Hi Horace, You're right but what would be the right message?
Regarding your EnergyCosts.pdf I noticed you focused on capital cost in USD/W, following most authors. It seems to me a more meaningful although probably more difficult to evaluate figure would be the actual bottom line energy cost for the user (e.g. in USDcents/kWh as in your last table which is a bit outdated unfortunately (1996)), as capital cost reflects neither labor cost nor longevity nor transportation costs nor CO2 emission compensation costs etc... Then maybe the message could be brought to the people in the form of a single cents/kWh vs Year graph featuring one curve per energy type, showing the past evolution and projecting into the future. Past and foreseeable technological steps, such as printed CIGS for solar, would show as (hopefully downgoing) steps in the curves. Michel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Horace Heffner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 2:47 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Ethanol as a fuel > > On Jul 16, 2007, at 3:07 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: > >> The article below from today's NYT throws some light on the reasons >> why US energy research funding doesn't make sense. >> >> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/business/16solar.html? >> _r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all > > It is really all a matter of where prices are heading, a subject > about which the author seems to have no grasp. See: > > http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/EnergyCosts.pdf > > Solar has been experiencing exponential growth and price drops for > some time and will continue to do so. The price of energy is going > up. Solar will soon be competitive with coal steam turbine (for many > applications, especially car battery charging), based on > manufacturing capacity increases alone. It appears solar panels have > already beat the sterling engine solar collector game by a large margin. > > Effective energy storage systems are just now coming into the > picture, and can change things dramatically. The problem is > developing the political will to make things happen fast in the face > of lobbying which not in the best interest of the public, a fact the > author covered well. One of the arguments against making things > happen fast is typically protecting jobs. The fact is, there are few > jobs in the energy industry at present compared to the number that > could be generated by replacing the cost of mining energy (low local > labor intensity) with the cost of producing equipment to manufacture > it from a free source and install and retrofit existing real estate > and vehicles (high local labor intensity). The key to making things > happen right may be to simply get the message to the people. > > Horace Heffner > http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/ > > >
