to Taiwan in 2006

"Regained control of" is a spin job. To regain control of something they had to have lost that thing in the first place. Whew, they got the things back, but the fact is they lost these things.

Quote:

The nose cone assemblies and associated electrical parts are proximity fuses for the missiles. While not technically “triggers,” a nuclear warhead atop a Minuteman would not detonate without the signal from these devices.

Preliminary information indicates that a shipment took place in response to a foreign military sales order from Taiwan for helicopter batteries, Wynne said. The Defense Logistics Agency depot at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, mistakenly shipped the fuses -- a classified system -- rather than the batteries.

The press release links to the LGM-30 MINUTEMAN III fact sheet where we learn these are part of a silo-launched guided missile, part of the Minuteman system. These are intercontinental missiles which were designed in the 1950's. Whatever the truth of losing these parts, it's likely a pure mistake rather than some kind of subtle strategy of arming Taiwan against threats from Mainland China. Minuteman missiles are not usable by Taiwan, however if those parts were to instead been sent to the Mainland China government this would have been bad in some way.

The problem here is that nuclear technology is so dangerous that it has to be strictly controlled. A genie has been let out, a genie that is willing to grant "wishes" in the form of destroyed cities and millions of dead people.

I keep thinking these weapons are so dangerous that any risk that these weapons will be used is too great, and that they simply should not exist. Any accident or any overly aggressive political leader could cause the use of these weapons, with disastrous effect.

In this case the parts were surplus (declared 'excess') and were in a warehouse. Taiwan had ordered some "helicopter batteries" and were instead shipped these fuses. According to several articles there are procedures in place which would have prevented these parts from being lost.. specifically there are inventory checks which are supposed to happen every 3 months. Somehow the inventory checks did not discover that some missile parts had been lost. Instead it was the Taiwan military who didn't recognize what they had received, and asked what it was they'd been sent.

Article Reference: 

U.S. Regains Missile Parts; Gates Orders Investigation

LGM-30 MINUTEMAN III

U.S. says missile parts mistakenly sent to Taiwan

Nothing Like This Can Happen

US investigates Taiwan arms error

U.S. mistakenly sent nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan

Pentagon Admits Mistaken Arms Parts Shipment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman

Minot AF Base

TRW Systems. (2001) Minuteman Weapon System History and Description.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Mmiii.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nuclear_weapons

http://www.techbastard.com/missile/minuteman/index.php

Minuteman Missile History

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-30.html

extvideo: 

Start-up wins funding to draw electricity from 'waste' heat

Start-up wins funding to draw electricity from 'waste' heat: The CEO of GMZ Energy, Mike Clary, told VentureBeat that the company has received seed funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and described the Newton, Mass.-based start-up's plans....Researchers at Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of technology have found a way to more efficiently convert electricity from heat, a breakthrough they claim could make a wide range of products more energy-efficient.

Researchers achieve dramatic increase in thermoelectric efficiency: thermoelectricity is the “hot and cool” issue of physics. Heating one end of a wire, for example, causes electrons to move to the cooler end, producing an electric current. In reverse, applying a current to the same wire will carry heat away from a hot section to a cool section. Phonons, a quantum mode of vibration, play a key role because they are the primary means by which heat conduction takes place in insulating solids....Bismuth antimony telluride is a material commonly used in thermoelectric products, and the researchers crushed it into a nanoscopic dust and then reconstituted it in bulk form, albeit with nanoscale constituents. The grains and irregularities of the reconstituted alloy dramatically slowed the passage of phonons through the material, radically transforming the thermoelectric performance by blocking heat flow while allowing the electrical flow.

Nanotechnology boosts thermoelectric effect: Thermoelectric coolers and power generators were handed a 40-percent boost in performance recently by a nanotechnological reconstruction of a classic bulk material. The technique is suitable for mass production, according to its inventors at Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This makes it of use in both industrial and consumer cooling applications from semiconductors to nanoscale power generators.

Article Reference: 

Start-up wins funding to draw electricity from 'waste' heat

http://www.xconomy.com/2007/09/06/bostons-new-generation-of-university-spinoffs-...

http://masshightech.bizjournals.com/masshightech/stories/2007/06/11/story13.html

Nano-breakthrough: Dramatic Increase In Thermoelectric Efficiency Heralds New Era In Heating, Cooling And Power Generation

Researchers achieve dramatic increase in thermoelectric efficiency

Nanotech advance heralds new era in heating, cooling and power generation

Boston College, MIT researchers achieve dramatic increase in thermoelectric efficiency

Stealth Kleiner Perkins company unveils efficiency-boosting material

Nanotechnology boosts thermoelectric effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectricity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermogenerator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_Thermoelectric_Generators

Thermoelectric Materials Promise Higher Energy Efficiency

http://www.thermoelectrics.com/intro.htm

The Four Thermoelectric Effects

International Thermoelectric Society

Thermoelectric Effect

extvideo: 

Sky Sails

URL: 

Sky Sails

Description: 

SkySails is now offering a wind propulsion system based on large towing kites, which, for the first time, meets the requirements of shipping companies.

By using the SkySails-System, a ship‘s fuel costs can be reduced by 10- 35% on annual average, depending on wind conditions. Under optimal wind conditions, fuel consumption can temporarily be reduced by up to 50%.

extvideo: 

Another 30s Cycle Car

URL: 

Another 30s Cycle Car

Description: 

An example of a motorcycle with an aerodynamic fairing.

extvideo: 

GreenFuel lands big deal for algae fuel plant

There are a range of biofuels companies who recently got sales or added investment or larger production facilities.

GreenFuel Technologies has reached an agreement to build an algae-to-fuel plant in Europe, which could be worth as much as $92 million...GreenFuel uses a portfolio of technologies to profitably recycle CO2 from smokestack, fermentation, and geothermal gases via naturally occurring species of algae. Algae can be converted to transportation fuels and feed ingredients or recycled back to a combustion source as biomass for power generation. Industrial facilities need no internal modifications to host a GreenFuel algae farm. In addition, the system does not require fertile land or potable water.

Range Fuels said it is has secured $100 million to build a gasification plant that will make ethanol from blue chips...Range Fuels has invented a two-step thermo-chemical process to produce cellulosic ethanol. Even if these words are foreign to you, the positives are sure to resonate: the process is self-sustaining, produces virtually no waste products, emits very low levels of greenhouse gases, and produces high yields of clean ethanol.

ethanol company Coskata, which General Motors has invested in, was said to have landed $19 million to ramp up its operations...Coskata is a biology-based renewable energy company. Our technology enables the low-cost production of ethanol from a wide variety of input material including biomass, municipal solid waste and other carbonaceous material. Using proprietary microorganisms and patented bioreactor designs, we will produce ethanol for under US$1.00 per gallon.

Article Reference: 

GreenFuel lands big deal for algae fuel plant

http://www.greenfuelonline.com/

http://www.rangefuels.com/

http://www.coskata.com/

extvideo: 

Khosla invests in turbine tech maker Pax

URL: 

PAX Scientific

Khosla invests in turbine tech maker Pax

Turning nature's design into scientific breakthrough

Description: 

"The path of the spiral exerts considerably less energy and friction than a straight line"... this is a core idea of Pax Scientific, which is developing a range of technologies taking as design cues a design theory called biomimicry, coined by Janine Benyus, who wrote a seminal book on the subject in 1997. Biomimicry argues that nature uses only the energy it needs, fits form to function, and recycles everything.

extvideo: