Not to distract the Vort membership from the recent fascinating Lithium-Ion "breakthrough" I thought it might be interesting to recap another interesting claim. As you may recall, a couple of weeks ago Terry Blanton brought to our attention the fascinating DOE Sterling solar-dish project.
See: http://www.eet.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=53700939 At first glance this ambitious project appears to be, at least to me, highly promising - if not just a tad ambitious. When mass-produced the prediction has been made that strategically placed solar "dish farms" could generate electricity at comparable costs: Approximately 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Here are some of the more interesting statistics, some already revealed by Mr. Blanton: "Eventually, according to DOE estimates, an 11-square-mile farm of Stirling solar dishes could generate as much electricity as the Hoover Dam, and a 100 x 100-mile farm could supply all the daytime needs for electricity in the United States. By storing the energy in hydrogen fuel cells during the day, Stirling solar-dish farms could supply U.S. electrical-energy needs at night too, as well as enough juice for future fuel-cell-powered automobiles, the DOE believes." I wonder if the new nano-engineered Lithium Ion batteries might eventually turn out to be a better storage choice than the fuel-cell approach. At first glance it would seem to me that using the highly batteries might be more economical. Less complex? Fewer moving parts? What to the experts think? Other concerns: Obviously, a 100 x 100 square mile solar dish farm would be a sight to behold, including from orbit. It's a longer length than the distance between the cities of Madison and Milwaukee, a route I travel quite often in Wisconsin. Obviously, building a farm to such a scale is totally impractical! But then, I suspect an 11-square-mile solar dish farm capable of generating as much juice as the Hoover Dam is probably too large as well. Hell! Come to think of it, even a SINGLE square mile dish farm creates a pretty damn big footprint when you think about it. Easily spotted from orbit. Put in another way: If it turned out (for whatever engineering and/or socio-political reason) that a single "solar dish" farms could not occupy a patch of real estate any larger than a square mile patch of land, that would mean the U.S. would have to eventually construct a total of TEN THOUSAND individual solar dish farms if we wish to eventually wean ourselves from fossil fuels. To all of you Vort engineers, planners, and dreamers: Just how feasible would the tackling of this kind of a national engineering project be? Admittedly, I'm probably being naive here, but I actually think this kind of an Apollo Moon / Manhatten-style project is feasible and perhaps even desirable for a number of incalculable reasons. The real hindrances may turn out to be political rather than the formidable engineering challenges. IMHO, you would need a Kennedy-like President giving another famous speech challenging the nation to become solar cell sufficient within ten years - not because the national task would easy but because it would be hard. But, oh, so satisfying when completed. Just like in the Apollo Project think of the unexpected technological spin-offs that are likely to result as corporations learned how to build better AC generators, storage devices, and distribution systems. To make this kind of a national goal fly, however, you would have to get the majority of the population behind it. You absolutely GOTTA get them excited about the concept that we have found a viable way of becoming permanently ! SELF SUFFICIENT in a short period of time. Personally, I'm confident that not only would the engineering problems be resolved we can expect some surprises along the way. The political problems, well, I'm not so sure of. Despite certain claims that it was the "will of God" that Bush was elected the man simply doesn't possess the necessary charisma nor the chutzpa to rally our nation around a focused cause of energy independence, even though I'm convinced he's acutely aware of the problem and desperately wants to do something about it. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the Bush Administration unwisely bogged itself down by tackling a dubious political goal of privatizing social security. Big deal! (With apologies to former President Roosevelt) Regards Steven Vincent Johnson OrionWorks.com
