BREAKTHROUGH HEAVEN from 5 years ago at NREL: The solar cell turns 50 years old.

[NNadir]

Personally, I am thrilled that my parents generation bet the future on humanity and earth's atmosphere on the proposition - annuciated so loudly (again) by Amory Lovins 33 years ago - that "SOLAR WILL SAVE US" with an endless series of BREAKTHROUGHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

This news may come from um, 5 years ago, when the very same anti-nukes who are saying the same thing they are saying today, "WE DON'T NEED THE WORLD'S LARGEST, BY FAR, SOURCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE ENERGY because SOLAR ENERGY IS ABOUT TO BECOME http://www.solarbuzz.com/">Competitive
with http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_3.html">Grid Based Power.

That's right folks 20.40 = 10.04, (access 07/27/09), and in case you refuse to believe any of that Orwellian 2 + 2 = 5 stuff, stop worrying about it. It's not like your name is Oswaldo and you've just spent weeks in a shipping carton out of El Salvador to get one of those great renewable JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! wiping burning Chaparral ash off of solar thermal collectors with a bottle of windex and 5 tons of Downey super soft boreal forest generated paper towels.

According to NREL, the New York Times is reporting the BREAKTHROUGHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that will finally allow us to harness the limitless power of the sun, as dreamed by mankind for centuries or as the esteemed New York Times put in its April 24, 1954 edition.

“...the beginning of a new era, leading eventually to the realization of one of mankind’s most cherished dreams—the harnessing of the almost limitless energy of the sun
for the uses of civilization.”

I'm personally thrilled!!!!!!!

A new era?!?

You don't say?!"

Yeah folks, just 5 years ago, the NREL announced the 50 year anniversary of the invention of the solar cell: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/33947.pdf

Personally, as a person who over reacted entirely to the concern that climate change is a real event that is taking place right now, I have failed entirely to embrace the notion that http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/renew_energy_consump/table1.html">0.080 = 86.253. (Any one who disagrees on the notion of whether http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/renew_energy_consump/table1.html">0.080 = 86.253, is by the way, clearly engaging in unconstructive denial.)

Since 1952, the United States has released http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/excel/historical_co2.xls"> "Just" 35 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in the commercial and residential sectors alone, of which, of 23 billion tons was to generate electricity alone. Of these figures, electricity related and total, 28% and 23% respectively, were released since Jan 1, 2000 (current to 2007), just 8 years of the last 33 years of the period in which our anti-nukes have been declaring "AMORY LOVINS IS A GENIUS!!!!!!!"

Aren't you glad that solar saved us beginning in 1954?

I know I am.

Since 1954, the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide has risen in earth's atmosphere from less than 310 ppm to over 390 ppm. The take away lesson from the graph below is that it is wise to bet the life of every living cell on the face of this planet on the well proven proposition that solar energy will save everything and produce not the slightest inconvenience to any one looking at photos of the Tesla car and announcing "I WANT ONE!"

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html

Don't worry. Be happy.

Have a happy face day!

[kristopher]

1. Poor feller...

Keeps trying to make a silk purse out of a nuclear sow's ear.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.