Gov't Loans

['lio]

We are working hard to bring production costs down. Here's something I build for:

http://us.sunpower.com/sites/sunpow...esults-based-high-efficiency-back-contact.pdf

The inventing company and its suppliers (we are one) are already working on Gen2 designs.

I also build for these:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2011publications/CEC-500-2011-040/CEC-500-2011-040.pdf These are designed to offset gas and electric use for process heat. Frito Lay has one (earlier generation): http://www.modbee.com/news/business/article3104436.html So does my nearby state prison. They have installations in Chile also.

8%-13% of the energy used in America is used to either purify water for drinking, or to treat and dry waste effluents. We can do that easily with solar in most parts of the US or produce significant energy offsetting. Does it really matter if you can't dry poop at night? No, it doesn't.

Smart technology is about understanding the process requirements. There are many low-intensity industries that don't require high Q-factor, high temperature heat, NOR require 24/7 "on" capacity (water, waste water, clothing and textiles manufacturing, light industry, commercial space HVAC (absorption chilling ideally matches load to source in daytime), food processing, and many more). When I get time, I want to research how much of the economy is misallocated (in %GDP) to electric or gas-derived high Q-factor heat sourcing that could be easily done with a fraction of capital. Smart engineering is about 1.) understanding the true needs and requirements and 2.) providing long term cost/benefit analysis that does NOT ignore costs we expect our children to pick up. We haven't been wise about this, at all, in my opinion. I don't know why we get defensive over a crappy status quo.

Here's a good blog article that covers some of this: http://blog.renewableenergyworld.co...vs-nuclear-do-we-need-more-nuclear-power.html

Interesting stuff, thank you! Also much more advanced than most of what Germany deploys, especially since more than a third of photovoltaic installations there are owned by regular citizens and are rather low-tech. The fact that for-profit corporations are making the switch to renewables says a lot about the viability.

I see it like getting the Elio of the ground. It may or may not happen along the timeline we hope for, but those are proven ideas whose time has come and sooner or later there will be cars/autocycles similar to the Elio in concept (I cannot imagine a scenario in which others don’t recognize the groundbreaking ideas behind the Elio), the same way all those existing technologies to make a switch away from fossil fuel will spread quicker not only in our lifetime, but in the very near future.

Why are we defensive about the status quo? It seems all the petro-dollars spent on lobbying are a major component, no?