The Solar Road  

TreeHugger has an interesting post on Solar Roadways: Energy-Generating Roads Made Out of Glass and Solar Cells. Its all pretty pie-in-the-sky at the moment and I'm not sure what the EROEI on these things would be (or how robust they would be) but its an interesting idea.

Try following along with Scott Brusaw's series of convoluted calculations — premised, of course, on his own conservative assumptions — and you should come away agreeing with his basic argument: that a series of roads built out of solar panels could supply all of our country's energy needs several times over. At least that's what Brusaw, the founder of Solar Roadways — a company based out of his house in Idaho — is hoping to make policymakers and industry leaders see.

He has high hopes for his series of electric roads — in fact, he believes that they may very well hold the key to solving global warming. Going off of an estimate made by Caltech solar energy expert Nate Lewis — who estimated that covering 1.7% of the U.S.' land surface with 10%-efficient solar energy converters would supply our current energy demand — Brusaw theorized that paving the country's interstate highway system (which incidentally covers close to 1.7% of the nation's land surface) with glass panels that could collect and distribute solar energy would accomplish that goal. The solar cells would create enough energy to light the road at night, heat it in the winter and power buildings — each mile could supply as many as 500 homes, according to Brusaw.

His system of roadways — which would consist of three superimposed layers — would contain a revised version of the nation's electric grid (complete with a distributed network of independent power sources) and a network of fiber optic cables for television and communication. In addition, a "smart" system would be able to reduce gridlock by reconfiguring travel lanes, warn drivers of impending construction, accidents or adverse weather events and even protect wildlife by keeping them off the road.

He estimates that the cost of producing a single 12' X 12' Solar Roadway panel could reach about $5,000 — and that about 4.84 billion would be required to make his scheme work. As promising as his grand plan may sound, he's still in the very early phases of his project and will need to overcome many more challenges — not the least of which is developing the enabling technologies for the roadways — before he can even come close to making it all happen. Still, it certainly sounds like a worthy endeavor that could, time and technology permitting, help make a large dent in global warming.

SciDev has a look at the development of simple and cheap technologies in Nepal - spreading micro energy generation throughout the Himalayas. The amount of micro-hydro power available there, for example, must be staggering (the same would hold for wind).

Almost unnoticed, Nepal is developing simple and cheap technologies that make the best of local resources and don't damage the environment. Down a narrow alley in Kathmandu's historic heart, through a low door, you enter Akal Man Nakarmi's workshop. Nakarmi's surname means 'metalsmith' and the soft-spoken craftsman's ancestors crafted copper utensils and forged statues of deities in bronze.

Today, Nakarmi makes small turbines called Peltric Sets for micro-hydro electric generation plants across the Himalaya. He can't keep up with demand. Nepal's successes in scientific application in recent decades aren't about grandiose hydropower dams or major infrastructure projects.

The new technologies that have worked have been indigenously designed, based on traditional skills and knowledge, and are cheap and easy to use and maintain. In fact, to visit Nepal these days is to see the 'small is beautiful' concept of development economist E. F. Schumacher in action.

Grist reports that There's Cash in Them There Fires - "Oil fires in Nigeria can be source of cash for impoverished residents".

Some residents in Nigeria's oil-rich river delta have resorted to setting fires to an oil pipeline to force companies like Shell to pay citizens to enter the area to put out the fire. One of the most recent blazes, which was extinguished only about two weeks ago, raged for 45 days, sickening nearby residents and polluting the area with thick black smoke before Shell finally agreed to pay some $800 to locals to be allowed in to extinguish it. The tactic and others like it, including draining oil from the pipeline to sell, as well as outright sabotage, stem from desperation and resentment. Nigeria is the United States' fifth-largest oil supplier; exports to the U.S. rose by $20 billion in the last five years. Yet little of the oil money actually reaches the poor residents of the oil-rich region where most of the crude is produced. Says local activist Ledum Mitee, "Our people are dying, it's only when oil stops that they take notice."

Wired has a post on using Fungi To Make Biodiesel Efficiently at Room Temperature.

Scientists at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology have found a much better way to make biodiesel. Their new method could lower the cost and increase the energy efficiency of fuel production.

Instead of mixing the ingredients and heating them for hours, the chemical engineers pass sunflower oil and methanol through a bed of pellets made from fungal spores. An enzyme produced by the fungus does the work -- making biodiesel with impressive efficiency.

Last Monday, Ravichandra Potumarthi showed off his work during a poster session at the International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. After returning to his lab in Hyderabad, he was able to send out some pictures of his experimental reactor (shown on right) and the fungal pellets.

Typically, biodiesel is made by mixing methanol with lye and vegetable oil and then heating the brew for several hours. This bonds the methanol to the oils to produce energetic molecules called esters. Unfortunately, heating the mixture is a huge waste of energy, and a major selling point of alternative fuels is efficiency. An enzyme called lipase can link link oil to methanol without any extra heating, but the pure protein is expensive.

Potumarthi has a simple solution. Why bother purifying the lipase? It would be easier to just find an organism that produces plenty of the enzyme and squish it into pellets. In this case, the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae does the trick.

Recently, several huge research centers have sprung up to develop better ways to make biofuels. Considering that a handful of chemical engineers can accomplish so much on what appears to be a shoestring budget, the future of alternative fuels looks pretty good -- but maybe a bit slimy.

Kelpie Wilson has an interview with Leonardo DiCaprio about his new movie "The 11th Hour"

As a celebrated actor, Leonardo DiCaprio has had many hours in the media sun, but mere celebrity does not seem to be enough for him. He also wants to change the world, and he has created a new documentary called "The 11th Hour" with that revolutionary purpose in mind. Concerned with global warming and environmental catastrophe, the film has its own action web site at ww.11thhouraction.com.

