Apparently! The Idaho National Laboratory has announced a new technology that uses nanotech to create a flexible, highly efficient solar panel. And at 80% efficiency, they aren’t kidding when they say highly efficient. Most panels clock in at about 40%. I’ve seen a few reports of experimental systems that have approached 70% but that are extremely complex and expensive. This technology, apparently, is actually quite cheap. In addition, it can convert infrared radiation to electricity as well, so it will even produce power at night.

There’s just one problem though: they have no way of harnessing the electricity created. Light and heat are converted to electrons, but we don’t yet have a way of collecting those electrons. Oops. But apparently that’s in the works and should hopefully be coming soon.

Even still, this is a huge breakthrough. It brings us almost to the point of cheap, limitless power. Use this stuff in the roofs of electric/hybrid cars and trucks and you’ll get a pretty decent range extension and the ability to charge (probably slowly) even in places without power. Cover the roof of your house with this stuff and you’ll probably be pretty close to being able to go completely off grid. Since it will generate power 24/7 (though much more during the day)

Amusingly enough, just two days after my post on photovoltaics in which I mentioned the possibility of orbital power generation plants that send the power back to Earth via microwave transmission, National Geographic ran a story on exactly that.

This technology is one that’s been of interest to people for quite a while, and has been showing up in science fiction for decades. Apparently the Pentagon is also interested in space-based solar power, and the South Pacific nation of Palau has expressed interest in being part of a proof-of-concept implementation of the technology.

The details are all in the article, but essentially Palau has an uninhabited island where they propose building the rectifying antenna to receive the power from space. This would demonstrate the possibility of the technology as well as the safety. Apparently, this project could be completed as early as 2012 for about $800 million.

I, along with a lot of other people, have been watching the development of photovoltaic technologies with much interest over the past two years. For a lot of people, photovoltaics represent the holy grail of power generation, and for good reason. Almost all off the power we use currently comes from the Sun in one way or another (oil and coal are condensed plant matter from millions of years ago, the energy we get when we burn them is the energy that they stored through photosynthesis from the sun; nuclear power is a bit of a stretch, but when you get down to it, all elements heavier than hydrogen were produced through the fusion power of a star, including the fissionable materials we use for nuclear power generation). The only power sources that I can think of that don’t harness the Sun’s energy in one way or another are hydroelectric and tidal generation, which derive from gravity (which, I suppose, you could still say comes from the Sun because without the Sun the Solar System wouldn’t have formed, but that’s probably taking it a bit too far). So solar power, whether it be from photovoltaics, sterling engines, or some other technology is really just a means of cutting out the middle man. The sun puts out so much energy that once we have the technology to make solar power generation a large-scale reality, we’ll basically have access to infinite energy (approximately 386 billion billion megawatts).

The reason we haven’t started using large-scale solar power installations, of course, is that we haven’t been able to get it to the point where it’s cost-competitive with coal, oil, and nuclear. The number that’s always been bandied about as the tipping point where solar power becomes viable is $1 per watt. That goal was reached, indeed exceeded, last month by Nanosolar who managed to bring the production cost of photovoltaics down from about $3 per watt to about 30¢ per watt. Their technology is now shipping, and being sold for a mere 90¢ per watt.

Essentially, this now means that we have access to limitless, cheap energy. Of course the problems of cloud cover and night time are still an issue when it comes to solar generation, but there are certainly ways around that. It’s always daytime somewhere on the Earth, so enough solar plants spread around the Earth will allow us to generate power 24 hours a day. And there are always places where cloud cover is essentially non-existent, basically all the large deserts around the world. The true holy grail of power generation, though, is power generation satellites. Once we put large photovoltaic arrays outside of Earth’s atmosphere, we have an unobstructed view of the sun forever. Microwave power transmission can then beam that power down to Earth’s surface, although there are obviously some issues there. One of personal favorite ideas is to combine the idea of solar power satellites with the idea of a space elevator: basically a giant tower that pokes up out of the Earth’s atmosphere and has a huge array of solar panels at the top so that we can just transmit the power down the tower on wires; if we wanted to get really crazy we could build an entire ring of solar panels that completely encircles the Earth with multiple elevators connected to it serving as distribution nodes. That, of course, solves multiple problems at once but is sadly beyond our current technological abilities.

Science fiction aside, though, we have reached an important point in the history of human technology: the point where limitless, safe, clean energy is in reach.

