Energy... the Archival Thread.

[Zen-like Todd]

Ok... I think this is an interesting topic, so I'm just going to start throwing links to articles in here, and if anyone else knows of any cool articles about different energy sources, feel free to add to it.


This one is about California state initiatives to spur fuel cell development.
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1020687



This is a Dean Kamen article from Wired magazine well before the Segway hype started up. The Segway is nice and all, but his work on the Stirling engine could wind up being FAR more revolutionary.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.09/kamen_pr.html




This article is brand new. Sandia labs has figured out a way to get the efficiency of a standard incadescent light bulb up to 60% from 5%. That would mean a 10 watt bulb that give off the light of today's 120 watt bulbs. It means less energy consumption, and light bulbs that are cool to the touch (without being retarded flourescent bulbs). The same technology could have applications in making solar panels 5 times as effective, which could drastically lower the cost per kilowatt of using solar panels. Think of the implications for reduced consumption on the light bulb end, and the increased prospects of environmentally sound, infinitely renewable energy sources on the solar cell end.
http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2002/tungsten.htm

[Om]

Interesting stuff.

Seems to me the next big revolution (medical and technological being already well underway) is going to be the development of a functional and efficient alternative energy source. Besides the obvious ecological and economic advantages ... just imagine the effect on the world's current political and cultural gulf, and the immediate crisis of apparently irreconcilable ideologies. The day big oil money dries up in the middle east is the day the al Qaeda's and Islamic Jihad's begin to wither and die.

That's not just me talking, by the way. That's what they're saying downtown at State (having plied my Dad and some of his cronies with plenty of cold beer and a ribeye or two). :)

And damn, man ... I want a Segway. Mine is going to have a killer sound system and those spur things that those chariot dudes in Ben Hur had on their chariot wheels.

Don't feel bad that more people haven't weighed in on this thread, brother. My guess is that they - not unlike me until lumbering into action just now - just don't have the energy.