Menzies House

Japanese firm plans 250 mile wide solar belt around the moon

I gather it would cost a bomb but considering we piss against the wall spend globally $359bn per year fighting imaginary AGW for ZERO real benefit and this certainly beats installing millions upon millions of 1,100 AD bird/bat chomping wind totem technology across our planet’s landmass then why not give it ago…

Via the Telegraph

A Japanese construction firm is proposing to solve the well-documented energy problems facing Japan - and ultimately the entire planet - by turning the moon into a colossal solar power plant.

Tokyo-based Shimizu Corp. wants to lay a belt of solar panels 250 miles wide around the equator of our orbiting neighbour and then relay the constant supply of energy to “receiving stations” on Earth by way of lasers or microwave transmission.

The “Luna Ring” that is being proposed would be capable of sending 13,000 terawatts of power to Earth. Throughout the whole of 2011, it points out, the United States only generated 4,100 terawatts of power.

“A shift from economical use of limited resources to the unlimited use of clean energy is the ultimate dream of mankind,” Shimizu says in the proposal on its web site. “The Luna Ring ... translates this dream into reality through ingenious ideas coupled with advanced space technologies.”

…Shimizu is reluctant to put a price tag on the construction costs involved but, given adequate funding, the company believes construction work could get under way as early as 2035.

Robots and automated equipment would be developed to mine the moon’s natural resources and produce concrete and the solar cells required for the scheme.

Once completed, the belt would stretch 6,800 miles around the equator and ensure constant exposure to the sun - without the interference of cloud cover - and an equally constant transfer of energy to the Earth.

Shimizu believes that “virtually inexhaustible, non-polluting solar energy is the ultimate source of green energy”.

 

 

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The insanity of renewable energy

How ironic that the renewable energy sector is going to be the next boom for mining companies…

Via Climate Central

Three French CRNS scientists – Olivier Vidal and Nicholas Arndt of the University of Grenoble and Bruno Goffé of Aix-Marseille University – issue this warning in Nature Geoscience.

They say that to match the power generated by fossil fuels or nuclear power stations, the construction of solar energy farms and wind turbines will gobble up 15 times more concrete, 90 times more aluminum and 50 times more iron, copper and glass. Right now wind and solar energy meet only about 1 percent of global demand; hydroelectricity meets about 7 percent.

The trio argue that if the contribution from wind turbines and solar energy to global energy production is to rise from the current 400 terawatt hours to 12,000 terawatt hours in 2035, and 25,000 terawatt hours in 2050, that will require 3,200 million tons of steel, 310 million tons of aluminum and 40 million tons of copper to construct state-of-the-art generating systems.

This in turn would mean an annual increase in global production of these metals of from 5 percent to 18 percent for the next 40 years, and that would be in addition to the already accelerating demand for metals of all kinds in both the developed and the developing world.

In addition, each and every wind turbine has a magnet made of a metal called neodymium. There are 2,500 Kg of it in each of the bird chomping behemoths.

The mining and refining of neodymium is so dirty and toxic - involving repeated boiling in acid, with radioactive thorium as a waste product - that only one country does it - China.  Two years ago China flexed its trade muscles and briefly stopped exporting neodymium from its inner Mongolian mines. Forget Middle East oil, how’s that for dangerous reliance on a volatile foreign supply.

So the Ecotard Greens push for 90% renewables by 2030 is actually a boom for BHP, RIO and FMG.

The bottome line is this: The mining of required commodities and the heavy industrial manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels will emit far more Carbon Dioxide emissions than what they will ever save when they finally become operational. When wind and solar energy plants are thwarted by the weather, the void will be filled by gas fired power plants.

It makes no sense whatsoever to use wind and solar. If we’re going to spend the money, then build new hydro dams (the only real renewable power source) and bite the bullet and install carbon dioxide emission free nuclear power.

 

 

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Sunset for Solar Subsidies

In the days of Queen Victoria they said, truthfully “the sun never sets on the British Empire”.

But it does set on Australia, every single day. Even the green power engineers in Parliament must have noticed that the sun also sets on all those solar panels that their mandates and subsidies have plastered onto Australian roofs.

Solar energy is most intense on the equator but weakens towards the poles. It disappears when the sun sets or cloud obscures the sun. For just six hours or so per day during summer, in a clear tropical desert area, solar energy is reasonably reliable and collectible, although always very dilute. But at times of peak demand, about 6.30pm in winter, solar panels contribute nothing to electricity supply.

Billions have been spent on researching ways to store massive amounts of solar energy to cover the eighteen hours per day of low or zero solar supply.

Australia leads the way - to poverty

In 2009-2010 Australia gave $41.1 million in foreign aid to China. In 2011 the Gillard government said they would remove China and India from the foreign aid program. But, you know what Gillard does. 2012-2013 we will give China $18.1 million.

Why are we padding the pocket of the largest commodity consumer on earth? China is the largest manufacturer of solar and wind products in the world. But, they don't use them in China. They don't give a tinker's cuss about Co2, they never did and they never will. But Australia charges down the road to poverty. GC.Ed.

One thing is clear: China's solar and wind power industries have grown at warp speed. Since 2008, production capacity of both photovoltaic (PV) modules used to assemble solar panels and wind turbines has doubled annually. China now dominates the world in manufacturing of PV modules and wind power equipment, producing far more than the domestic market can absorb. For instance, in 2010 China produced 8 gigawatts (GW) of PV modules, but only about 5% were used domestically; 95% would have to be exported. 

Read more:http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/03/chinas-booming-solar-and-wind-se.html

Around 6.6 billion tonnes of hard coal were used worldwide last year and 1 billion tonnes of brown coal. Since 2000, global coal consumption has grown faster than any other fuel. The five largest coal users - China, USA, India, Russia and Japan - account for 76% of total global coal use.

Read more:http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-of-coal/

Another "Flannery" from the prophet

Tim Flannery's batting average is rather dismal. Here is another one for the fridge door under "Flannery." If there is any room remaining.

"What we can now see is the emerging inevitability that renewables are going to be running the economy at some point in the future."

Suffer more:www.abc.net.au