I haven’t seen a whole lot of coverage of this, and what I have seen hasn’t really had all the much information. But apparently the Lakota Sioux have unilaterally withdrawn from all treaties with the United States and are taking steps to emphasize their sovereignty including plans to issue their own passports and drivers licenses, as well as opening diplomatic relationships with other countries. The most interesting step they’re taking, to me, is the offer to allow U.S. citizens to move to the new Lakota Country where they can live tax free so long as they renounce their U.S. citizenship. This move could serve to attract the talent and marketable skills that they will need to survive as a fully independent nation, but only time will tell. They’ve also announced that they will be pursuing energy independence through renewable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and bio-fuels.

The best coverage of this that I’ve seen so far comes from the Indigenist Intelligence Review. It also contains the only link I’ve found so far to their website: lakotafreedom.com. Unfortunately, due to the recent news exposure, the site has exceeded it’s bandwidth allotment and is inaccessible. I’ve attempted to contact them in order to offer some of my own hosting for the interim, but have yet to hear back. Edit: the website is apparently now back up, so we have a first-hand source of information.

I’m extremely interested to learn more about what’s going on, and will be doing my best to keep on top of the story. Unfortunately it doesn’t really seem to have been picked up by any major news outlets, which is unfortunate. In particular it will be interesting to see how the U.S. government responds to this. In theory it’s completely legal, and they were technically already sovereign. In practice, the sovereignty of the various American Indian nations has always been tenuous at best. A few other nations, however, including Bolivia and Venezuela, have apparently already expressed their support.

Treehugger just posted a quote about the relative efficiencies of various modes of transportation. Basically, biking is the most efficient way for you to get around. Walking comes in 2nd, then trains, then cars. This is hardly news for anyone who pays attention to such things, but I think it’s still worth pointing out.

Boston is America’s walking city, and it’s true that this city is very friendly to walking. Sure it may be a bit of a hike from the North End to Kenmore Square, but it’s certainly within the realm of possibility, and the more you do it the easier it will be. Really, unless you’re making a delivery there’s very little reason not to walk everywhere in Boston. Even when I was living in Central Square I’d often make the walk across the river into Boston to go to the Boston Public Library. But really, what we should be is America’s biking city (currently Sparta, Wisconsin is the Bicycle Capital of America; I say we should take that title). Not only is biking more efficient than walking, but it’s much faster as well. The walk from here in Somerville to Boston is a little more than I’d want to undertake on a regular basis (though I’ve done it once or twice). With a bike, however, Boston suddenly become mere minutes away. It takes me about 30 minutes to bike at a fairly leasurely pace from Porter Square to the Broadway Red Line stop in Southie. According to the MBTA it takes the Red Line 20 minutes to make the same trip, and that’s if the T’s being friendly that day. On average, I’d say biking that route is as fast or faster than taking the T. To drive that same route, according to Google maps, would also take 20 minutes, though that doesn’t account for traffic (and Google says it could take up to 30 minutes with traffic, though on some days it would certainly take even longer). It also doesn’t take into account the amount of time it takes to find parking. Some days it could take just as long to find parking as to drive there.

So not only is biking more efficient, it is easily just as fast and often faster than taking the T or even driving. When you’re talking about the shorter distances actually within Boston (say from the South End to the Financial District or Fenway to Copley Square) the advantages of biking will just be magnified. With those shorter distances the small amount of time it takes for you to walk to the T station and wait for the train, or to walk to your car and then deal with traffic, become even more significant. With a bike, you just get on and go and can, for the most part, ignore traffic.

Biking is cheaper too. I got my bike for $10 off of Craigslist. It was in good enough condition when I bought it, though not perfect. For $20 I probably could have gotten a bike that was in perfect condition. But even if I had gone and bought a brand new, top of the line bike, I could have gotten one for as little as $1500, and most people would be more than happy with a $300 or less bike. Once you make that initial investment for the bike, helmet, bike lock, and maybe saddle bags to carry your stuff and some lights for biking at night you’ve still spent very little money. And when biking you don’t have to worry about paying for parking or paying for T fare.

Even at longer distances, biking can make sense. When Jessi was working in Lexington she could still bike to work. The Minuteman Bikeway goes from right here in Somerville straight to Lexington and beyond. It’s about an 8 mile ride from here to Lexington, which takes 30-45 minutes depending on your speed. Public transportation requires you to take the T and then transfer to a bus which actually takes longer than biking. So she could leave later and still get to work on time all while getting some exercise. Really, if you ask me, biking is the ideal form of transportation for Boston, or most cities for that matter. Obviously it won’t work so well for everyone, but it does for a whole lot of people who probably never even considered it.

