[EnviroEngr]

Here's today's optimism:



Discussion forthcoming.

[EnviroEngr]

I'll be digging out the article for C&EN Solar Salvation here shortly and putting up the excerpts as they merit.

Construction on this lane to begin during the week of July 12th.

[EnviroEngr]

Per

Assistant Editor
Chemical and Engineering News
1155 16th St., N.W.
Washington D.C. 20036

We have:

"I believe our cover stories are free content. We would prefer you link to the online story-- POWER FROM THE SUN --rather than post the story."

I will honor the link and hope to see more discussion on this article -- either on this thread or in Energy Technology.

[EnviroEngr]

Chemical and Engineering News is now covering alternative energy source stories so often, I can't keep up with them. So... it's links time. Starting with the most recent first:

POWER FROM MOVING WATER -- October 4, 2004

NUCLEAR POWER FOR THE FUTURE -- September 13, 2004

[gg3]

Very interesting article about reactor types. I'm going to have to read it more than once to sort through all the new designs.

For a while I thought the PBMR was the solution, but the inability to recycle the fuel elements is a drawback. Some of these other designs, i.e. the GE and Westinghouse designs, and in particular the Molten Salt Reactor, overcome that issue nicely.

Question is, are the deployment timelines driven by engineering considerations or by regulatory hurdles? At the rate DOE wants to go, we won't have fuel reprocessing until I'm 90 years old (or long since gone in a die-off:-). Westinghouse says it can put up a reactor in three years, for $1.2 million per megawatt, which is astoundingly good. What's it going to take to get this going?

[gg3]

Also at the bottom of the story on PVs is another link to another story "Photovoltaic cells: power at a price," that goes into some of the various PV technologies currently under development.

[EnviroEngr]

A little update from C&EN Pubs:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/83/8 ... icals.html