It also reiterates the need to increase our use of energy that will never run out. Wisconsin has many great natural resources, but deposits of oil, natural gas and coal are not among them. While there is no doubt that we need these energy sources to fuel our economy, a dollar spent on oil drilling or coal mining undoubtedly benefits other states and other countries. But a dollar spent on renewable energy can support new jobs for Wisconsin.

We don’t have oil, but we do have forest resources that can be turned into biomass for our power plants, and one day into fuel for our cars and trucks.

Because clearly, cutting down Wisconsin’s forests is the path to sustainability, prosperity, and responsible environmentalism.

Also, what’s with the idea that Wisconsin is made worse off by sending money to other states for oil or coal? I’m currently paying $3.89/gallon for gasoline. If increased drilling in California, Louisiana, and Texas means that I’m buying gas $2.50/gallon or $1.25/gallon, I’m going to be a lot better off. That price cut will save me money on commuting, on buying packages online, on food (reduced shipping costs for supermarkets), and even on my new kitchen. (We had to pay for a fuel surcharge for getting our new refrigerator delivered, may have to pay one for getting new kitchen cabinets delivered, and may have to pay one to the guy installing our kitchen cabinets.)

Multiply my savings by all 5 million residents in the state of Wisconsin and it begins to appear that Senator Kohl is pretty wrong about the idea that money spent drilling or coal mining only benefits other states. It’d have a pretty large benefit to Wisconsin too.

Is Senator Kohl just not that bright?

I think there should be some self-examination from the administration on the idea that you favor a woman’s right to an abortion, but you don’t favor a woman or a man’s right to choose what kind of light bulb, what kind of dishwasher, what kind of washing machine.

Visit This Link →

On the claim that oil companies are extracting increasing amounts of water instead of oil:

But this is hardly a concern — the buildup is caused by the Saudis pumping seawater into the field to keep pressure up and make extraction easier. The global average for water in oil field yields is estimated to be as high as 75 percent.

On the claim that we’re only discovering one new barrel of oil for every 3 or 4 that we pump:

When a new field is found, it is given a size estimate that indicates how much is thought to be recoverable at that point in time. But as years pass, the estimate is almost always revised upward, either because more pockets of oil are found in the field or because new technology makes it possible to extract oil that was previously unreachable. Yet because petroleum geologists don’t report that additional recoverable oil as “newly discovered,” the peak oil advocates tend to ignore it. In truth, the combination of new discoveries and revisions to size estimates of older fields has been keeping pace with production for many years.

Actually, the consensus among geologists is that there are some 10 trillion barrels out there. A century ago, only 10 percent of it was considered recoverable, but improvements in technology should allow us to recover some 35 percent — another 2.5 trillion barrels — in an economically viable way.

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered and demonstrated a new method for overcoming two major hurdles facing solar energy. By developing a new antireflective coating that boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire solar spectrum from nearly any angle, the research team has moved academia and industry closer to realizing high-efficiency, cost-effective solar power.

“To get maximum efficiency when converting solar power into electricity, you want a solar panel that can absorb nearly every single photon of light, regardless of the sun’s position in the sky,” said Shawn-Yu Lin, professor of physics at Rensselaer and a member of the university’s Future Chips Constellation, who led the research project. “Our new antireflective coating makes this possible.”

… An untreated silicon solar cell only absorbs 67.4 percent of sunlight shone upon it — meaning that nearly one-third of that sunlight is reflected away and thus unharvestable. From an economic and efficiency perspective, this unharvested light is wasted potential and a major barrier hampering the proliferation and widespread adoption of solar power.

After a silicon surface was treated with Lin’s new nanoengineered reflective coating, however, the material absorbed 96.21 percent of sunlight shone upon it — meaning that only 3.79 percent of the sunlight was reflected and unharvested. This huge gain in absorption was consistent across the entire spectrum of sunlight, from UV to visible light and infrared, and moves solar power a significant step forward toward economic viability.

That’s exciting stuff. Of course, there’s a while to go yet before we have solar panels on our houses. The comments on the original article point out some of the remaining issues. For instance, this new coating requires 7 new layers on top of the solar cell. How expensive are these layers? Does the additional energy offset the additional manufacturing cost? What about converting that extra sunlight into electricity? The sunlight isn’t necessarily converted into electricity just because it’s absorbed by the panel. What about conversion efficiency? Existing panels convert sunlight to electricity at around 30% efficiency. New panels with this coating will collect more light but still convert it with ridiculously low efficiency.

To have a viable solar infrastructure we need panels that can absorb nearly 100% of the incoming sunlight, convert nearly 100% of the incoming sunlight, and convert the sunlight with much better efficiency. More than that, the final panels need to be relatively cheap or no one will be able to buy and use them. We’re not there yet. But we are getting closer. And I look forward to the day that I can power a significant portion of my home’s energy needs with solar energy.