Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Final Slipper Falls


Earlier today, I met with a colleague who works as a wind land man. We talked about several sites and chatted about the old days when we worked together. In those days, landowners didn't quite know what to think about you when you contacted them and told them that you were quite possibly going to make them a lot of money from the wind that flowed over their lands.

I think a lot of them didn't quite believe it.

Now, with perhaps 9,000 MW of wind installed in Texas alone, that is no longer the case. Sure, most Landowners still want the money, but now, some of them also don't want to look at every hill top and ridge covered with turbines, and resistance to wind development has grown in certain circles where wind is derided much like it was in Waterworld by Dennis Hopper.

That brought me to say that folks need to understand that these turbines won't be there that long, perhaps just another 20 or 30 years. The period of giant wind turbines on every Texas hill top will last about as long as the period of wooden oil derricks covering the old oil fields.

Why?

Because, as we move to advanced photon to electron devices, third generation PVs that actually are printed using nano based semiconducting inks, everything, (and I mean everything) will be powered by these advanced materials. And all of this energy will be stored in a vast fleet of plug-in cars and in a new generation of advanced storage devices.

And with these advanced solid state storage devices, all of our energy, whether from the sun, the wind, or from the sea will be stored by the electric utility for use when it is needed. The storage may be in the form of distributed devices much like the transformers we see on most electric poles today, or they may be centralized around substations .

Problem is, advanced electric storage systems are still in development. And even though Lockheed-Martin, Kleiner-Perkins, and an electric car company called Zenn have all invested in the game changing ceramic technology of EESTOR, no working models have yet to be demonstrated. (however recent announcements from EESTOR are encouraging)

After the meeting,I went to the office and reviewed my e mail where I found this new announcement:

Breakthrough In Energy Storage:
New Carbon Material Shows Promise Of Storing
Large Quantities Of Renewable Electrical Energy

ScienceDaily
Sep. 17, 2008

Engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have achieved a breakthrough in the use of a one-atom thick structure called "graphene" as a new carbon-based material for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitor devices, perhaps paving the way for the massive installation of renewable energies such as wind and solar power.

University of Texas at Austin researchers said today recent data suggest a one-atom thick carbon-based material shows remarkable promise for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitor devices.

The researchers believe their breakthrough shows promise that graphene (a form of carbon) could eventually double the capacity of existing ultracapacitors, which are manufactured using an entirely different form of carbon.

"Through such a device, electrical charge can be rapidly stored on the graphene sheets, and released from them as well for the delivery of electrical current and, thus, electrical power," says Rod Ruoff, a mechanical engineering professor and a physical chemist.

"There are reasons to think that the ability to store electrical charge can be about double that of current commercially used materials. We are working to see if that prediction will be borne out in the laboratory." more

And there are other exciting solid state storage technologies on the horizon.

Advanced third generation printable photon to electron materials and inks coupled with advanced solid state storage devices can lead to an advanced world where energy moves from the outside of our walls to the inside of our computers, from our bodies to our lamps, from the the roof to your car, from your car to your utility, from the utility to your office.

But perhaps before we can move boldly towards a new world where energy moves through our own creations much as it does in the creation itself, we must watch the old world of oil and fiat money cave in on itself in the financial meltdown we are presently witnessing.

And now that the People's Republic of the United States owns Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac , AIG, and surely soon enough the car manufacturers, and the airlines, the final slipper falls.

The Communists turn into Capitalists, and the Capitalists become Neo-Communists as they are forced to socialize their losses.

It's a good time to reinvent ourselves, the world, and the way we view it.

It's doing it anyway.

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