Portable Power

[Sambuchi]

I have noticed some people interested in power generation ... heres something I just found...

http://www.cio.com/archive/081502/et_development.html


Heres some quotes from this artical

"semiconductor-polymer photovoltaic cells can be painted on just about any surface, allowing them to be made in an infinite variety of shapes"

"possible to put solar cells on clothing "

"The hybrid solar cells can be produced in a laboratory beaker without clean rooms or vacuum chambers, which means that they'll eventually be cheaper and easier to make than traditional solar cells. "

[Chris Smith]

Solar cells can be made out of recycled glass and thin layers of cheap dissimilar metals.

The only draw back is efficiency, but the cost out weighs this as long as you have the room.

We could produce billion of square feet of solar for pennies per square feet, but between the lobbyist for the energy commission and the Chicken littles of the world, “It cant be doneâ€

[jollyrgr]

Dateline covered the solution I know will work. Plant based ethanol. A man by the name of Vinod Khosla has figured out a way to take the waste/leftovers from ethanol production and turn the waste into even more ethanol. His claim is to be able to produce ethanol so cheap that the final price would be less than a dollar a gallon AT THE PUMP! Totally renewable. No need for middle east oil.

Who is this Vinod Khosla and why believe him? He came here (to the USA) from India in 1976. He is a Biomedical engineer, venture capitalist, and one of the richest men in the world (a multibillionare). He is one of the co-founders of SUN Microsystems. Now he is researching alternate fuels.

Can't believe it can be done? Brazil has done it already. How did they do it? With the help of a couple of automakers (Ford and GM). Why did this happen? Laws mandated that every gas station in Brazil offer ethanol. (TRUE: With big oil in the White House, this will never happen. Think about this when you vote.)

So I continue to argue. Why not put farmers to work in the US, Canada and Mexico growing corn (or similar) plants? Process is relatively simple. Take plant material (the leftover stalks and leaves) and add emzymes and water. Cook until the plant starch is converted into sugar. Add yeast which eats the sugar and converts it to alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide. (This is EXACTLY the type of process used to make White Lightning. More commonly known as moonshine.) The carbon dioxide can be collected and sold for industrial uses such as soft drink carbonation. The alcohol can then be mixed with gasoline for fuel for cars, planes, farm equipment and so on.

The current left over "waste" can be used in animal feed. But Khosla has figured out a way to convert the waste into even more ethanol. This process can be used to take the waste from paper mills and convert it into ethanol. Prairie grasses can be used to make ethanol. So we have old time prairie grass during the growing season that is harvested to make fuel.

What about other costs, such as getting the fuel to the gas stations and getting the gas stations to have ethanol pumps? The same trucks delivering gasoline can deliver ethanol. The cost of getting 1000 ethanol pumps into a state like California? $15 to $20 million. Just for comparison Exxon made $36 BILLION last year alone.

If government can mandate things like MPG, why not mandate that all cars run on flex fuel. It used to be that doing this added a few dollars ($10 or $20) to the price of the car. Now it cost nothing extra.


This has finally gotten some main stream press. Go here to see the NBC Dateline story from May 7th 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12676374/