The only drawback to biking is the weather. Biking isn’t so much fun in the winter. But even if you take the T or drive in the winter and bike the rest of the year you’re still going to be saving a ton of money and getting a lot more exercise all at the same time.

For me, my bike is my favored form of transport. Weather permitting, I’ll use it over any other method. Of course I do have a bit of an advantage in that I do all my own work on it which means I can keep it in tip top condition for no cost other than the occasional replacement parts. But if you want to keep your bike in good condition without getting your hands dirty and without spending a fortune on over-priced maintenance, I highly recommend you take it to Quad Bikes. They’re a non-profit bike shop that services the Harvard Community and does all the work on the Harvard Police Departments bike fleet. I also happen to volunteer there in my free time, which is something else I’d recommend to people interested in bikes. Their volunteer program is great, basically they just teach how to work on bikes by having you work on bikes. After a few weeks there you’ll be competent and confident enough to do all the basic work on your own bike, and you’ll have a great resource in the people who work there to help you with the more complex stuff. Plus, they have all the tools so you don’t need to buy your own. And they rescue and refurbish old bikes so you can get a great deal on a perfectly serviceable bike. Or even, if you wanted, get a bike custom built for you. As an additional benefit, I find that getting my hands dirty and actually producing tangible results (unlike web development, which offers it’s own rewards to be sure) is extremely satisfying. It’s a great way to relax, unwind, and still get something productive done.

Modern diesels are coming to the US. As I’ve predicted and hoped for, the availability of low sulfur diesel fuel in the US (which, I might add, is what we put in our car) is at long last spurring the introduction of new diesel US models beyond the heavy duty truck range. Toyota, Honda, BMW, the Chrysler group, Nissan, Audi, and GM all plan to release new diesels in the next few years, and Volkswagen apparently plans on selling diesel versions of the Jetta and new Beetle starting next year. I’m hoping that some of the other European manufacturers such as Peaugeot, Renault, and Citroen end up coming back to US shores as well—more competition is always a good thing—although at the moment I believe only Fiat has plans to do so.

It will be interesting to see what this does in terms of the ‘we can’t be more efficient’ line the US manufacturers have been giving us for years. In the course of one year we could easily see the maximum fuel efficiency of non hybrid models jump from something like 30 mpg to closer to 70 mpg. Something tells me that we won’t however, as the US manufacturers are going to want to slowly edge towards their true maximum efficiency at a snails pace. Hopefully the introduction of the diesel Jetta, which in Europe gets something like 50 mpg, will push them to do better. At any rate, it should be an interesting couple of years in the US automotive industry as the amazing advancements in efficient and clean diesel technology battle it out with the preconceptions about diesel most Americans formed in the 80s.

I would be now…

At a recent appearance before the California Air Resources Board (CARB—familiar, I’m sure, to anyone who’s seen Who Killed the Electric Car), Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard delivered a deliciously sarcastic three minute statement about California’s Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate, fuel cells, and electric cars. A quick excerpt:

However, we are actually delighted by the way this bias [towards hydrogen fuel cell vehicles] finds implementation in the ZEV mandate. For the results of this mandate is that all of our potential EV competitors – all the big car companies – remain mired in non-productive, deeply-expensive fuel cell programs, keeping them out of the EV marketplace, and indeed out of the serious ZEV marketplace entirely.

The full text is available on the Tesla Motors blog. Politics, in my opinion, is in dire need of more sarcasm.

Jeff Woelker just wrote a post about how ridiculous American car makers are when it comes to fuel economy. Apparently Chrysler is currently running ads for their cars (Jeff has an embedded YouTube clip of a Jeep commercial) in which they’re touting 30 miles per gallon as if it were some sort of selling point.

I thought this would be an opportune moment to point out that the 24 year old, 4000 lbs Mercedes that Jessi and I just bought gets—get this—30 mpg! Doesn’t seem quite so amazing anymore does it.

A related point: while we were in Wales, the owner of the B&B we were staying at in Dolgellau drove a new VW Jetta station-wagon. It got 50 mpg. And I’m fairly sure you can get cars in Europe that get 70+ mpg, better than even a Prius.

