Nate Luis was very detailed in his research and will help me a lot as I do my own. As I was looking through my research I could not decide which green energy or other energy solution I should choose. I was tied between wind and solar for quite a while as wind will probably be introduced on the Neighbors ranch, and solar panels were almost installed on our house. In the video, he showed that wind power does not provide that much power, even if we covered our planet with it. Then showing us the amount of solar panels we would need.
Although he pointed out that not all the solar panels would be concentrated in one location, I believe that that option would be the highest potential at this time. But we are still behind in finding options about transportation of that energy. Our solutions range from local panels on each house and stored by battery to further options such as a globalized source running large high gauge cables.
Too concentrated of a power facility (taking up a state his his map) seems a little bit unfeasible as it is like "putting all your eggs in one basket". Creating a threat if that one facility had to replace a crucial component, terrorist incident, cloudy day and so fourth... Paint on houses seem like a great option, but towns without sun (such as Oregon and Washington that rain every other day) are in for a big surprise. A mixture of transportation and localized solutions need to be addressed.
Touching on Harmatz' topic for a second, I believe that we need a major break though in that technology to even be considered a possibility 50 years in the future, let alone 100 years. If we somehow stumble upon some miracle reaction, than this option could possibly knock itself into a placement, but it would have too be monumentally better. (then again, so would solar)
Monday, February 22, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
More sources
"NRG Expands Its Renewable Energy Business - WSJ.com." Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com. N.p., 27 Nov. 2009. Web. 13 Feb. 2010. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091127-704709.html>.
This article is more of an inspiration article showing the NRG cooperation about to heavily invest in Solar technologies in 2009 and expects to be finished some time in 2009. The companies only interest in renewable energy is due to the tax cuts. Including a “30% investment tax credit and loan guarantees” as it quotes in the article. Not exactly breaking away from the companies numerous coal and nuclear plants it uses to gather electricity.
This article makes me want to focus towards Solar panels (NRG's choice for renewable energy), because they find it to be the best investment right now. Getting a company such as NRG to make a choice to place in solar panels instead of the many other choices shows that solar panels have a lot of potential (at least from their business research).
[As a side note: I didn't realize why they called the company NRG until the very end of the article, that was sad]
This article explains what GE plans to do to increase jobs for renewable resources. It explains that they hope to make 650 jobs with an average salary of $75,000. But it seems that the only reason why GE is going this route is due to the company receiving money from the government to do so. As well as to get public attention to buy their product to ring in the buyers head when they product that “they did the right thing by buying from a company that supports renewable resources.
With the grants from the government “$750,000 grants from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to help offset construction costs of the $45 million building.”
Going a little bit back in time to see their predictions (October 2008). This article was published right when the stock market crashed all the way to the bottom (and while it was still declining). The article was a little worried that due to the stock market crash, some of the stocks for renewable energy went down about 30%. That's quite a lot and hindered the green energy companies.
It seems to me that from the articles I posted from the last blog and these articles that solar panels seem to be the most promising. The solar panels are favored over wind due to the small compact spaces it can fit (as well as out of site on roofs). Solar panels are very effective option I have seen yet. Wind Power is still a great option, but not for the heavily populated areas such as San Diego. Wind power has to be strategically placed in very windy regions.
For my project I will I am heavily considering showing the public the way we should make our population look like with green energy. The path of energy we are on is getting better as we constantly increase our technology towards greener energies such as solar and wind; but it is not enough where we can let it slide. We are running low on our dominant fossil fuel resources which generate our cars and create electricity. Without another energy alternative, we will either run out, or we will suffer other consequences from our atmosphere.
There are many categories of energy to cover and each need its own energy solution.
House
Portable / Hand-held devices
Automobiles
Aircraft
Business'
Sea Transportation
City lights
and more
With a lot to cover, we need to get started to finish all that in time.
To show all this information in a presentable project, I am thinking about showing two countries in contrast to another, one that successfully went green, and one that kept the old ways. The new ways looking like a combination of a big city with solar panels on the sky scrapers. No flying cars, but maybe cars that look like the Prius (but with a different sticker).The other side, well, that's not too hard to get.
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