Coffee Roasting and Popcorn Lung

it could happen soon, imagine your car parked in the sun with a plastic solar coating on the roof. Imagine every building surface generating clean electrical energy. Well, it could happen very soon (if hyperbolic sciencedaily press releases are to be believed, at any rate!).

ScienceDaily: New Plastic Solar Cell Breaks Efficiency Record

In order to be considered a viable technology for commercial use, solar cells must be able to convert about 8 percent of the energy in sunlight to electricity. Wake Forest researchers hope to reach 10 percent in the next year, said Carroll, who is also associate professor of physics at Wake Forest.

Because they are flexible and easy to work with, plastic solar cells could be used as a replacement for roof tiling or home siding products or incorporated into traditional building facades. These energy harvesting devices could also be placed on automobiles. Since plastic solar cells are much lighter than the silicon solar panels structures do not have to be reinforced to support additional weight.

Screw ethanol, put all your energy into developing solar and wind energy, battery technology and electric vehicles. See how much better an idea that is compared to corn ethanol.

The utilization of solar energy on a large scale requires its storage. In natural photosynthesis, energy from sunlight is used to rearrange the bonds of water to O2 and H2-equivalents. The realization of artificial systems that perform similar “water splitting” requires catalysts that produce O2 from water without the need for excessive driving potentials. Here, we report such a catalyst that forms upon the oxidative polarization of an inert indium tin oxide electrode in phosphate-buffered water containing Co2+. A variety of analytical techniques indicates the presence of phosphate in an approximate 1:2 ratio with cobalt in this material. The pH dependence of the catalytic activity also implicates HPO42– as the proton acceptor in the O2-producing reaction. This catalyst not only forms in situ from earth-abundant materials but also operates in neutral water under ambient conditions.

In Situ Formation of an Oxygen-Evolving Catalyst in Neutral Water Containing Phosphate and Co2+ — Kanan and Nocera, 10.1126/science.1162018 — Science

Don’t you just love the title of the paper? I would have titled the paper “Splitting Water for Cheap”. The author is interviewed here. This catalyst can split water into H2 and O2 using the energy from a solar cell. Then, when you need electricity, you recombine them in a fuel cell to make water and electricity. So, a closed loop with the only external input being the solar energy. Solar energy can now be stored almost painlessly.

It is so simple. I am listening to the interview and the author says this can be replicated in a chemistry lab as it only needs a phosphate buffer, cobalt electrode and a conducting glass.

Wonderful. Now, please stop building coal plants.

Tags: Environment, Solar energy

See, it was only a matter of time before liquid coal made its egregious way back to front and center of the “energy security” debate.

Lawmakers Push for Big Subsidies for Coal Process – New York Times

Prodded by intense lobbying from the coal industry, lawmakers from coal states are proposing that taxpayers guarantee billions of dollars in construction loans for coal-to-liquid production plants, guarantee minimum prices for the new fuel, and guarantee big government purchases for the next 25 years.

Liquid coal produces more CO2 than gasoline, so, all the coal makers are claiming that they will sequester the CO2, and use renewable energy to produce the coal, it’s a lie, and an expensive one at that.

It is going to be more expensive, more polluting, and more profitable for big coal companies at tax payers expense than any other options available.

In addition to construction loan guarantees, Mr. Boucher would
protect the first six liquid plants from drops in energy prices. If oil
prices fell below about $40 a barrel, the government would
automatically grant loans to the first six plants that make coal-based
fuels. If oil prices climbed to $80 a barrel, companies would have to
pay a surcharge to the government.

But the most important guarantee, many coal producers said, is the prospect of signing 25-year purchase contracts with the Air Force.

Wow, why can’t solar or wind energy get these kinds of incentives?

“There is financial uncertainty, which is inhibiting the flow of
private capital into the construction of coal-to-liquid facilities,”
said Mr. Boucher, who supports most of the proposals and is drafting
portions of the energy bill.

Yes, there is “financial uncertainty” because without the taxation of the American public, there is no hope of making money with this thing. It’s just a giant boondoggle to transfer money from the public sphere into coal companies.

The US is losing its collective mind!

Technorati Tags: environment, coal

Where for the n’th time, you get to use “EPA”, and “scales back rules” in one sentence.

E.P.A. Scaled Back Rules on Wetlands – New York Times

After a concerted lobbying effort by property developers, mine owners and farm groups, the Bush administration scaled back proposed guidelines for enforcing a key Supreme Court ruling governing protected wetlands and streams. The administration last fall prepared broad new rules for interpreting the decision, handed down by a divided Supreme Court in June 2006, that could have brought thousands of small streams and wetlands under the protection of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The draft guidelines, for example, would allow the government to protect marsh lands and temporary ponds that form during heavy rains if they could potentially affect water quality in a nearby navigable waterway. But just before the new guidelines were to be issued last September, they were pulled back in the face of objections from lobbyists and lawyers for groups concerned that the rules could lead to federal protection of isolated and insignificant swamps, potholes and ditches.

This is the consequence of a tortured Supreme Court ruling from June of last year where Justice Kennedy could not make up his mind on what was a wetland and what was not, so he helped hand down a very confusing verdict open to all kinds of interpretation. At that time, here’s what I said…

This will make things confusing for a while, and you all know who confusion favors!

Well, I told ya!

GE – we bring good things to life (and kill them with Diesel exhaust).

Clean Air Watch – Blog for Clean Air

General Electric Co., which is running a marketing campaign promoting itself as environmentally friendly, has pushed to weaken smog controls for railroad locomotives in rules about to be proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The rules, which could take effect between 2011 and 2017, are designed to cut smog and soot levels and would replace standards adopted in 1997. Since the rules would apply to new locomotives and could require changes on older ones, they would have a big effect on GE, which dominates the nearly $2 billion-a-year North American locomotive market. While the nation’s other locomotive maker and diesel-engine makers say they are prepared to meet the proposed new standard, GE argues it is “unlikely to be achieved” and has proposed a weaker one.

I have nothing to say, just another example of the plutocracy-protectionary principle, nothing new, same old Modus Operandi.