THEY’RE NOT DONATING MONTHLY!
Posted on 07/12/2011 7:06:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Cheap solar panels. The most powerful transistors ever. Even the ability to make a fighter jet invisible.
Each of these breakthroughs has been announced in the last two weeks. Each relies on one of the most basic elements mined from the earth. And each could line your pockets with cash if you move quickly enough.
They all involve a wonder substance called graphene. It’s made from graphite – the same stuff you find in the center of a pencil. Except graphene consists of a single layer of carbon atoms.
Let’s hopscotch through these new developments…
Researchers in India have discovered how to build solar panels using graphene – a development that could finally make widespread solar energy economical.
Graphene solar panels have several advantages over silicon solar panels – starting with a better ability to absorb light. The problem is that up to now, they’ve been a lot more expensive – because the graphene requires other materials to move the electrons around just right.
The Indian scientists put two and two together. They realized that you can also build solar panels using “quantum dots” – microscopic quantities of particles like cadmium or lead. The problem with that is that cadmium and lead are highly toxic.
So…they wondered…what if they built “graphene quantum dots”?
SNIP
“China controls 80% of the global graphite market – just like China runs 97% of the world supply of rare earths. But the Chinese are running low on graphite reserves – same story as with rare earths.”
Byron’s hot on the case of a tiny company that’s sitting on a massive graphite reserve in the Canadian wilderness – 8 million tons. It can pull graphite from the ground for a cost of $400 per ton and sell it for $2,000. That’s $12.8 billion of potential
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Your complaint wasn't price, I see a lot of solar here in Southern California, as it becomes cheaper more and more of us will jump on it. I love it, the idea that I can move to the boonies and have my own self produced power plant is fantastic.
The idea that I can live in the desert and run the air conditioner all day, worry free, is fantastic.
I’m on the low end economically so I will never have whole house solar, but for me having an affordable 1000 watts available would mean AC in the summer, and an all day 1000 watt electric heater in the winter, for an affordable one time purchase, that would be a huge luxury for people in small homes, with modest incomes.
Some of us, especially self employed, prefer splurging for a one time purchase with long term, worry free benefits, to extrapolating figures over a 30 year period.
The piece of mind in having a certain level of dependable electricity guaranteed is hard to put a price on.
“Your complaint wasn’t price...”
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Yes it was.
Efficiency is all about price.
The desert might be the ONLY place that solar makes sense even IF the hardware becomes cheaper, ON ITS OWN in the free market.
It is absolutely unworkable here in the midwest, even if I VERY expensively covered my entire roof with state of the art solar technology.
And I have a very large roof surface area.
Huge numbers of Americans live in vast areas of America that is perfectly suited for solar, even if new things are too "hip" for you.
“Huge numbers of Americans live in vast areas of America that is perfectly suited for solar, even if new things are too “hip” for you.”
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Huge numbers? Vast areas?
So why isn’t solar happening in a big way? Because it is too expensive in that it remains grossly inefficient and thus unworkable without subsidies from other areas of the economy.
Not ALL new things are too “hip” for me, just impractical technology that, in theory sounds ideal, and is shoved down our throats by those that “know better” what is best for us.
If you can make solar work in the very sunny high desert of CA, without government subsidies (ie, money out of my pocket), then by all means, Godspeed to you.
But Sarah Palin and others want to give the U.N. control over the seabeds - 70% of the earth's surface - through UNCLOS, or, as it is commonly known, LOST...the Law of the Sea Treaty. And the taxing authority that goes with it.
I posted to you because you said something stupid, and ever since you have kept trying to change the subject to something else.
You posted this.
Cheap? Who cares if they are still embarrassingly inefficient. No thanks, if given a choice I’ll still take unfashionable petroleum, coal and natural gas reserves over “hip” new materials.
And I posted this about if solar gets cheap. "Not me, being able to make my own personal, endless electricity at home would be a dream come true."
Your original point was that cheaper doesn't matter to you, that you want to stay on the grid, tied to the system, I disagree with your preference.
Alan Keyes is a conman that wants to rip off gullible Americans to fund his lifestyle and ego, and he will probably be running for President in 2012.
Help us fight Alan Keyes, perennial con man.
Buzz off, troll.
So, I posted the facts about Sarah Palin’s record of support for the Law of the Sea Treaty, linking to a signed letter by her as Governor of Alaska. You trollishly respond with a complete non sequitur about Alan Keyes.
So, why exactly do you want to suppress the truth about Mrs. Palin’s official stance? Are you ashamed of it? Or, do you support the Law of the Sea Treaty as well?
Please don’t make personal attacks.
You can’t deploy logic, or separate your pipe-dream desires from economic reality, so you descend into insults. So predictable.
Stated simply, even IF the individual panel hardware becomes “cheap”, the power generation process remains grossly inefficient, so where is the gain?
I have stayed on point. It is your embarrassing economic ignorance that cannot recognize the close connection between efficiency and cost, let alone the cumbersome impracticality of deploying this technology.
Your straw man argument of me desiring to “stay on the grid” isn’t even worthy of a response.
Have a nice day.
Alan Keyes will probably be a candidate for President, his effect could be profound on fund raising and knocking out the lesser candidates, Palin, Bachmann, Perry, would never stand a chance against him, yet he is only a con man, let’s all unite to stop him from destroying America by getting Obama back into the White House.
If it becomes cheap, then I want it.
Says the guy who has been stalking and harrassing me from thread to thread over and attacking me personally over again for months and months.
I’m going to tell you one more time. Stay away from me.
I have been on this thread for hours, and you are the only one that has made a personal attack, no one has attacked you.
You’ve been stalking, harrassing, and insulting me personally for months. On thread after thread after thread.
If you don’t stop I will be forced to take steps to make you stop.
It’s really easy. Simply do what I’ve asked you to do more times than I can count: Stay away from me.
Good God man, no one is stalking to you, I have been on this thread all morning, long before you got here.
Lay off the threats.
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