These, of course, are all diesels, and the modern ones with amazing efficiency can’t run on the diesel we’re currently selling here in the US. But, as I’ve mentioned before, the decisions has been made already to start selling low-sulfer diesel here in the States that will allow us to suddenly increase our fuel efficiency from 30 mpg or less to 70 mpg or more. Of course we’ll have to buy imports, because American car makers are still claiming that they aren’t capable of mileage that high.

It will be an interesting day indeed when the low-sulfur diesel starts flowing through American pumps.

Somewhat ironically, a story was just posted on TreeHugger entitled ‘10 Reasons to Ditch the Car’. Why is this ironic? Because Jessi and I just bought a car after six months or so of car-free living.

When I moved here from California, I brought my car with me. But it didn’t take long for me to decide that I’d be better off without it. Both the apartment we were in before and now our condo are only blocks away from a T stop, we live within easy walking distance of all the necessities, and I haven’t really felt compelled to spend all the money involved in getting a Massachusetts license, registering a car in Massachusetts, insuring a car in Massachusetts, paying for gas, and paying for parking. And for those few times when we needed to get somewhere the T couldn’t take us, Zipcar has done a fantastic job of meeting our needs.

But now, with Jessi’s new job, our needs our changing and we’re getting a car. Being me, I put quite a bit of thought and research into choosing the appropriate car. Really, there’s only one important factor when it comes to choosing a car, and that is cost. Cost of purchase, cost of insurance, cost of fuel, cost of maintenance, and, of course, environmental cost.

Happily enough, there’s one easy way to minimize the purchase, insurance, and environmental costs involved in buying a car: buy used. Used cars obviously sell for less and are cheaper to insure (we’re not talking about a collector’s car here), what’s less obvious is that they’re also the more environmentally friendly route. For the most part, new cars don’t get any better mileage than older ones did. In some cases they’re even worse. Additionally, when you buy used you’re not incurring the added environmental damages of the manufacturing process. Money-wise, with a used car you’re not committing yourself to any sort of financing plan, and it will depreciate in value much more slowly, so you can always just put it on Craigslist and sell it again without throwing away most of the money you spent on it. So we’re getting a used car. The issue of minimizing cost of fuel and maintenance is a little trickier.

There are two ways to minimize fuel costs: get a more efficient car, or get a car that uses cheaper fuel. There aren’t that many choices for fuels, it’s pretty much gasoline or diesel. For a select few ethanol might be an option and I suppose compressed natural gas might work for some people as well, but in general that’s it. Despite the bad rap that it seems to have, diesel is actually a very good choice. Diesel vehicles pretty much always get better mileage than their gasoline counterparts, and even an older diesel will get as good or better mileage than pretty much anything on the road today (other than hybrids, obviously). Some modern diesels get even better mileage than hybrids, though they aren’t currently available in the US, and won’t be until we start selling low sulfur diesel at the pumps (which should start later this year, I believe). Plus, diesel isn’t particularly expensive (Usually $2.99 around here, while 87 octane gasoline is about $2.85. Although one place I saw right by our condo was actually selling diesel for less than gasoline.), and diesel prices are a little more stable than gas prices. Diesel really appears to be the way to go, especially in hopeful anticipation of the introduction of the modern diesel cars that the rest of the world already enjoy.

As for maintenance, you either have to get a car that’s cheap to repair (such as a Civic or something), or a car that won’t have to be repaired very often. One good thing to note when dealing with reliability in cars is that all cars, even new ones, have the potential to be lemons and require a ton of repairs. In fact, new ones are probably more likely to have problems, because the old cars that are still around today are the ones that were well made and not prone to problems. Over the years, the cars that aren’t so reliable are just going to get weeded out, so that the only used cars available to be bought are likely to be pretty sturdy. Of course this only applies to cars above a certain age as the weeding out process can take some time, and new cars will have warranties and lemon laws to protect you. So this one’s a bit of a toss up. It really depends on your situation. But considering the low price of a used car, if you get one and it craps out on you, you can get another and still have paid less than on a new car.

