Alternative & Renewable Energy Blog

I agree with you. More emphasis on basic conservation and efficiency now, with more expansion of geothermal, small decentralized cogeneration systems, etc.

These guys didn't dream big enough. Their near-term ideas are pretty good, but their long-term thinking seems woefully constrained. Inefficiencies in the energy conversion process, along with the cost of transporting that energy to the point of consumption, make massive point production a no-win scenario, even if you could fix the waste stream problems. In the ideal energy future every energy-consuming device, from ipods to elevators to arc furnaces, will meet its own energy requirements with on-board generation and zero waste.

Efficiency improvements such as passive home heating, passive lighting, high-output LED's, plug-in hybrid vehicles (including heavy work trucks), etc. may actually flatten or reduce the energy consumption curve, especially for systems with a positive return on investment.

Solar will be a big part of future energy. Calculators, garden lights, traffic signs, and many other devices already use solar panels to provide free electricity for their own loads. As efficiency improves with 3D and multi-spectrum cells, larger and hungrier devices will be optimized to work entirely on solar, with a small, long-life stored-energy system for backup.

Why limit the fission-fusion process to radwaste? Ultimate fission would break down any type of waste to low-mass atoms, from monatomic hydrogen through neon. Ultimate fusion would then re-assemble them into desired elements of any mass. Both processes would provide excess energy, while producing desirable raw materials.

Of course, the perfect solution for point production would be a quantum vacuum energy tap, but that's WAY out there.

For the short term, stating that "Solar will be a big part of future energy" to provide "free electricity" leaves much to be desired for the long term effects on our environment; carbon foot print.

http://www.genersys-solar.com/carbon-savings/carbon_footprint_solar-panel_manufacture.asp

Only when the government can put a meter on the sun will there be advances in Solar energy.

Your link has caveat about using "normal energy mix assumptions". What assumptions? In France, over 70% of electricity generation is nuclear; In my own city 40% of our electricity is hydro. Does that mean that the same item produced in France, or in my town, would have a lower carbon footprint than at the Genersys plant in Germany?

As your link shows, it does not take very much energy to build a solar panel. What happens to the carbon footprint when the solar panel factory uses their own product to power their manufacturing process? Does the footprint go to zero, or do we divide the initial hydrocarbon budget amongst all future production, thereby retroactively reducing the carbon footprint of the original production?

There have already been advances in solar energy. Unfortunately, most people still think in terms of a massive generating facility, with extremely high voltage transmission lines carrying the energy to the consumer. Solar will never be competitive in that arena. I don't believe that wind can be, either, though it comes closer to breaking even than solar.

My main point was to avoid all the waste involved in unnecessary portions of the energy cycle. If the energy is produced on-site by an onboard device, most of the losses (mining, fuel transport & conditioning, steam-cycle, transmission I²Z) go to zero. That's a huge reduction in the amount of energy which must actually be produced.

Reduction of the human population comes to mind.

you can't control the rate humans reproduce,better yet is solar energy but thinking on better storage devices,or longer lasting batteries as normal batteries only contribute to worse enviromental degradation if the lead is not properly recycled.