The word of the day is “Enterdrainment“: Any passive form of entertainment that is so incredibly mind numbing that it sucks the intelligence from the listener or viewer; ultimately over time reducing (or limiting) them to a simplistic proto-human mental state, incapable of cognition or rational thought.
Kind of like this show. 🙂
To give you a break from my attacks on religion, my guest tonight is Mark Pop who is a Sydney-based expert in solar energy and climate change. We talk about the economic and political challenges to solar energy as well as discuss the truthiness of climate change.
Some links from the show:
Blacktown to become Australia’s first “Solar City”
Solar power plant being built in Victoria
Get the United Nation’s version of “the facts” about climate change at:
United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change
The CSIRO’s website on climate change
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The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
Really interesting show, and a nice break from Christian bashing :-p
We had a solar hot water system in Canberra when I was a kid (and you’re right they were all the rage then) but Canberra in winter isn’t the best place for solar. Summer was great but in winter even after turning on the booster for 30min before we had a bath it was still lukewarm.
I expect the technology has improved some by now but it kinda sucked then.
Cam:
I wish I had seen your invitation to call in. Oh well, opportunities lost.
I also found the show interesting, but was not particularly impressed by your guest’s level of knowledge. As he stated up front, he is coming at the technology from a the perspective of someone studying business, not from the perspective of a technologist or engineer.
I have nothing against business, but if that is the starting point you can reach some very strange conclusions about technology. For example, if you “run the numbers” for solar installations to determine return on investment using the performance that your engineering friends tell you that they can produce, a businessman will find that solar needs some serious help in order to meet business targets. The spreadsheet can be made to “work” to positively answer the business question of “is this investment going to make a sufficient amount of money?”, but the only way to do that is to CHEAT by demanding government subsidies. Mark made it clear that the business needs subsidies to survive, but he was a little unspecific on just how much those subsidies would cost. He also did not do much in my mind to help people clearly understand the limitations on the benefits of that investment. Again, that is fairly typical of a business centered perspective.
If you come at the problem from an engineering perspective and try to answer the question “can this technology meet the human need that I am trying to solve?”, solar power comes up woefully short. The only way to make the system “work” in that case is to allow for storage, grid back-up, and/or back-up fossil fuel generators.
An engineer would also recognize that there are natural aging mechanisms for all materials. If the material of concern is silicon based semi-conductors that are purposely exposed to frequent variations of temperatures and ultraviolet radiation, the aging phenomenon is pretty severe. She might also recognize that systems that need to collect light in order to function at full design power will need occasional cleaning, especially if they share city roof tops with pigeons and sea gulls or if they are in an area where there is a lot of soot in the air. That cleaning will not be a cheap event if the panels are in hard to reach, elevated places because there is a certainly level of hazard involved – gravity is one of the major killers in the building and maintenance trades.
The engineer would also carefully plot power demands against the known variations in the power from his solar system and he would also throw in some random variations for such factors as clouds and shadows from nearby trees – if any.
A real engineer would then honestly communicate with business types about what the system needs in order to function and help them determine what all of that costs.
I actually have gone through this exercise in a graduate engineering class a couple of times. i ended up up with a business model that is unsustainable – there is no ROI unless you can somehow persuade people to pay 4-6 times as much as they do for commercial power knowing that major portions of their system will need replacement by the 10-15 year point and knowing that many portions of their system are actually going to increase in price over time because they are based on the cost of commodities like glass, silicon, concrete, aluminum, steel, copper, etc. and not on the kinds of manufacturing efficiencies that can come from mass production.
We all know that the cost of computing power has decreased at a dramatic rate, but what most people do not really understand is that the cost per unit area of silicon based microchips or magnetic media for hard drives has actually increased. Solar energy is very much about the cost per unit area since sunlight has to be gathered in order to be used.
MANDATORY RENEWABLE ENERGY – THE ENERGY EVOLUTION –R9
In order to insure energy and economic independence as well as better economic growth without being blackmailed by foreign countries, our country, the United States of America’s Utilization of Energy sources must change.
“Energy drives our entire economy.” We must protect it. “Let’s face it, without energy the whole economy and economic society we have set up would come to a halt. So you want to have control over such an important resource that you need for your society and your economy.” The American way of life is not negotiable.
Our continued dependence on fossil fuels could and will lead to catastrophic consequences.
The federal, state and local government should implement a mandatory renewable energy installation program for residential and commercial property on new construction and remodeling projects with the use of energy efficient material, mechanical systems, appliances, lighting, etc. The source of energy must by renewable energy such as Solar-Photovoltaic, Geothermal, Wind, Biofuels, etc. including utilizing water from lakes, rivers and oceans to circulate in cooling towers to produce air conditioning and the utilization of proper landscaping to reduce energy consumption.
The implementation of mandatory renewable energy could be done on a gradual scale over the next 10 years. At the end of the 10 year period all construction and energy use in the structures throughout the United States must be 100% powered by renewable energy. (This can be done by amending building code)
In addition, the governments must impose laws, rules and regulations whereby the utility companies must comply with a fair “NET METERING” (the buying of excess generation from the consumer), including the promotion of research and production of “renewable energy technology” with various long term incentives and grants. The various foundations in existence should be used to contribute to this cause.
A mandatory time table should also be established for the automobile industry to gradually produce an automobile powered by renewable energy. The American automobile industry is surely capable of accomplishing this task.
