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It's too expensive and too dangerous.
Here's a much better way. Nanosolar has found a way to make solar panels for $1/watt. Not only is this much cheaper than old-fashioned nuclear power plants, it's sustainable and environmentally sound too.
Best of all, it's still "nuclear power", so NNadir and davidwalters will really like it. It's just more practical, and doesn't require vast, wasteful government subsidies. Or for small children to die from cancer because of the radiation released by old-fashioned nuclear plants.
"I've been an oilman all my life, but this is one crisis we can't drill our way out of" --T. Boone Pickens
by bincbom on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 11:37:41 AM PDT
turbine factory. Thank you.
The IPCC predicts average global temperatures to rise enough by 2050 to put 20-30% of all species at risk for extinction.
by Plan9 on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 12:33:20 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
When I checked out their website this morning it turns out that they use a nanoparticle ink to print their screens. This may turn out to be important.
In the last course I took in graduate school (Science and Policy in case you're interested) one interesting topic was the subject of nanotechnolgy. First, the term itself is difficult to define, so nanosolars use may just be a marketing buzz word. On the other hand, if they are in fact using nanometer sized particles in their ink, theres an open question regarding the health and environmental impacts of nano-scale particles.
Here's an activist website with the catchy name nanofoe.
While $2 installed (and there was a comment on the main page post by a contractor suggesting it'd still be closer to 5 or 6 residential) for solar is great, and I would probably buy at that price (well, except that I live in an apt atm), there may be serious environmental and health repercussions to their manufacturing process. It may also be absolutely fine, but there has been very very little work done on the toxicity of nanoparticles, and it also seems that most of it is going to be particle specific. If you're worried about nuclear waste (which, at least for civilian power production has been completely contained and hasn't yet been definitely proven to have harmed anyone) you should also be concerned about the release of particles which are almost, if not entirely, impossible to monitor and contain and for which essentially no toxicology or environmental impacts have been assessed.
by raoul78 on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 01:29:45 PM PDT
Besides Global Warming and Hillary Clinton, there is probably no greater threat to the future of Mankind than Nanotechnology:
Nanotech: small science, huge threat Imagine I was selling a magic machine that would solve all your problems- and make me rich. Imagine I told you that you already bought it, thank you very much, and all your problems will soon be solved. Would you be worried? Would it concern you if I dismissed any questions you had or your neighbors cries that the magic machine was really no good? That's where we find ourselves with the new science of nanotechnology (See "University of Oregon puts big hopes in tiny technology" RG 7/14/03) We're told that nanotech is already on its way and don't worry - we'll love it. Quick fix solutions for our problems; tax-funded research, megaprofits and unprecedented power for the nanotechnologists. This new science threatens to create a sci-fi future ruled by a global super-elite with nanotechnology forced upon the minds, bodies and surroundings of everyone else. Nanotech insider-literature clamors for just that. If we take what they are pushing -- we will be making a very big mistake.
Nanotech: small science, huge threat
Imagine I was selling a magic machine that would solve all your problems- and make me rich. Imagine I told you that you already bought it, thank you very much, and all your problems will soon be solved. Would you be worried? Would it concern you if I dismissed any questions you had or your neighbors cries that the magic machine was really no good?
That's where we find ourselves with the new science of nanotechnology (See "University of Oregon puts big hopes in tiny technology" RG 7/14/03) We're told that nanotech is already on its way and don't worry - we'll love it. Quick fix solutions for our problems; tax-funded research, megaprofits and unprecedented power for the nanotechnologists. This new science threatens to create a sci-fi future ruled by a global super-elite with nanotechnology forced upon the minds, bodies and surroundings of everyone else. Nanotech insider-literature clamors for just that. If we take what they are pushing -- we will be making a very big mistake.
more gorey details here
Be afraid, very afraid . . .
by Roadbed Guy on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 02:00:40 PM PDT
most of the new nanotech stuff will probably turn out to be harmless, but we're making an awful lot of it (stain-resistant dockers anyone?) and we don't really know how it reacts with biological systems.
by raoul78 on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 02:13:03 PM PDT
I could take the anti-nukers method and state "Well, we don't know anything about it, lets not do it at all!". "We should ban it because it might be dangerous". "suppose the suckers escape and turn us into raving Aussie pediatricians...", etc, etc. But I don't. I suspect this is not real "nanotechnology" from the sci-fi genre but rather nano-tech that works simply at the molecular level.
David
by davidwalters on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 02:15:41 PM PDT
is essentially any material produced on a nanometer sized scale; I'm not talking about self-replicating nanomachines. Here's the intro to a short review in Nature Nanotechnology
The rapid expansion of nanotechnology has resulted in a vast array of nanoparticles that vary in size, shape, charge, chemistry, coating and solubility. Take carbon nanotubes, for example, which have been intensively studied because they have new and unusual mechanical, electronic and other properties. The potential toxicity of these materials has attracted attention because of their apparent similarities to asbestos and other carcinogenic fibres (Fig. 1). Carbon nanotubes are long, thin (just nanometres in diameter) and insoluble — all factors that contribute to fibre toxicity in the lungs
(bold is mine) Nature Nanotechnology 1, 23 - 24 (2006)
Particles on this size scale interact with biological systems in strange ways, but we're putting them on everything from pants to solar cells without really understanding their toxicity.
by raoul78 on Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 06:01:44 AM PDT
No, most Americans favor nuclear energy. Some folks don't want it but I think they might change their minds when they see what thorium energy and liquid-fluoride reactors are capable of doing: they can run on a fuel that will last tens of thousands of years; they have incredible inherent safety; and they can be built in a compact and cost-effective manner.
Don't throw "nuclear" out with the "light-water reactor" bathwater--learn more about other reactor concepts and what they are capable of doing.
by thorium on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 01:54:03 PM PDT
Nuclear Power ``From what I understand, if we don't do something in the next 10 years to fix global warming we're in big trouble,'' said poll respondent Travis Mitchell, a 59-year-old furniture maker from Parksley, Virginia. Sixty-one percent of the poll's respondents said they would support increased use of nuclear power -- which doesn't emit carbon dioxide or other so-called greenhouse gases -- as a way to reduce global warming. That's up from 52 percent in a Los Angeles Times poll in 2001.
Nuclear Power
``From what I understand, if we don't do something in the next 10 years to fix global warming we're in big trouble,'' said poll respondent Travis Mitchell, a 59-year-old furniture maker from Parksley, Virginia.
Sixty-one percent of the poll's respondents said they would support increased use of nuclear power -- which doesn't emit carbon dioxide or other so-called greenhouse gases -- as a way to reduce global warming. That's up from 52 percent in a Los Angeles Times poll in 2001.
Thus sayeth a Bloomberg-L.A. Times poll.
by Plan9 on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 03:27:26 PM PDT
is more expensive than nuclear. 1W solar capacity corresponds to only 0.25W of nuclear capacity.
Nevertheless a great advance for remote power requirements.
Distributed generation is a good way to hide the problems and consequences of electrical generation by dispersal. There will still be problems, but they will be hard to track down and much harder to eliminate. It's not a roadblock, but it is a consequence of that choice of approach.
This is not a sig-line.
by Joffan on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 08:51:46 PM PDT
wide narrow
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