The film is not about DiCaprio, but about all of us, for we are all actors in the drama of planetary survival. That is made clear by the banner streaming across the film's web site: "We are the generation that gets to change the world forever. Let's begin."

"The 11th Hour" is opening on August 17 in New York and Los Angeles. DiCaprio made the film with the help of two sisters - Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners. Nadia agreed to answer a few questions for Truthout readers.

...KW: The film seems like it will emphasize technical solutions to our problems. Does that mean there is nothing we can really do until science comes up with these solutions?

NC: We do talk about existing technologies as both transitional solutions and long-term solutions, but technology is nothing without an evolution in culture. We need to regain our citizenship - we have been turned into full-time consumers, and as a result, the infrastructure of our physical and mental society is in collapse. How are we going to demand that the administration - this one or the next - build green or develop better transportation systems or retool the wasteful processes of the industrial production system if we don't engage as humans on a political level? The technologies exist right now that can dramatically reduce our impact on the planet - but they are not being implemented at the scale needed to make the difference we desperately need right now. We need a societal movement on the level of the civil rights movement to take back the power we have lost, so that we can begin to push for changes that serve the greater good of people and the planet, and not just the corporate few.

KW: Two very important but often neglected aspects of the environmental crisis are peak oil and human overpopulation. Does "The 11th Hour" address either of these?

NC: We did many interviews about peak oil with Richard Heinberg and Matthew Simmons, but were unable to successfully weave it into the flow of our film. Even so, oil is still the subplot of our movie. We look at it on multiple levels - how it has enabled us to consume resources at an accelerated rate, its contributions to global warming, its impact on the tremendous population explosion in this last century, as well as the oil corporations' collusion with government.

Charlie Stross has some typically British understated advice to the UK government on withdrawing from Iraq.

he British Army is gearing up to pull out of Iraq, specifically from the southern area around Basra where they've been unsuccessfully trying to contain the local Shi'ite militias.

Leaving aside the pros and cons of a decision to quit Basra, one of the more disturbing aspects of the withdrawal will be what happens to the interpreters who have been working with the British. The Foreign Office, it seems, is unwilling to grant asylum to the 91-odd interpreters (and their families) who have been working for the British Army, and who can expect to be treated as collaborators and traitors by the militias once the army pulls out. It's a high risk job in the first place; meanwhile Defense Secretary Des Brown is saying that up to 20,000 Iraqis have been working for the British since the invasion in 2003, and that trying to help them is "impractical".

I have to admit that I'm conflicted over calls to cry "shame!" at our ministers for this wonderfully spineless display of pandering to the worst instincts of the Daily Mail.

On the one hand, a reasonable and impartial observer might think that the British government owes a debt of honour to the civilians who have, at great risk to their own lives, assisted them in their mission to pacify Iraq.

On the other hand, let's play devil's advocate: what if the British government, in a craven fit of short-term electoral calculation panders to the instincts of the pull-up-the-drawbridge little-Englanders, sticks up two fingers at the wogs, and says "thanks, now fuck off"?

Doubtless the sight of collaborators' heads on sticks will provide much food for thought to any residents of failed states who are asked to throw in their lot with the next brutal and illegal imperialist invasion. And insofar as making it harder for the bastards to rape and pillage other countries is a good thing, might not the lives of 91 translators — hung out to dry by their soi-disant employers — actually be a cheap down-payment?

Here's my considered advice to the British government: if you think there's even the remotest shadow of a chance that at some future time you'll need to send troops overseas, let all 20,000 of your collaborators (and their families) in. Full right of residence and/or British citizenship, plus a golden handshake sufficient to buy a crappy little Barratt box in a new town somewhere in the midlands: nothing less will do. Because if you don't, you're going to find it a hell of a lot harder to buy quislings and spies eyes and ears on the ground the next time your Dear Leader decides to play Sancho Panza to some doomed quixotic adventure.

Or, if you want to go all-out to win that October surprise election you can sacrifice them on the altar of Paul Dacre's immigrant obsession. That's okay; what's another 91 lives on top of the hundreds of thousands you've killed and the millions you've exiled already? Accept that you're not going to be able to dance the force projection fandango in future, write off the Neocon invasion fantasies as a bad wet-dream, and get back to the serious business of corrupt PFI deals and running your own little banana republic. That's my advice, incidentally. You don't even have to worry that anybody will think any the worse of you for it — we already know you're a bunch of hypocritical little shits with about as much moral sense as your cousins from Enron, and a tasteless habit of masturbating over recon photographs of cluster bomb attacks on wedding parties.

Links:

* Open The Future - I've Got A Fever... And The Only Cure... Is More Calvin
* Evolution Shift - Curing our "Global Fever": An Interview with William H. Calvin
* Dave Roberts - APEC's weak brew on climate
* Joseph Romm - RFF must-read: The Stern Report got it right
* Washington Post - Warming Will Exacerbate Global Water Conflicts
* Christian Science Monitor - Who resolves Arctic oil disputes?
* Resurce Investor - Peak Oil Passnotes: Falling Markets, Stable Crude. Why?
* The Guardian - US increases pressure on Iraqi prime minister. Still haven't handed over the oil.
* Early Warning - Washington to Maliki: Help!. "That means ramming the U.S. sponsored, and written, 'oil law' up the Iraqi people's ass, right?"
* ZMag - Iraq Progress Report: A Time to Assess and Reflect
* Peak Engineer - The complexity of modern life
* WorldChanging - $100 Laptop, Meet The $100 Desktop
* SMH - A constitutional coup d'etat