The New Solar Reality - Boeing Assembly Goes Solar

For those who remember when solar energy was a sort of hobby for enthusiasts rather than a major energy initiative, vindication is coming, daily. Boeing has just announced that it's building a major solar energy plant for its South Carolina Boeing 787 assembly plant. This is a big departure for an industry formerly glued to fossil fuel power. Elsewhere, industry majors like Mitsubishi and Ayala are working together on solar power. Solar has come a long, long way in recent years, and the new efficiencies are driving rethinks of energy strategies at the top levels of industries around the world.

This may seem like a suspiciously sudden turnaround by sectors which were previously remarkably unreceptive to solar ideas, but it's actually a result of much better business management and a new generation of businesses which are looking for better options to meet energy needs.

The facts are pretty simple:

Solar technology is now able to prove it can deliver on the scales required to provide massive amounts of energy at economic prices.
The cost of fossil fuels is becoming ludicrously high for industry. These costs are overheads that the industries simply don't want or need.
The cost benefits of solar are now fully measurable, and those benefits are huge. This is a real bottom line equation, and it's the main driver behind the reversal of energy policies by industry and commerce.
Solar is a comparatively much simpler type of technology, with a much shorter and far less complex supply chain. Fossil fuels prices vary widely because of supply chain issues. (Ironically, the cost of oil can inflate the cost of shipping oil and coal, a self defeating situation if there ever was one.)
Fossil fuels are commodities, and their prices can be very negatively influenced by the futures market and the live buying market to absurd degrees. The pricing of fossil fuels is so convoluted and the potential for massive price rises so common, that businesses and industries have simply had enough.

The real turning point for solar power came when solar was plugged directly into the grids. This was irrefutable proof of large scale production capacity, and it didn't take long for the penny to drop with industry decision makers.

Interestingly, it was economic sustainability which finally turned the key for solar power's entry into heavy industry. Businesses and industries assessed the situation on economic grounds, meaning on their own terms. This might have been expected by the environmental movement. Corporate managers usually aren't ecologists or environmentalists. They're not trained to assess environmental values. They are, however, quite capable of assessing the economics of their own businesses, and drawing the right conclusions.

This is the real stamp of approval for solar power development on the scales required to deal with the environmental situation. Boeing needs gigantic amounts of energy for production, and it knows down to the last watt how much power it needs. This is a tailor made solar project for a specific purpose, and it's likely to be the first of thousands.

Solar power in its future sense has arrived, and that future's looking pretty bright.

By the way, do you want to learn more about Home Improvement? If so, I suggest you check Solar Pane.

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Rossi's Reactors - Reality or Fiction?

An Italian inventor, Andrea Rossi, has demonstrated a new kind of nuclear reactor. The event took place in February 2011, at Bolognia University. Several invited scientists participated in the demonstration. One university professor, Dr. Giuseppe Levi, performed measurements of rates at which energy was supplied to the reactor (about 0.4 kW), and the rate at which energy was removed from it (12.4 kW) by cooling water. The net difference, 12 kW, was attributed to unspecified nuclear processes taking place in the device. Rossi did not reveal the nature of the catalyst responsible for the reactions. But he claims that they amount to alchemy--conversion of nickel into copper, in the presence of hydrogen.

According to Rossi one such device operated constantly for six months, producing enough thermal energy to heat "a small factory," probably two or three rooms. An initial amount of nickel powder was said to be 100 grams; 30 grams of that powder was turned into copper, during the six-month period. Large industrial nuclear reactors use uranium fuel and produce highly radioactive "ashes." In Rossi's reactors, on the other hand, the fuel is nickel and the "ash" is non-radioactive copper.

Secrecy is not consistent with scientific methodology of validation of discoveries; it prevents other scientists from performing similar experiments. A claim made by one inventor cannot be taken seriously until it is confirmed by others. That is the essence of the so-called scientific method of validation.

Absence of general acceptance, and prevailing skepticism on the part of most scientists, does not stop Rossi from forging ahead with a practical application of the discovery. He is supervising the construction of a power plant in Greece. Fifty 20 kW units, similar to those he already tested, will be used to generate thermal energy at the rate of 1000 kW. The plant is expected to become operational in October 2011. Generating energy via nuclear alchemy reactions without producing radioactivity is incredible. It conflicts with our present understanding of nuclear processes.

Rossi is fully aware of this. But he is not a scientist; he is motivated by commercial success, not by science. A large number of satisfied customers would indeed be as important as independent replications. A single relatively inexpensive 20 kW reactor would be sufficient to heat a small house or apartment. The cost of heating, Rossi claims, could be about 30 times lower than the cost of heating with electricity from coal.

October 2011 is not very far away. Will the plant start producing thermal energy this year? Will it operate steadily over long time periods? Will nuclear energy without radioactivity soon become reality? If yes then Rossi will be recognized as great man, if not then his invention will be viewed as another case of self-deception. In either case he will probably be famous. The unfolding episode is worth watching.

Ludwik Kowalski (PhD)

1) Details about Rossi's incredible invention can be found in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossi_Reactor ] Wikipedia and in http://pesn.com/2011/01/19/9501747_cold-fusion-journals_warming_to_Rossi_breakthrough

2) Ludwik Kowalski is a retired nuclear physicist (see Wikipedia) and the author of a free online autobiography, http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/life/intro.html entitled "Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality." It is a testimony based on a diary kept between 1946 and 2004 (in the USSR, Poland, France and the USA).

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