Consolidated Climate Change/CO2/Global Warming Thread

[Techneon]

Pretty sure this isn't specific to just climatechange/co2/global warming, but nevertheless I saw this linked on ecogeek.com earlier today:


Ny Times

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nanosolar, a heavily financed Silicon Valley start-up whose backers include Google’s co-founders, plans to announce Tuesday that it has begun selling its innovative solar panels, which are made using a technique that is being held out as the future of solar power manufacturing.

The company, which has raised $150 million and built a 200,000-square-foot factory here, is developing a new manufacturing process that “prints” photovoltaic material on aluminum backing, a process the company says will reduce the manufacturing cost of the basic photovoltaic module by more than 80 percent.

Nanosolar, which recently hired a top manufacturing executive from I.B.M., said that it had orders for its first 18 months of manufacturing capacity. The photovoltaic panels will be made in Silicon Valley and in a second plant in Germany.

While many photovoltaic start-up companies are concentrating on increasing the efficiency with which their systems convert sunlight, Nanosolar has focused on lowering the manufacturing cost. Its process is akin to a large printing press, rather than the usual semiconductor manufacturing techniques that deposit thin films on silicon wafers.

Nanosolar’s founder and chief executive, Martin Roscheisen, claims to be the first solar panel manufacturer to be able to profitably sell solar panels for less than $1 a watt. That is the price at which solar energy becomes less expensive than coal.

“With a $1-per-watt panel,” he said, “it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems.”

According to the Energy Department, building a new coal plant costs about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions, he said.

The first Nanosolar panels are destined for a one-megawatt solar plant to be installed in Germany on a former landfill owned by a waste management company. The plant, being developed by Beck Energy, is expected to initially supply electrical power for about 400 homes.

The company chose to build its plant in southern San Jose, news that was cheered by local development officials. Much of the microelectronics industry created here has moved to Asia and new factories are a rare commodity in Silicon Valley.

I'd read about them before, but now they have a big factory and are producing

[Draffa]

Originally Posted by Ravenclaw

so much for evidence based science where we can't verify proxies against present day instrumental data.

But the pre-testing data is still useable, which is why it was included.

Originally Posted by Techneon

Pretty sure this isn't specific to just climatechange/co2/global warming, but nevertheless I saw this linked on ecogeek.com earlier today:

Now we just need one of those plants humming along down here.

The question is, will $2/Watt systems finally shut the naysayers up, or will they think of some other excuse?

I wonder how the sILVER cells are coming along.

[Draffa]

Linky.

"There is nothing about any 'carbon dioxide' in the Bible," said Rev. Luke Hatfield of Christchurch Ministries in Topeka, KS.

[mr_id84]

Hi all. Sorry for sidetracking the current discussion for just a moment.

I'm looking for something, and any help would be greatly appreciated! Does anyone remember a little while ago there was an interesting animated/interactive flash diagram detailing the levels of CO2 emissions per country, among other statistics (population etc.), floating around the web? I've been searching for some time now without luck.

It look like a map of the world, and you can select different stats to display and they show up as bubbles which vary in size according to the amount of that stat.

I know it's probably out of date by now, but if anyone has it or knows where to find it please let me know.

Thank you!

[Draffa]

Gapminder?

[mr_id84]

That's the one. Thank you Draffa!

[Draffa]

Older Arctic sea ice replaced by young, thin ice, says CU-Boulder study

A new study by University of Colorado at Boulder researchers indicates older, multi-year sea ice in the Arctic is giving way to younger, thinner ice, making it more susceptible to record summer sea-ice lows like the one that occurred in 2007.

The team used satellite data going back to 1982 to reconstruct past Arctic sea ice conditions, concluding there has been a nearly complete loss of the oldest, thickest ice and that 58 percent of the remaining perennial ice is thin and only 2-to-3 years old, said the lead study author, Research Professor James Maslanik of CU-Boulder's Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research. In the mid-1980s, only 35 percent of the sea ice was that young and that thin according to the study, the first to quantify the magnitude of the Arctic sea ice retreat using data on the age of the ice and its thickness, he said.

"This thinner, younger ice makes the Arctic much more susceptible to rapid melt," Maslanik said. "Our concern is that if the Arctic continues to get kicked hard enough toward one physical state, it becomes increasingly difficult to reestablish the sea ice conditions of 20 or 30 years ago."

A September 2007 study by CU-Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center indicated last year's average sea ice extent minimum was the lowest on record, shattering the previous September 2005 record by 23 percent. The minimum extent was lower than the previous record by about 1 million square miles -- an area about the size of Alaska and Texas combined.

[Goth]

Originally Posted by Techneon

Pretty sure this isn't specific to just climatechange/co2/global warming, but nevertheless I saw this linked on ecogeek.com earlier today:


Ny Times


I'd read about them before, but now they have a big factory and are producing

It's good that the cost of fabricating the cells is coming down, but I still think that the ability to use solar collectors on a very large scale is intrinsically limited, simply because of how limited the energy flux that reaches the earth from the sun is. Under sunny conditions, you might only get 500-600 watts per square meter, on the ground. Throw in the inefficiency of a photovoltaic cell, and you get what, 100 watts per square meter?

So, to match a typical large stationary power plant, you need 10 square kilometres of solar collectors.

[yanman]

SBS tonight - The Cutting Edge on nuclear power in Australia

[Draffa]

Originally Posted by Goth

So, to match a typical large stationary power plant, you need 10 square kilometres of solar collectors.

The flipside is that existing stationary power plants already occupy sites measuring many square kilometres anyway.

[yanman]

Did anyone watch the show last night? I recorded it but haven't gotten around to watching it it yet - I want to edit out the commercials and convert it to xvid

[RnR]

2007 Was Tied as Earth's Second-Warmest Year.

Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City have found that 2007 tied with 1998 for Earth's second warmest year in a century.

"It is unlikely that 2008 will be a year with truly exceptional global mean temperature," said Hansen. "Barring a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature clearly exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next few years, at the time of the next El Nino, because of the background warming trend attributable to continuing increases of greenhouse gases."

The eight warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080116/

[Ravenclaw]

Originally Posted by Draffa

The question is, will $2/Watt systems finally shut the naysayers up, or will they think of some other excuse?

I wonder how the sILVER cells are coming along.

if solar becomes cheaper then you start to see a real shift to solar because no-one would choose to build coal over solar. but that is the problem. solar is more expensive than coal and it is not the nay-sayers that are stopping solar but the technology itself.

[Wink]

Just watched Top Gear Classic episode on SBS and they had a chart showing that most of the world's CO2 came from nature and humans only contributed a single figure percentage.

Is this true?
If so why do we care so much about vehicle/powerplant emissions?

[TaO!]

Originally Posted by Wink

Just watched Top Gear Classic episode on SBS and they had a chart showing that most of the world's CO2 came from nature and humans only contributed a single figure percentage.

Is this true?
If so why do we care so much about vehicle/powerplant emissions?

Yes, I believe it's true, but it's probably a disingenuous representation. Someone else is probably better at explaining source-->sink and atmospheric lifetime... If it has anything to do with it at all.