This is a way to expedite our energy independence and economic growth. (This will also create a substantial amount of new jobs). It will take maximum effort and a relentless pursuit of the private, commercial and industrial government sectors commitment to renewable energy – energy generation (wind, solar, hydro, biofuels, geothermal, energy storage (fuel cells, advance batteries), energy infrastructure (management, transmission) and energy efficiency (lighting, sensors, automation, conservation) in order to achieve our energy independence.
“To succeed, you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality.”
Jay Draiman, Energy Consultant
Northridge, CA. 91325
1-16-2007
P.S. I have a very deep belief in America’s capabilities. Within the next 10 years we can accomplish our energy independence, if we as a nation truly set our goals to accomplish this.
I happen to believe that we can do it. In another crisis–the one in 1942–President Franklin D. Roosevelt said this country would build 60,000 [50,000] military aircraft. By 1943, production in that program had reached 125,000 aircraft annually. They did it then. We can do it now.
The American people resilience and determination to retain the way of life is unconquerable and we as a nation will succeed in this endeavor of Energy Independence.
Solar energy is the source of all energy on the earth (excepting volcanic geothermal). Wind, wave and fossil fuels all get their energy from the sun. Fossil fuels are only a battery which will eventually run out. The sooner we can exploit all forms of Solar energy (cost effectively or not against dubiously cheap FFs) the better off we will all be. If the battery runs out first, the survivors will all be living like in the 18th century again.
Every new home built should come with a solar package. A 1.5 kW per bedroom is a good rule of thumb. The formula 1.5 X’s 5 hrs per day X’s 30 days will produce about 225 kWh per bedroom monthly. This peak production period will offset 17 to 24 cents per kWh with a potential of $160 per month or about $60,000 over the 30-year mortgage period for a three-bedroom home. It is economically feasible at the current energy price and the interest portion of the loan is deductible. Why not?
Title 24 has been mandated forcing developers to build energy efficient homes. Their bull-headedness put them in that position and now they see that Title 24 works with little added cost. Solar should also be mandated and if the developer designs a home that solar is impossible to do then they should pay an equivalent mitigation fee allowing others to put solar on in place of their negligence.
Installing renewable energy system on your home or business increases the value of the property and provides a marketing advantage.
Nations of the world should unite and join together in a cohesive effort to develop and implement MANDATORY RENEWABLE ENERGY for the sake of humankind and future generations.
Both Jay and the Mark (the guest on the show) have repeated something that I have trouble understanding; they claim that essentially all energy on the Earth comes from the sun.
Can either one of you gentlemen please tell me how the sun deposited uranium or thorium into the earth?
The total amount of energy represented by these two heavy metals is truly mind boggling – each is present in the Earth’s crust and core at a level on the order of 10^17 kilograms, and it only takes about 3 kilograms of either one to power a city of a million people for a day.
Ignoring this proven source of energy makes your arguments seem a bit misinformed.
I have a question (and maybe you should have an opponent of the human inspired global warming to debate it, someone like Andrew Bolt) and I ask it as I have no opinion either way and definitely have done research on it. Is that actually refutable evidence this period of Global Warming is caused by man or is it only circumstantial evidence?
Molly
I believe the current position is that the vast majority of environmental scientists studying the issue agree that humans (women too Molly, not just “man”) are having a significant effect on global warming. It is debated by a small handful of “experts” who are funded by fossil fuel organizations to confuse the general public.
But is there evidence or its just their opinion? I don’t know, I am interested.
Molly
Cam:
I would like to add a little nuance here. You are correct that the vast majority of scientists of all fields understand that humans are having an impact on the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, and there is a belief that the impact is significant and increasing.
However, it is a legitimate and important area for study to determine the magnitude of that effect. It is not enough to simply understand that there is an effect, it is very important for decision making to put numbers on those effects to the best of our ability.
We need to be able to make rational choices about how much we need to spend to solve the issue and where those resources would best be directed.
If the world’s ability to support human life is at risk of imminent collapse, it would be rational to drop everything and focus on just that issue. However, if there is some time and some options it might be smarter to put some resources to this area and other resources to other problems like solving world hunger and inventing the next cool gadget for people like us.
“…there is a belief that the impact is significant and increasing”.
Well see now Rod, there is no way that Cam will trust the “belief” of Sciencists. He doesn’t believe in faith 1He wants hard evidence or else it is a Myth! And Cam doesn’t take kindly to Faith.
Molly
Rod, I’m all for “rational choices”. In all matters. Which, despite Molly’s sarcasm, brings us back to how people like yourself can be completely on the side of “rational choices” in one discussion, but then throw rationality out the window when it comes to talking about religion. I really am left scratching my head.
Anyway… is “the world’s ability to support human life” is only measurement we should be concerned about? Human life?
Data on sites like this (http://www.climateark.org/overview/) seem critical enough to me. But I’m no expert.
Cam:
The reason that I phrased it that way is that nothing that humans can do is going to destroy “the planet”. It is a really big ball of matter that will continue to exist even if we manage to completely change the climate on the surface to the point where even the cockroaches become uncomfortable.
Of course, there is a natural limit to our ability to do that since some of us will start dying off earlier and as we die off our ability to change the climate will be reduced.
Oh yeah, almost forgot to take the bait on the religion thing.
Yes, human life is what is of highest concern for me. There is no doubt in my mind that we are the highest form of life, mainly because have been gifted with the ability think, create (which caries with it the ability to destroy) and make conscious choices.
Of course, the quality of human life is enhanced by all of the amazing diversity of creation, so real caring about our fellow humans also leads us to care deeply about protecting the environment for all living creatures – with the possible exception of the fleas and mosquitos. I still think those were a bit of a mistake that we might collectively decide need elimination.