Peace Prize
Awarded to Al Gore and the IPCC for their work on climate change. Well deserved.

Electrification
From the Oregonian I pulled a piece on the lining of Oregon highways with solar panels, as is done in Europe. It’s stuff like that the keeps Oregon a leader. If the program is expanded sufficiently, it can power a railed transportation system that we are going to badly need in the very near future. You want details try egov.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/OIPP/INN_whatsnew.shtml

PV
PV is short for photovoltaic cell. A PV is a semiconductor and they are everywhere already. Your lifestyle would change dramatically if they were to disappear. They’re in cell phones, computers, cars, microwaves, washing machines and that sort of thing. The unit cost per ounce might be high but they only use a very small amount. But there’s an awful lot of semiconductor material in solar panels – an individual PV is larger than your hand. Makes the price something to think about.

Life for a semiconductor begins with perfectly pure silicon – silicon is everywhere but not in pure form. It costs a whole lot of money to purify it. Then it’s doped with stuff to make it a negative material or a positive. In very, very carefully graded amounts. No confusion permitted.

Thin-film semiconductors, which simply use less of the pure silicon are under assiduous development. Then there are developments in the formation of silicon crystals. Instead of a big slab rather like a pie that is cut up into little pieces, they are developing a ribbon process which requires less surgery.

But a really thrilling idea comes out of England. A chap there has found a source of already purified silicon, just sitting around in huge heaps in waste dumps. It’s a waste product from the manufacture of the ‘K’ part of KNP fertilizer – phosphorous. They come up with a million pounds of sodium fluorosilicate a year – it’s the pure quill, not an ore. That stuff will yield 187,000 pounds of pure silicon a year at the present level of fertilizer productions.

The author suggests PVs could be produced at a cost of $0.35 per watt from the stuff. I located a source that would sell me PVs for $2.91 per watt, but purchase price and manufacturers cost are not the same thing. Perhaps an 80% price reduction.

You want details go to EB (www.energybulletin.net if you are a newcomer here) and find “Photovoltaics: From Waste to Energy-maker, ” published on Oct. 8th with a link to the entire paper in “The Oil Drum.”

Summer Blues
It’s big news and I’m sure you already heard it. The Arctic ice shield– not Greenland but the ice shelf covering the north pole and surrounding seas – became a million square miles smaller than the 25 year average this summer. Half a million square miles less ice than last year. It was blue where it should have been white, which is in itself a trigger point. Recall that white reflects heat, blue loves the stuff and eats it right up. The good news is the polar night is settling in and the ice will come back – to a degree. It’s becoming thinner every year and more susceptible to summer warming.

The bad news is that spring has sprung in the Antarctic. You want to guess what might be going on down there? That’s all you can do – the scientists don’t know and they’ve got a lot of people down there trying to find out. Change is not always visible from the top of the ice – there are those infernal moulin which channel ice melt into glacial interiors and down to the bottom of the ice. There are some truly awe inspiring possibilities when that happens. Look up the experience in Iceland maybe a couple decades back, when one of their glaciers burst forth a sudden fury of flood water. I don’t think that killed anyone but it surely wiped out a highway for a considerable length of time and isolated an entire community until the event was over and a highway could be restored. The Antarctic has a whole lot more ice than Iceland and the possibilities are that much greater.

Bits and Pieces
Australia is burning up and wondering how it is going to obtain future water. The climate change there is not being dismissed, as it can be and generally is in this country. TIME Magazine carried a report by Alexis Okeowo in Kampala, wondering “Is Global Warming Drowning Africa.” Climatologists predict changing weather patterns worldwide, with increased precipitation in some areas (Oregon) and drought in others (Australia and southern California). And stuff is actually going on that justifies that prediction.

Going Somewhere?
Reported in USA Today: The commute to and from work is taking longer. “It seems there is a big lifestyle change here,” according to Alan Pisarski, author of a wide-ranging study on commuting in the U.S. But be it noted that “60 Minutes” reported that some people are simply working longer hours – up to 80 hours a week in what used to be 40 hour jobs. I know that my son-in-law, an LAPD cop, drives in real early to beat the traffic and finishes his night’s sleep in his car.

In another note published in EB on the same date (Transport, Sept. 12} Chris Palmeri and Keith Epstein, MSNBC reported on “Fear and loathing at the airport.” They note the threat of terrorism, antiquated technology, and the ever-turbulent finances of the airline industry as contributing causes. Air travel is increasing sharply. Meanwhile peak oil is coming very, very close. Maybe the monster is already under the bed.

A third article in the same EB report: “Gas Costs Spark High-Speed Rail Interest.” That’s on a national scale. Around here the Portland City Council is recommending that Oregon communities work together to establish just such as system for us to use. .

I sit back and daydream about travel in Europe. Ahhhh, those bullet trains. Hourly departures. Up to 250 mph. For a 500 mile trip, downtown to downtown those trains will beat planes even if airline schedules are kept (over there train schedules are kept.) At a thousand miles it remains a race and I’d rather be on the train anyway. If it’s a European or equivalent bullet train. Comfortable seating and decent privacy. No hassles. Ahhhh. Or sometimes how about the modern fast light rail and subway systems – D.C, San Francisco, Portland. Ahhhh. If steetcars are the answer to urban renewal, as Portland is proving, what are we waiting for? We need not fear rising fuel costs – emerging PV technologies (see above) are just waiting to be used.

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