[HellMan]

Howdy everybody. Just found this site and it has confirmed everything I have heard about peak oil and I believe its about to come and bite everybody on the ass if nothing changes.
Anyway's, i still like to be optimistic. Doing some research I found a few hints that changes could be around the corner. Here are a few links, let me know what u think.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... astic.html

and...

http://www.primidi.com/2005/01/18.html

[bobbyald]

He’s right you know we’ve all been wasting our time here.

Why didn’t anyone think of solar power?

Anyway I’m off now. I need to fit 27 square miles of solar panels to the roof of my car.

[Egon_1]

Come on, give him a break! It's his first post, for crying out loud...
Nothing like slamming a new participant to give that warm and toasty feeling...

Hmmm...

[bentstrider]

It could work on a vehicle pretty easily, but it all depends on what type of vehicle you have in mind.
A light-weight, Ford Focus type of car would be practical to put this on.
Taking out the tranny and four cylinder motor and putting in a DC unit with traction motors on two of the wheels would work.
Experts "back my ass up!!"

[aahala]

Hellman, welcome aboard!

One of the first things I learned when I became interested in
the subject of solar cells was nearly every month there was a
report of technological or cost breakthru.

The second thing I learned was nearly all these reports were recycled,
hardly anything useful ever came of them.

[HellMan]

Looks like that topic has already been posted. Should of read further on. What about the plastics from organic material? That could possibly be one solution to the overall problem.

[kambei]

Looks like that topic has already been posted. Should of read further on. What about the plastics from organic material? That could possibly be one solution to the overall problem.

Plastics can certainly be made in this way but the real question is if they can used on a wide scale and cheaply. I don't see how they can be.

[EnviroEngr]

Come on, give him a break! It's his first post, for crying out loud...
Nothing like slamming a new participant to give that warm and toasty feeling...

Hmmm...

My sentiments exactly:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic5872-0-asc-0.html#73316

... a few too many loose cannons running around here nowadays.

Having "fun" at someone else's expense isn't really having fun, nor is it particularly educational. The prickly sarcasm is rather unbecoming and pretty cheap -- lowest common denominator, in a nutshell. I'm not finding that it adds to the value of our mission. If it's out-and-out vituperative rage, we already have a place for that.

[cube]

.....One of the first things I learned when I became interested in
the subject of solar cells was nearly every month there was a
report of technological or cost breakthru.

The second thing I learned was nearly all these reports were recycled,
hardly anything useful ever came of them.

Bingo! Don't you just love it when the greenies jump up and down and CLAIM that alternative power is NOW competitive with oil....thanks to *insert new technology* OOPS but they've been saying that every year for the last 20 years.

[bobbyald]

Hellman,

Welcome to the forum.

I apologise for my sharp reply above I was having a bad day.

If we are going to get through this thing then it will be as a result of some new technology. Solar power is one of the better alternative options so lets just hope we get some real progress here.

I'm happier now.

[HellMan]

I hope this new technology is for real. Having cheap solar cells which are up to 5 times more effecient than standard cells is a huge benefit. Also utilizing the UV spectrum will be another benefit, as it will generate electricity on cloudy and rainy days.

We would still need to upgrade the power grid to handle all of the return power this could provide, such as when people are at work during the day.

[bobbyald]

If the new solar cells are for real it would still cost a great deal in terms of money, energy and time to build them, transport them, install them and maintain them. Also you would need to invest in the infrastructure and be able to store some of the output.

Then you would have electricity, which is good, but it’s a different type of energy to oil – try flying a 747 on electricity. If we then use electricity to produce a more concentrated energy such a hydrogen or synthetic oil we lose more energy in the conversion process.

There is a vast amount of solar energy hitting the earth but to make up for just a small percentage of the 80 million barrels of oil we currently using each day would be impossible as things stand.

I believe that the coming decades will be tough but when we emerge from the turmoil solar power will be in the energy mix somewhere.