Mike’s ramblings

AutoblogGreen has found an awesome video from Stephen Colbert’s show ‘The Colbert Report’. At the same time it is really funny (I really like his show) and shows how misleading the ad campaigns of the oil companies are. They split up how the money you pay for gas (in this case one dollar) is spent on their side. Profit is nowhere to be seen…

Researchers from the German university of Kassel have linked together several wind, solar, biogas and hydro power plants to explore the possibility of satisfying Germany’s electricity needs only from renewable sources. The problem they are trying to solve is that wind and sun can not be controlled.

If the power from these plants would go into the grid without any precautionary measurements they could take out the whole system. There have to be mechanisms to react to too much or not enough power going into a grid. With the addition of storage through hydro plants and controllable biogas plants, these problems seem to be solved. The researchers say their study shows, that Germany could be powered by 100% of renewable energy.

Nanosolar a company started by German founder Martin Roscheisen recently shipped its first CIGS solar panels. They have developed a technique to print their light active ink onto all kinds of materials. The thin-film panels produced this way come out at price of $1/watt for a total installation cost of around $2/watt. This makes the technique comparable to coal energy (which costs about $2.10/watt)!

In this price included is a nice margin for Nanosolar. They report that the costs to produce the panels are around 40 cents/watt. These numbers are amazing. What is even better is the fact that this company is already mass-producing these panels. If they continue to drive down the costs, we can soon cover all kinds of surfaces with these panels. These are truly exciting times in my opinion.

AutoBlogGreen has a story about a nice idea developed by Scott Brusaw and his wife. The idea itself is pretty simple and tries to solve several problems at once. We all know solar energy is good, but there is also the problem, that it uses a lot more space than its ungreen counterparts like coal plants et cetera. If we would put solar cells into our roads under a translucent layer, the deserts would remain a free habitat for wildlife. The potential space to use in America is huge. There are 65′000 square kilometers of roadways and parking lots that could be used as space for solar cells. Of course this makes only sense if we manage to produce cheap solar cells, and even better organic cheap solar cells. That these cells only come at an efficiency of about 4% is no problem, if we consider the huge amount of space that could be covered with them.

Another interesting possibility of this type of road would be the possibility to include LEDs to show all kinds of signs, including warnings from accidents. The problems to solve are, as mentioned above, the production of cheap solar cells and to find a material that is translucent and hard-wearing. It would probably also make sense if the parts would be reusable, because roads get rebuilt quite often.

Treehugger (and Environmental Economics, Matthew Yglesias) has a story about a poll made by American Environics which concerns American’s main priorities (the title is “Energy Attitudes”) and gives us a hint how good the candidates match with the mainstream.

The study’s objection is to show how the perception of the issue of global warming and general awareness of the environment is changing in the minds of the American public. The result is, that there is a change; but a slow one. Old Christian values still dominate the voters priority list, so it is not surprising, that the most important issue is gay marriage.

A comparison of issues voters deem “very important” between 2006 and 2007 show almost no improvement or even a deterioration for “Environment” and “Global warming”. About half of the people asked (56%) think the environment is an important issue though.

The preoccupying sorrows of the American still seem to be about terrorism and all-time runners like taxes or the economy. It will still be a long time until people open up to issues, which are not or don’t seem imminent to them. Sadly the horizon of many doesn’t reach farther than their own backyard. Let us hope that we can tackle the problems we face, before it is not possible to ignore them anymore.

To obtain more facts and numbers you can read the full report here. (PDF) A short summary of the main points (copied from the PDF):

• The public overwhelmingly believes global warming is occurring and demands action.
• Global warming remains a relatively low priority for voters, despite high-profile and extensive media attention in 2006 and 2007.
• Both the cost of energy and energy independence are higher priority concerns than global warming.
• Voters strongly support large investments into clean energy sources to achieve energy independence and deal with global warming.
• Voters say they would pay more for energy in the abstract, but vote against it in the concrete.
• There is less concern about taxes and the size of government today than in the mid-1990s