What we wonder is this: has oil reached a new high, or has the U. S. Dollar hit a new low?

 

Not really, no.

While gas prices will certainly put pressure on everyone from the car makers to the government to do something as people complain and make do, I'm still paying for fuel, even if it is only once a month. What started as less then $20 has jumped to nearly $40 a month now. Sure the guy in the Hummer is now paying 10 times that or whatever, but I'm still paying twice what I was when I got my Hybrid back in '05.

Though it does look like either this tank or the next tank will put me ahead of "myself" had I bought a conventional Escape rather than the FEH in negating the hybrid "premium" in gas savings.

 

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!

CNN says some New York Hotels / Merchants ( where they see a lot of visitors ) are accepting Euros for goods and services. Is that legal?

CNN says Mexicans are buying goods in the U.S. because it is cheaper for them over here... using pesos. Is that possible?

 

To answer your two questions:

#1) No it is not legal. But neither is illegal immigration. The question is does our government do anything about it? Of course not. Our government is controlled by corporate interests.

#2) Yes it is perfectly legal. I doubt the validity of this claim but if it were true it would be 100% legal.

 

Only when the economy completely collapses and you go looking for that gold you all think you own will you realize you can't eat gold even if you can get your hands on it.

Solar panels and wind turbines have actual value, as does arable land and the ability to grow food. Gold, diamonds, flat screen TVs and Luis Viton purses, iphones and other things most people value are actually meaningless if you spend the time to think about it for a few minutes.

 

Well if the economy collapses to the point that gold loses its value do you really think property rights would be respected?

Also gold is a much better store of value than PV panels: the price of those have been falling every decade and the efficiency has been going up so like anything technology related they might depreciate quicker due to obsolescence.

Unless you are seriously worried about grid crash and the securing your own electricity in this case solar isn't as wise an investment as gold. I don't know enough about wind turbines to comment.

 

You might want to take some time to look into solar, as well, since the price on PV panels has been rising, not falling: see e.g., http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1425/

And conventional panels haven't seen all that much in terms of advancements, unfortunately.

While thin-film technology looks promising, it could be that solar power will actually be more expensive than it is right now going into the future. There's a lot of competition for silicone of sufficient purity.

Look, I'm just saying that if in the high-energy-cost future you come over to my house to charge your cell phone and offer me some gold doubloons, I'm going to laugh about what I'm supposed to do with gold. But I might consider, you know, letting you charge up for some oranges and tomatoes.

As for property rights in the high-energy-cost future: yeah, that's a whole other story.

 

But they have if this company SunPower's claims are true. They have a 315 & 305 watt PV panels that are the same size as 200/215watt ones so offer 50% more power output for the same amount of space. The 315 watt one (not available in the US not sure why) is 22.7% energy efficient, easily 50% more than conventional PV panels. I've read on the 'net that the Mars Rovers use ~40% efficient solar panels, not sure if this is true but if so it means there is a lot of technology ready to trickle down in this industry.

http://www.sunpowercorp.com/Smarter-...ter_Final.ashx

Right now Sunpower is capitalizing on their innovation by premium pricing: going after the corporate segment where roof space is a limiting factor, but the cost per watt appears the same as conventional panels from what I've read. In 20 years when this stuff comes off patent it will be commoditized like other PV panels and the cost/watt of PV will drop accordingly (it obviously doesn't cost 50% more to manufacture and installation costs will be cheaper).

Increased demand I agree with is what is pushing up prices currently. The industry (suppliers) are growing pretty explosively now though and the supply-demand imbalance has to be a short-term phenomena. Solar was a cottage industry until 2003 or so and is growing very rapidly--hence the temporary lack of availability of sufficient supply.

I think (hope) the renewable energy vs cheap energy debate may very well wind up like the stem-cell debate. Technology advances to the point to make it a moot point. I admittedly don't know a lot about the supply chain issues with silicon, but suppliers will step in if theres money to be made.

20 years from now I see a PV system as being at least 33% cheaper on a cost per watt basis. It still might not be as cheap as coal but it will make the investment a lot easier for most people.

Thin film might be viable for people in rural areas where space is not an issue, but most of the population lives in suburban and urban areas where it is, so I think TF will have a much more limited market.

 

The sun only puts out 1500 watts per square meter, at 90' angle.
( noon at the equator )

With lower sun angle at other parts of the day, or living at higher lattitudes, you get less. Add in clouds/fog/smog and you get less.

Let's say on average you have 1000w per square meter to "catch".
Let's say you have some of those million-dollar NASA panels that are 40% efficient. ( I do think that is correct BTW )

You can, on average, capture 400w per square meter.
The whole area of the roof/hood/trunk is say, rounding, 3 square meters.

Say you have 10 hours of daylight.
You could capture, realistically, 12kWh of power.
That is about 50 miles of driving.
So best case, at exceptional cost (six figures I'm sure... $100,000+ ) you could have a 50 mile solar powered car.
But it wouldn't be a fancy car.
It wouldn't be a large family car.
It wouldn't be a vacation car.
It wouldn't have air-conditioning, or if it did, you would have 25 miles of range...total. Same for adding heat in winter = lowered range.

But you could, in theory, have a solar commuter car, like the Insight.
You would need to go less than 25 miles one-way...
Or if you went 50 miles one-way, you'd need to plug-in to recharge at night.

Possible, just very, very expensive right now.

 

Maybe not solar cars, but I envision plug in vehicles moving more and more into the mainstream over the next 5-20 years and the grid capacity coming from massive PV arrays and wind farms.

It is quite possible that by 2040-2050 solar will have lower cot per watt than coal if technology keeps up, maybe even sooner, here is a good blog on this:

http://entropyproduction.blogspot.co...lar-power.html