So, with all that in mind I picked a car with a low purchase price, good mileage, great dependability, and a touch of class: a 1983 Mercedes Benz 300sd turbo diesel. It was cheap (another car in the same price range was a ‘92 Accord), it gets 25-30 mpg, it’s probably one of the most reliable cars ever made, and it’s also an absolutely beautiful piece of machinery. It looks like it must have cost a fortune, and in 1983 it did at around $40,000. Adjusted for inflation, that’s over $80,000 in 2007 dollars. It’s currently still sitting in the driveway of the guy who sold it to us, because he was kind enough to let us leave it there while we’re in Wales next week, but as soon as we’ve picked it up on the 21st and brought it home, you can be sure I’ll be out there with my new camera. So there will be picture of it available soon.

I’m sure some people are just dying to know how the meeting I was invited to with the co-President and co-Founder or Wainwright Bank, Robert Glassman, went. First off, two of the other bloggers who where there, Shai Sachs of Progressive Democrats of Cambridge and Joseph Porcelli of Neighbors for Neighbors, have already written up some excellent posts about it, and you can probably expect to see more in the near future from Jessi as well as maybe over at Cos’s blog, Sam Seidel’s blog, or Anali’s First Amendment. But for now, here’s my take on it.

First off, the premise of the meeting was to discuss how Wainwright Bank as a whole and, perhaps, Mr. Glassman specically could engage with the progressive blogging community in the area. If you don’t already know, Wainwright Bank is not what you’d ordinarily expect from a bank. In addition to the standard savings and checking accounts, loans and CDs that all banks have, they also maintain a number of community resources and have a real commitment to helping out non-profit organizations. A good explanation of what this means can be found on their mission page. Their CommunityRoom.net page is also an excellent resource through which they provide (as I understand it) free webhosting to non-profit organizations throughout the greater boston area. And one other fantastic service they offer (that I hadn’t known about until it was mentioned in this meeting) was that each branch has a conference room that they make available to anyone in the community who either banks with Wainwright or is one of the non-profits in the Community Room. As a small business owner who banks at Wainwright myself, this is a fantastic resource I have at my disposal as I basically now have a space to hold meetings other than my living room, or whatever coffee shop happens to be convenient.

As for the meeting itself, it consisted of Mr. Glassman, the aforementioned bloggers, and several other Wainwright team members. The discussion focused largely on whether or not Wainwright should have a presence on the blogosphere and what sort of presence it should have. We talked about the potential advantages of a corporate blog vs. a personal blog by Mr. Glassman and/or other Wainwright employees. We talked about what sorts of things should or shouldn’t be mentioned on any such blogs. And we talked about the potential disadvantages as well. One of the major disadvantages, which I don’t think any of us bloggers had though of, is that banking is a heavily regulated industry. Much more so than probably any of the others where we’re starting to see corporate blogs pop up. Banks are very thoroughly scrutinized every single year, and it was clear that there was some worry on the part of Wainwright as to whether or not this would be a problem when it comes to blogging. Not being in banking myself, I don’t really know what sorts of things the regulators would be looking for or might have a problem with, but it seems like this was a fairly large concern.

But regardless of how it’s done or the potential problems, the main thrust of any blogging activity would be to spread awareness of Wainwright and the things they do in a way that’s not intrusive or disruptive like traditional advertising campaigns. Basically they want people to get to know them, which, in my opinion and from my experience, is a perfect application for a blog. We came up with a lot of different ideas about things they could do, but there are two of them that really stick out for me. First was the idea that people from the various departments of the bank could blog about prevalent issues in personal finance, politics, mortgages, and general money related issues. For example, with the whole bit issue of sub-prime mortgages right now, we (the bloggers) really thought it would be nice to have an authoritative voice from a bank such as Wainwright talk about what sub-prime mortgages actually are, what the problems have been, and basically just shed light on the whole issue to those of us who don’t know so much about these things. And I’m sure there is no shortage of other such issues that they could talk about. Doing this would create a fantastic resource for people around the country, and do a great job of spreading awareness of Wainwright. The other idea that I really like is a more personal blog, perhaps by Mr. Glassman himself (an excellent candidate as one of the co-Founders, and he did seem interested in doing it). The purpose of a blog like this would be to put a human face on the bank and let us get to know the philosophy behind it on a more personal level. In my own experience with my own business this has been very successful, and from meeting with Mr. Glassman myself, I think he would be an ideal candidate for it.

The decision is far from being made, of course. Banking is slow-moving and cautious industry. But I find it very encouraging that they’re even considering this at all. It sounds like there will be a few more face to face meetings about this in the future as well. I’m looking forward to them as I’d very much like to be further involved in Wainwright’s entry into the blogosphere.